You good? All right. Here we go.

Speed.

One. Well, you found us again at the Mission Story Slam podcast. It is still brought to you by PWP Video and I'm still Michael Schweisheimer the executive producer at PWP Video, Mission Story Slam, and I'm also a poster child for adult ADHD. And my addled brain is still buzzin since we held Mission Story Slam 9 at National Mechanics back in December.

If you missed it, our community really packed the house and I am so grateful. But you're going to be hearing this from me until Mission Story Slam 10 in June that I have this new nagging fear that when the slam rolls around next, some of you are going to be all like, Oh, I don't need to go. The room will be jammed.

Please don't do that. There is only one way to fill a room and it's one person at a time. It's my best impersonation of a WHYY fundraiser, I think. But yeah, watch your email, watch the socials, tickets will go on sale in the next month or so, and we want to see all of you there. But when we were at Mission Story Slam 9, one of the storytellers who squeezed his way into the room, luckily he's very thin, he had the best game for buttering up judges I have ever seen.

So I'm really excited to welcome Conrad Benner to the Mission Story Slam podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. And of course I'm buttering judges. I mean, they're the people who get buttered. Who else am I buttering? And you've admitted to being rather competitive. So competitive. Tell you what, I was a little bit surprised that with all those nods and winks that you didn't get one of the awards, but there was some really good storytelling that night, a lot of good competition.

You know, what I learned that night is that I knew one of the judges. Eric, but I didn't know the other two personally and what you can butter up the judges all you want. You can have your own rhythm, but they were looking for something and it wasn't what I was giving, but the people who did win were so deserving.

I mean, they were the ones that when they were done, I was like, that's who I'm losing to. Even I was in their camp. So that just gives me the opportunity. I'll have to come back some other time and tell a better story. I will just say that in terms of what I've been learning about story slams from.

Mission Story Slam or participating in other ones. Sometimes it is just about the night and the rhythm in the room and like what hits. And I really did enjoy your story. We're going to play it in a moment just so that everyone can hear the sick amounts of flattery coming out of your mouth. I skipped your bio because you tell your own bio really well in your story.

Let's listen to that story here. Um, so my name is Conrad Benner. That's C O N R I D for those writing my name down. Um. And, yeah, I started a blog called Streets Department 13 years ago, and it highlights and celebrates the art of our public space, and the artists who make it. You know, this is a huge economy here in the city of Philadelphia, and the public art of our city tells the story of our cities.

I'm also a curator at Mural Arts Philadelphia, and the host of Art Outside, a WHOI podcast. So, yeah, thanks for having me. Judges, you look great. You look great. Okay, eye contact. So when I was thinking about the theme of moving right along, my mind went right to my origin story. Because I was born on a train.

No, that's a lie. Um, but that'd be cool, right? Can I, I can't lie, no. Okay, well, not my actual origin story, but the origin story of sort of my career over the last 13 years. Imagine it, it's 2009, uh, it's the first year of the Barack Obama presidency, I'm still a hipster wearing the tightest pants, now I, we have to wear this, you know, that's part of it.

And I'm biking to work, I work at Cappuccino Gelato, um, at 13th and Sansom Street. Has anyone ever been there before, before it closed? Yeah, it was great. Sorry if I was rude. I worked there for a long time, but there were a lot of people. Uh, biking to work one day, I, you know, I did that famous clopin that a lot of people, uh, Have to do where on Saturday nights, I worked till 2am and then I had to be there at 9am the next day.

And I was biking to work one Sunday morning, uh, biking up 6th street when a van smashed into me. Uh, that's all I remember. I woke up in the hospital the next day. I had had surgery on my leg. I broke my leg in a few places. I had a Really serious concussion that was doing a fun dance with the pain medication that I was on.

So all I really remember from that whole week long hospital stay was that I ate pizza every day because I would think I was being a brat, but also, um, they didn't have a lot of vegetarian food. But I think I was mostly just being a brat. Um, after that accident, I had to move back in with my parents. Um, I didn't really, you know, I needed sort of some care.

I needed to have my leg up all the time. My parents wanted to help me. I was born and raised in Fishtown, so it wasn't too far from Hahnemann, the hospital I got surgery at. And I lived there for a few months. I was really depressed that whole time. I think it's the most depressed I've ever been in my whole life, really.

I was 24, looking at 25. I'd never gone to college. I was making 27, 000 a year as an assistant manager at Cappuccino Gelato. But I got kind of lucky, um, pretty quickly. First of all, the owners of Cappuccino Gelato moving right along, no, um, they decided to keep my pay up, which was really great of them to do.

