TRACKLIST
1. Boris - "Furi"
2. Alice Cooper - "Clones (We're All)
3. Black Sabbath - "War Pigs"
4. ABBA - "Fernando"
5. Lita Ford - "Kiss Me Deadly"
We're not on Apple Podcasts anymore, I'll get into it next episode. You can find all of our episodes (including new ones) on MIXCLOUD. You'll find today's episode embedded at the bottom of this post.
NOTES
Alright y'all. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, BLASST is back, after a little over a year off the air. Nothing happened to prompt the move, I just felt burnt out after keeping the show going through 2020, which was a really hard year to do literally anything with your life. So, when 2021 rolled around, I figured it would be a good time to focus on me for a change. Surprise, surprise, it helped! I got my routine back, worked on a couple fun projects with friends (MIRAAA & ENTRE), and most importantly, survived another year in the pandemic.
It wasn't until 2022 rolled around that I started to feel like there's a real chunk of life breathing through the RGV again. It'd been happening long before that, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I sensed a consistency in it, longevity. All of a sudden we were awash in a sea of new faces doing great things. Cool things, even. People that I feel deserve a platform of some kind. And so, BLASST has returned. I wanna talk to these folks, learn their stories, and learn a bit about their music taste while I'm at it. Which brings me to today's guest: Bekah Hinojosa!
Bekah is an environmental activist from Brownsville, TX. She's been organizing for a really long time, at least a decade, and most recently has been putting in a lot of time with anti-LNG (liquid natural gas) and anti-SpaceX movements. Well just last month, following the appearance of some graffiti underneath that atrocious 'BTX' mural in Brownsville, she was arrested and put in jail for 26 hours. After her arrest, the mayor of Brownsville posted her mugshot on his official facebook account, thanking the police for acting on an act of "vandalism". See the original post (he edited it the next day) below:
I wanted to speak with Bekah as soon as I heard about this happening. Not only is this a gross abuse of power on the part of the mayor of Brownsville, but it also reflects poorly on the infrastructure of support that SpaceX has essentially bought for itself in South Texas. Mayor Mendez is defending this mural (which continues to be poorly received by people across the Valley, not just Brownsville) as a gesture of blind loyalty to SpaceX. I believe the kids today define what Mayor Mendez is doing for SpaceX as "dick-riding".
That being said, Bekah is super cool, and I'm very thankful to have been able to speak with her about her experience. As you will hear in the show, she currently has a donation page setup to help cover her legal costs as well as a petition to get the misdemeanor charges dropped. Links to both below:
On top of being fun, our chat explores why this abuse of power is problematic and what it means for the rest of the Valley as SpaceX reaches further into the RGV for roots of power. She also picked some damn good songs, so tune in and enjoy!
*Editor's Note: I chose Boris to open this show because the recurring theme in this episode is rock n' roll, and it just doesn't get more rock n' roll than Boris.
See y'all in two weeks. (fingers crossed)
AS