I think they did that cause they felt guilty for not having health insurance for their employees, but that's neither here nor there. Um, and yeah, I had the support of my parents, which was really great too. As soon as I got on crutches, I ended up meeting different friends that I hadn't seen in a long time who wanted to check in on me.

And this one friend, Ashley Aikens, who, uh, now lives in, Uh, Asheville, North Carolina? Okay. Is that on the final quiz? No. Uh, took me to a bar, Oscars. Has anyone ever been there before? That bar you can still smoke in? And there I met a boy! Oh my god. And he ended up becoming my first boyfriend. We dated for two years.

This is all part of the story, I promise. I'm not just bragging that I had a boyfriend once. Um, Uh, and, and our first Christmas we were together, he noticed that I loved walking around. Meanwhile, I was walking around because I was no longer biking. And when I was walking around, I used to do this thing. I had a flip phone at the time.

This is, again, 2009. It's before the iPhones. And I would take photos of sunsets and street art and murals. And I used to text it to a number that would tweet it. RIP Twitter. Does anyone remember when you could do that? You used to be able to do it. Um, and he bought me a point and shoot camera that Christmas as a way to say, Hey, I think you like photography.

And I was like, Oh, I think you're right. Um, and that camera is what I use to build up a collection of photography that ended up being mostly murals and street art. Um, I enrolled in community college because I thought I'm 25, I'm not sure what to do with my life. I have this cute boyfriend now. I should get my shit together.

Um, and I started going to community college and about a year later I had a year of photos on this camera, a year of community college under my belt and I was getting really itchy to be creative again. Um, I hadn't been creative in a very long time. So I started a blog and I had a bunch of ideas what that blog could be.

I decided on a photoblog. You know, all these things in my life were adding up to a photoblog. And that photoblog was going to be a photoblog of what? The shit at my camera. And that was mostly street art, murals, stuff like that. So I don't really have a lesson here, other than maybe get hit by a car to learn what your life is meant to be.

But I am really grateful, you know, it was a really, really terrible time in my life that turned out to be something that moved me right along into my career. Thank you. I will always have a soft spot for Cappuccino. I do miss it. Yeah, I worked there for four years. My friend Aaron Broadhurst was working at the Cappuccino on 13th Street.

And so I applied, and I worked at the one on 20th Street for a year, and then I got promoted to Assistant Manager, and then I worked at 13th Street for three years. And it was the time I started the Streets Department, so yeah, it'll always hold a special place in my heart, for sure. So, I'll bow to your expertise, where do you get your gelato fix now, or are you just over gelato?

Have you had a lifetime supply and you're done with it? That is a great question, and I don't want to disappoint anyone, but yeah, I don't really eat gelato. Did you eat it when you were there, at least? Oh my god, all the time. When it's free in front of you and the owners were really great. They were like, just eat whatever you want of the gelato anyway.

So yeah, I was picking it like the dark chocolate all the time. I loved all the fun flavors. They had avocado was really fun. Dulce de leche. God, I could go down the list. Stracciatella, the like crunchy one. But no, when I'm wanting a fix, when I am wanting a fix, when I'm in my adult, almost 40 year old body, I get like dark chocolate and I'll have it with a glass of wine, but when I'm just wanting to do whatever, I'll go get Ben and Jerry's.

One of the ones with like chocolate or cookies in it, you know, cookie dough. Yeah. Some really good friends had turned me on to Cappuccino. And one of them was like studying Italian because she was a glassblower and she'd go to Italy and she got really obsessed with gelato and there was an Italian guy.

Famous glassblower coming to do a workshop in Philly and because my friend had a little bit of Italian she was put in charge of him while he was in town and she was like, I'm going to take you for amazing gelato. And however you would say in Italian, picture a hand gesture of insult. No way. You don't have good gelato in Philadelphia.

And I know she took him to, I believe she always went to the 20th Street location. And it was actually blessed as being very, very good. But, uh, they handmade it every day. I mean, folks who made it in the kitchen would get there hours before we even got there. It was like the opening staff. It was handmade every day.

Even I remember like the days it would pour or the days it would like be a snowstorm. And you know, you're going to have 10 customers the whole day. They're still brewing the whole case. It's brand new. That's crazy. And I'm not trying to make this the Cabbage Europe podcast. For sure. Yeah. It's brought to you by a business.

There. I just want to point out that one of the things in your story that really stuck with me is the fact that, that your former bosses, they didn't have health insurance, so they kept paying you while you were recovering from something that was not even work related. Like, I think that's really impressive.

Yeah, I mean, well, we should have universal health care, period. They were small business owners who had big hearts, and I had worked there for a couple of years at that point. I was in the hospital for a week, rotted my leg, came home from the hospital, had a 160, 000 hospital bill because I had no health insurance.

Holy smokes. And couldn't work for a while. And yeah, they kept Paying me during that time, which is great, because I had an apartment, I had bills to pay. I was so grateful to them for that. As the owner of a B Corp, where we try to take care of our employees anytime I hear about other small businesses that try to take care of their team.

I think it's, I think it's just really important to acknowledge that. I know they didn't make it as we would have liked to have seen, but I'm just glad that they did that. You know, it's funny too, for anyone who just, you know, had a reaction to that 160, 000 medical bill. Yeah, no, I have a reaction to that.

I just didn't want to open a wound and ask you a lot about it. Well, let's talk about it. Yeah, I was so shocked when I got it. I'm over here thinking like, wow, I've never had debt before, and now I'm in more debt than someone who would have went to like, School to be a nurse or something. Yeah, but this interesting thing happens.

Now. This was also 2008 maybe 2009 and it's like right before Obamacare This interesting thing happened where because the dollar amount was so big Actually had a social worker come out to my parents house and to help me sign up immediately for like Medicaid or Medicare I always forget which one and because the amount was so big I got enrolled immediately And felt so grateful for that.

So then it came down to a dollar amount that the insurance, the car's insurance, like covered. I still owed a little bit, but it was nothing near that. Oh, it would have, that would have been fully life alteringly devastating. Destroyed my life. And the thing is, this happens to people all the time. I was so lucky.

And it happens to you all the time in this country. And the fact that we don't have just healthcare for people here is so bananas. It's absolutely crazy. I'm I've I rail about it. On the regular back to being an employer that tries to care for a team. I should, I don't want to be in the healthcare business.

And the fact that depending on what you do for a living or how much you can pay every month determines how much support you get when it comes to your health is so crazy. It's just so backwards and healthcare really could be. Stopping a lot of people like yourself who want to spend their time and make their living through things like photography and communicating and blogging and content creation, because, yeah, if you had to leave your job to really full time to your blog, that also meant leaving health care behind.

I mean, that's the, I feel like that's the American story. Like, it might be a little bit different now where folks can stay on their parents health care until 26, but when I was in my twenties, like it just. Was what it was like, you just didn't have health care in your 20s. What are we nurturing? Are we nurturing a country where folks can be entrepreneurs?

I mean, don't we want a country of people who take risks and start companies? I feel like even the capitalists should want that, right? Like that would breed even more capital or whatever. Well, I feel like they tell us that's what they want a lot of times, but listen, I own a small business. I'm a capitalist, technically.

I'm just not very good at it, but I hate when I see. Things that should, it's not that healthcare is ever simple, but things that are much more convoluted or mixed up or have all of these terrible side effects of like discouraging independent creators and independent artists. You know what? Again, I'm not trying to turn it into a healthcare podcast, but is that something that ends up coming up when you're hanging out with different street artists?

Because that is often not an art form that is lucrative, or if it is, it's lucrative for very few. Yeah, I mean, so I've lived in Philly my whole life, and I do hear, like, colloquially that there are other countries that are much better at supporting creative careers, whether it be having a stronger social state safety net to actual, just having more funding.

So yeah, I hear time and time again, and if you're following any of the artists you love on Instagram or any of these platforms, you see it all the time. Every artist is applying for one job or another or a grant after grant. And the grant process is so long and so complicated. And there's only a handful of grants.

There's so little federal, city, state, federal funding for artists. It should be so much more. Listen, you've got the part time position with mural arts, and that's such an interesting, like, Partnership between raising outside direct funds and the city of Philadelphia. And we are lucky to be in a city that puts some funding towards arts and culture.

We would all like it to be more, and even people within city government would like it to be more, but pretty good. So I'll shout out another project that's happening right now, because this is always so confusing to me. Two, Mural Arts has funding from the city. I would always like it to be more. I wish all of these arts organizations, big, small, independent artists too, could apply for city grants.

Because at the end of the day, there are all kinds of studies that like, a dollar for the arts brings back X number of dollars back into your economy. So even if your sole goal is to make the economy stronger, this is a safe bet to bet on artists. But, um, there's a project that mural arts actually is leading called the people's budget.

And it's been happening for the last couple of years now. And if you Google it, you can find out more. You can sign up for newsletters, but it's a way for regular Philadelphians and for artists in particular, to tune into how these budgets work and how you can use any of the tools of your advantage, namely social media, networking, word of mouth.

to help spread the gospel that these, this career choice, this necessity of life, what would the world be without arts? This is not icing on the cake. Everyone's watching TV. Everyone's reading books or listening to podcasts. Try to think about your typical day. You were engaging with art at some point and we saw the Actors Guild and the Writers Guild go on strike last year.

We saw the PMA go on strike last year. Folks in the arts, just like folks in other industries, are sick and tired of getting the bare minimum when it comes to creating worth in this world. At the end of the day, that's what artists are doing. You said the project you mentioned was the People's Budget?

People's Budget. Yeah, Google it. I don't need it. I'm just a follower like everyone else. I went to one of their sessions they had at Paradigm Gallery where some folks from the city's office who were really helpful spent three hours helping us explain the budgeting process and how, you know, now that we have a new mayor and a new administration how people can help feed in to their city council people.

We also, and I believe this is true, have the largest turnover in city council in many, many, many years. Yeah, this new council is like If you have ever felt apathy towards government, particularly local government, you know, I know that local government news doesn't make the front page of every newspaper.

And even if it did, how many people are reading it, but there has been a huge shift in local government. Over the last year with the Parker administration and with so many new city council people, if you felt apathetic or you've not been engaged before, now is the time to get engaged because there's a whole lot of new people in there who we can sway their opinion.

We can help inform them about our worth as. People in this city and why we might need their support be advocate for your own practice and Just learn about the process more because the more we know the stronger we can fight and I'm a big believer that the squeakiest Wheel gets degrees change is slow in this country and some might argue that's for the best I don't know that's necessarily true, but it is slow in this country Sometimes you have to squeak for a while before I'm going to talk a little bit about this project called To the Polls, where we build walls in Love Park and we have six local artists create six murals that Reflect maybe why they're voting, why their community votes, why they think voting is important.

They can talk about the issues. Now, it is publicly funded, so we can't promote candidates or parties, but we can talk about issues, and um, people can make up their own minds from there. I'm curious, Conrad, do you do that, is it in advance of the general, or were you do it tied to the primary at all, or both?

So we do it for the general, so it'll take place in October and it'll be in Love Park the whole month of October and stay up right through election day. I think especially the last few elections, like whether you've liked no candidates or you don't love one of the candidates. But you hate the other, whatever it is.

I think you're never voting for the perfect person. You're voting for the person who can create the most good for you and is most aligned with you. And then you can push them and realize too, like, you know, if you're really turned off by one candidate or one of the things that's up for election, I guarantee you these elections are never one person.

It's never one position that's up. It's always a slew of elections at one time. So there, I guarantee you, there's a candidate somewhere on a ballot that you would really closely align with. No, I totally hear you. And I think one of the things that over the years I've felt very passionate about is like, I've had some friends who are like, Oh, I'm not going to go vote.

All the presidential candidates make me sad. Something like that. And. They're like, so I'm going to stay home as a protest and I'm always like, no one knows you're protesting. You're just another person not showing up. I'm like, if you really feel that strongly about it, go in, vote down ballot. Cast something.

Do the ballot questions. Take a short interruption, but we'll be right back with you. Hi, I'm Dave Winston, and I've been a storyteller all my life. We're all very excited about our new partnership with National Mechanics on 3rd Street in Old City. We had a great time there with Mission Story Slam 9, and we're very excited to have Mission Story Slam 10 there on June 4th.

It's a great place to tell a story, and we look forward to seeing you there. Before the last Story Slam, we had a few people reach out and ask us about the rules. At Mission Story Slam, our judges scores have two components, content and delivery. Three judges score the storyteller from 1 to 10 in both categories to create the final score.

On the last podcast, I discussed content and how the story you tell needs to be a story and not just, say, a collection of thoughts or facts. Now, let's turn to delivery. The other category you're being scored on. There are hundreds and hundreds of websites that can help you with your delivery. They will tell you about your posture and your gestures and your eye contact and all of that stuff is all well and good for speechifying, but I'd make the case that many of those things they say are critical for TED Talks or addressing a jury.

are secondary when telling a story. I've seen wonderful stories told with perfect posture, and I've seen wonderful stories told from behind closed eyes and clenched fists. I once saw a woman tell a story about her upbringing with a look on her face and a body posture that suggested an anger that threatened to erupt on all of us at any minute.

So I'm less concerned with some of those things than I am with the idea that whatever you're doing should be authentic for you, and that it comes out of whatever you're experiencing as you tell your story. Now, breaking down in the middle of a presentation is not good, but if reliving an emotion causes you to tear up a bit, I would say that sharing that moment with your audience is part of the true experience of storytelling.

Now, that said, you can't have a total breakdown on stage. You need to maintain enough control to tell the story. What they teach you in drama class is that holding back a bit, fighting to maintain control is far more powerful than crying in front of your audience. When you hold back in that moment of emotion, your audience will cry for you.

In that moment, you need to be the storyteller. You need to be responsible to communicate those emotions through the words to your audience. And don't be afraid. The storytelling audience is the most supportive audience you will ever find. At PWP Video, we specialize in getting people to tell their own stories.

Part of that skill set is getting people to just relax and talk to us. Forget the camera, forget the lights. It's just us having a conversation, and that's how we tell stories for non-profits and sustainable businesses. The stories from the December 5th mission story Slam are available on our website, mission story slam Do org, and of course.

Posted links on social media. We have great stories by great people who are working to make the world a better place. You can follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and now Tik TOK for the latest updates about what we're doing or become a missionary and sign up for our slam mail email blasts on the contact page of mission story slam.

org. We're back with more of the mission story slam podcast.

How did you. Feel when you ended up being featured in the New York times last summer. Yeah, that was bananas. Well, I got an email that said like the subject line was something like reaching out from the New York times. And I thought, okay, what is this to buy a newspaper? It's time for your subscription.

And then I opened it and I was like, this can't be real, but it was from New York times emails. So I thought, okay, this is real. So for those who might not know what I'm talking about, this past summer, the New York Times had a six part series where they interviewed six people around the country who were using their influence, you know, support and build for a community.

So they interviewed a woman who's gone viral on TikTok for handing out care packages for the unhoused in LA, for example, someone who focuses on the music industry. And yeah, it was like their street art. And so then it was several weeks of not hearing anything. And I thought, damn, okay, maybe someone just had a better story.

And then when I was on vacation in Mexico city, I got the email that said, we're moving forward with you and we're going to spend a day with you. And a New York times, like photographers are going to come down. So then we plan the day. They spent a whole day with me a few weeks later. And it happened to be a day where I was working on a number of mural projects.

Yeah, we just ran around the city with them. It was really fun. And then the article came out. And you never know what to expect. And then it was this like glowing article of me. It was just all love. And I just felt so hugged by it. And then the response from everyone who's been following me for years.

Billy Penn, I think, wrote about it. David Erickson It was unreal. Soterios Johnson You're so Philadelphia and so Philly focused. Did getting coverage in a national paper open any new opportunities for you? Were you hearing from people from other parts of the country about Possible projects or possible collaborations.

A lot of really interesting things came from it and are still coming from it. It is like winning an Oscar. I'm sorry. It really is. This was a article about my career and it's still pinned to my Instagram. I'm sure it'll be helping me in many ways, open doors. But I think honestly, and they've never told me this, but I think.

It's part of the reason I was able to get invited to create a podcast with WHYY, a podcast about art in the public space called Art Outside. Go listen to it after you listen to this episode. And I've listened to the whole thing and I will second that is absolutely worth listening to. It's what, five episodes?

Five episodes. Yeah, they're short episodes, 15, 25 minutes. They're super polished. Yeah. And they explore art in the public space. Well, yeah, I think that's an example of something that came directly from it. I mean, last year was just like a banner year for me. The year started with me teaching a class about art in the public space at the Barnes Foundation.

You know, in the middle was the New York Times thing, and at the end was the release of a WHYY NPR podcast. Easily the most incredible year I've ever had. And lots of stuff in between. I'm hoping that this is just going to set up an even more exciting 2024. But I want, I am curious, I was going to ask you about Art Outside.

I knew it was a WHYY podcast. So when you say also NPR, does that, is there like a, an NPR podcast feed or something that aggregates pods from across the networks? Yeah, I always say that because some folks might not know. And if you're listening from outside of Philly, just WHYY is our NPR affiliate. Now, technically speaking, this was a locally produced.

Show for our locality. Yeah, but yeah, it's on like the NPR app. No, you know what? I I know that there were definitely Philly references in this show, but I did not feel like it was By any means, limited to a Philly market to hear it, appreciate it, follow it. I'm so glad you said that. Yeah, I worked with incredible producers.

WHOI was such a great team I worked with, and we thought about it inside out for months before we even started recording. And yeah, one of the thoughts we had was one, because podcasting, you can get listeners from all over the world. How can we tell the story and not just speak insider baseball? Um, We called it art outside and not Philly street art for that reason.

There could be future seasons where we go to Minneapolis or Baltimore or other markets or other cities and do this podcast, exploring other art scenes, other places. But it makes sense to start it here in Philadelphia, where the birthplace of the modern day graffiti movement. A lot of the folks don't know that they think it's New York.

If it was happening in the Bronx. Soon after it happened here in Philly, but it really started here in Philadelphia. Even the New York Times, their hometown paper recognizes that Philly is the birthplace of the modern day graffiti movement. We have the largest public arts program in the nation with Mural Arts Philadelphia.

We have the percent for art tax mandate. We were the first municipal government in the world to enact that. We have 4, 000 murals across the city. We are known co locally around the world as the mural capital of the world too. So. We have all this public art here. So if NPR slash WHRY is going to start a podcast about art in the public space, it should start here in Philly.

So I'm glad to have helped create that with them. And I hope it continues. Yes. I think it should totally travel. When I think about graffiti artists, I think about a lot of international artists that have been all over and are. doing their work in cities around the world. So, I think Paris needs to be in the next season.

Just in case anyone from HYY is listening. Yeah, my executive producer. You mentioned in your explanation of why Philadelphia is such an amazing public art city. You mentioned Percent for Art Program. I don't know if everyone is aware of what that is. And I'm also curious if with all the curation you've done, if you've ever Curated a percent for art project.

I haven't. But yeah, for folks who don't know in the fifties, Finland became the first government in the world to require that certain buildings, certain public buildings use 1 percent of their funds to create public art and Philadelphia became the first municipal government. Anywhere in the world to do that as a municipal government.

So that means like a local government, Philadelphia as a local government. Our percent for art mandate is actually two. It's a little complicated and I don't want to get into the weeds. But basically, depending on how you build your project, whether it be on public land or using a certain funding source, you have to use 1 percent of your funding to build public art.

And by the way, my favorite thing about that Is that it has to be accessible to the public? Cause the first time I heard about it, a friend who told me about it was like, it cannot just be a Van Gogh hanging in the CEO's office. It has to be in an accessible place. The clothes pin is probably one of the most famous works of public art in Philly.

And that is a result of the percent for our tax mandate. So, you know, when we're looking at. Why does Philadelphia have such a dynamic public art scene? A huge part of it are the people, right? It's individuals in the city going out saying, Who can say where this piece of art can go? And challenging art and modern art in that way.

And then we have institutions and rules and policy that helps create a dynamic public art scene here. Again, the fact that Mural Arts started, And has grown through its leadership and developed into the largest public arts program in the nation. You know, I love that we have this ecosystem here in the city of the commissioned and the non commissioned that can all kind of feed into each other.

And the artists are supported, um, in some way through this like ecosystem of, of institutions and individual spirit. But, um, I'll always fight for more. I have a streets department podcast and one in one of my first seasons before I started the art outside podcast, I interviewed. And he talked about how so many musicians from Philly will get really popular and then leave Philly and he's working really hard to make sure that artists have a way to stay here and to thrive here.

And that's really one of my fights too. You shouldn't have to move to New York or LA to be a successful artist, just because that's where the money and the funding is. I think that we should be working harder to find and move that funding here. Whether again, it be public, private, commercial, whatever, because Philly is really special.

Think of the cities in the Northeast. You have Boston, which is boring. Sorry, Boston, New York, which is exciting, but super privileged. Who can live there? Sorry. Baltimore, which is great, but colloquially, as everyone says, is about 10 years behind Philly. And what I think people mean when they say that is the lack of sort of institutional support there.

So they don't have the PMAs and the Barnes and all of these institutions. Um, then DC, which is DC. So if you are an artist, someone who's creative, you have a creative spirit, you're moving to the East coast, you're probably going to move to Baltimore or Philly. And, um, I think that we can sow that seed here if we just provide the right resources and create Philly as the art epicenter of the East coast, if not the whole country.

And I think that's great for us. as people spiritually, emotionally, for our hearts, bodies, minds, and souls. That's how I like to think of it, but it's also an economic driver. So no matter how you look at it, supporting the arts in Philly is the way to go. I'm glad I could just step back and let you bash other cities and I could stay.

I do just want to say that one of the things that I love in Baltimore is the American Visionary Art Museum, full of outsider artists. I love that place. I want to keep supporting you on screaming from the rooftops, literally when you're putting graffiti up there, about the importance of art for this city and how much of a driver it is for not just economics, but just Making a more livable, wonderful place.

And I would love to emphasize, we didn't really talk about this, but I do not have an arts background. I grew up in Philly. I went to Central. I got kicked out. I graduated from Kensington. I went to community college for a couple of semesters. I did study art in community college, but in high school I wasn't interested in art.

I liked math and Sega. Art didn't occur to me until I was in my 20s, and I met a group of friends who had just moved to Philly from SCAD, they went to SCAD, which is like an art school in Savannah, and they were like, let's go to First Friday shows, let's go here and there, and that's when I realized that art can be weird and fun and really interesting, and it's not just like the stuff in fancy museums and galleries that feel so Behind gates and exclusionary art is everything.

That's what I was trying to say earlier when I'm like, try to imagine your day without art. I love when people can find their own way into it. You don't have to be a painter. You don't have to be a musician, but there's always space for you in the art world, no matter what you do. If you know nothing, you know, you've spent your whole life not thinking about art, but you just want to engage.

Do it because at the end of the day, art is just makes you feel, and it's good to feel, it's good to connect. It's great to build community. The art world is beautiful. Come join us. And I do love particularly that public art and including graffiti and all the subsets within that really is just out there putting art into our brains and lives without asking permission.

It's right there for us to, to savor and enjoy. So you talked about 23 being a crazy year. What's coming up in 24? Do you know if you're going to do another season of art outside or bring back the streets department pod? Yeah, so again, shout out to Mural Arts. I have a great relationship with them. I work as a part time project manager, so part of what I do there are a handful of projects that rotate every year.

So I do these pop up projects with Wawa Welcome America. I curate a project for the Flower Show every year, so that'll be coming up really soon. I'm creating a couple of murals right now that people will learn more about with local artists, if they follow me to the polls will be happening this fall. So there are all these fun, creative outdoor public art projects they do with mural arts, and it's really fun.

And then, yeah, the podcast. So I don't have the official thumbs up. I think the first season just ended. I have a really good hope that we can have a second, third, fourth, fifth season, but yeah, there's no official word there. I'm hopeful. And with streets department. We have a couple of things that are happening.

We just released our third annual magazine. So if you're interested in that, you can go to the link in my bio to get it. These are annual recaps of the year that was. So in this third edition, we interviewed three artists who had particularly big years, including Cindy Lizito, who's an artist who grew up in New York, lived there, moved to Philly, started an art career, and then got the attention of the developer of the World Trade Center.

Through her mural work in Philly, and then painted a mural at the World Trade Center. Isn't that funny? A kid from New York had to move to Philly to get the attention of the developer of the World Trade Center. Think about that. That's what Philly can beat in this world. Aloysius McElwain, who's an incredible graffiti muralist here in the city, and has recently done a lot of curatorial work.

And Meg Saligman, one of the most influential muralists here in the city, who's opening a new creative space in Old City that's really fun. And then we do a couple of articles. We look back at what happened in Rittenhouse Square last year. Some might remember that artists who were selling work on the corner of 18th and Walnut Street, their work was confiscated, and then there was a big protest from artists in the city saying, let us live.

We look at that with a critical eye. And then I write an article about the Avenue of the Arts and how there's not enough public art there. In fact, there's none. And how we could make it better. Oh, there's not, there's none. I never really connected that. So yeah, get the magazine if you want. And if you can't afford it, no worries, all of this content will be online eventually, later in the spring.

So it will be available for free eventually. But if you do have some money and you want to support what I'm doing, please get the magazine. That's what I know is on the radar. I'm assuming the best place to start finding all of the various Conrad channels is Streets Department. Yeah, there's a beautiful menu bar at the top with all the information.

You can join our Patreon. We have over 100 Patreon members. No one knows about this because it's only for our Patreon members. We do a local tourist column every month. We give you some insight into cool things around Philly that if you live in Philly, you might want to check out. Um, yeah, we're a shop there.

We have information about the podcast. So yeah, streets, D E P T dot com. This is a question slash promo, I guess. I'm really curious where you are these days on social media, because like personally, I've dumped Elon's Twitter X crap. Facebook is a cesspool of overly targeted ads. I guess Insta is still interesting, but are you spending your time on TikTok?

Instagram is just back. I hate to tell you. Instagram's back. Okay. I love this question. Cause I, how have I had longevity? How have I had longevity? I've been here for 30 years. Tell me, tell me, how have you had longevity? My instinct from the start has always been to diversify, to own my own channel, right? I have to own my own channel.

Even if very few people ultimately read a blog, I think it's important for me to own my own content. So the heart and soul is always the blog, the website. And then I have always jumped on platforms once they seem like they're going to be a thing and then stick with them as long as I can. I have so many conversations with beautiful, brilliant artists who are so good at thinking creatively and creating art and then just don't want to do the marketing side.

And social media is an annoying thing. And I think it's that way actually for a lot of like small businesses and nonprofits too. I have the exact opposite. I grew up in Fishtown. My parents would put an old comforter on the concrete and then an inflatable pool. And I would sit out there in the summer in the front and talk to everyone who passed by.

My mom would always say, she said, you'd stop everyone. You just want to talk to everyone. I love that. I love talking to people. I love using these tools. I think it's a dream to be able to create a career that I have for myself using these tools. And at the end of the day, I don't know what else I would be doing.

What would I be doing right now? Scooping more gelato, I guess. I'm still probably making TikToks for that gelato company in that universe. All right, Kyrat, you have officially brought us full circle. Well, I did! Well, look at that, we're natural storytellers. So, speaking of, I really do hope you'll come back to Mission Story Slam and tell another story.

Such a fun night. I want to come back. I was almost mad I had to go on stage. I was just, I was watching the best TV show I'd seen in a while. It was, like, very fun to be there. Oh, that's, that means a lot. I'm really glad you had such a good time. So we're coming back in June. We're looking at the fourth, might move, but it'll become locked and official very soon.

So I really do appreciate your taking time away from cutting videos to spend time with me on the Mission Story Slam podcast. Thanks for having me. Really grateful to Conrad for the conversation and for joining us at the Story Slam. I will see all of you at the next one, which will be in June. Um, but in the meantime, I'm really appreciative of all of you, our listeners, Story Slam attendees, storytellers, all of these do gooders that share a belief in the power of storytelling and conversations like this.

So speaking of doing good through conversations, um, another project that I'm involved with is, uh, Be Local Philadelphia. So it's like the regional group of B Corporations. In the area. I actually am honored to be the chair of that. And we have a really important event coming up on February 21st. It's a free virtual event, um, just from 5.

o'clock at night. And the reason it's so important is we're going to be talking about voter engagement at work. So what are policies that workplaces can put in place to help our employees engage in the democratic Process. So paid time off, encouraging people to become poll workers. Um, also, you know, talk about how to not cause ourselves problems by like telling our teams who we think they should be voting for.

So what are the things that we could and should be doing? And what are the things we want to avoid? We've got a really good panel. Um, really appreciative to Davey Ramkisson from, uh, Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. She's going to be moderating. We have Kate Ogden, who's the head of Advocacy and Movement Building at, uh, the National B Corp 7th Generation.

And we also have from Philadelphia, we have Micah Goldmark Kell, who's the founder of Solar States. We will also be joined by Danielle Silber, she's the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the National Offices of ACLU. So, more information's available at Our website be local philly.com. So the letter B local P-H-I-L-O i.com.

And I really do hope you'll share this far and wide. We want national attendance who really want to use this as an opportunity to get a lot of workplaces, to give a lot of people the freedom to participate in the upcoming election. So, thank you for joining us again. Uh, if you have some thoughts or opinions that you want to share, you can find all of us at missionstorieslam.

org. We were just discussing all the various socials, so we're active on Facebook, Instagram. And in the meantime, hoping that you will hit the little share button or rate button or any of those fun buttons on whatever app you're using to listen to us. But share this out, get some people engaged with what we're doing here at Mission Story Slam.

And I have to thank our esteemed, or at least I hold him in esteem, our esteemed producer Dave Winston and our fantastic editor James Robinson. And this podcast is brought to you by PWP Video. We are video with a mission. You can find us at pwpvideo. com, and we'll be back in about a month with another episode.

Until then, I am Michael Schweisheimer, and I look forward to sharing the next story behind the story with you soon.