This week I have the wonderful opportunity to talk with my friend, attorney and advocate, Darrah Blackwater.

More About Darrah: https://blackwatersoul.wordpress.com/

Follow Darrah on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/blackwatersoul/?hl=en

Darrah Blackwater is from Farmington, New Mexico and is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She is a conceptual artist and an attorney specializing in Indigenous law and telecommunications law. In a previous career she was a tennis professional at the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels, Texas and in Zhongshan, China. While in China, Darrah and her walking partner, Ann Liang, walked 1,388 miles from Zhonshan to Beijing to raise money for organizations that empower people with disabilities. She spent a year of law school working on tribal issues in Washington D.C., and has assisted in building multiple community networks in Indigenous communities. Darrah has extensively researched and written about the concept of spectrum sovereignty, the idea that Native Nations have exclusive rights to the electromagnetic spectrum on and over their lands. Darrah spent her summer after law school hiking the Colorado Trail to raise awareness about the digital divide and Indigenous issues. Her Native Lens video on Indigenous spectrum sovereignty (below) is featured in the National Museum of Natural History exhibit Cellphone: Unseen Connections through 2025. In her spare time she can be found playing tennis, making art, or playing in the mountains.

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This week I have the wonderful opportunity to talk with my friend, playwright and TV writer, Franky D. Gonzalez.

Follow Franky on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/phattheddproductions/

Franky D. Gonzalez is a playwright and TV writer of Colombian descent splitting time between Dallas and Los Angeles. Nationally, his work has appeared with The Lark, the Sundance Institute, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Ground Floor, the NNPN National Showcase of New Plays, the Latinx Playwrights Circle, the Texas State University's Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, The Sol Project (SolFest 2022), Urbanite Theatre, Visión Latino Theatre Company, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Goodman Theatre (Live @ Five Series), Launch Pad at UC Santa Barbara, The New Harmony Project, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Repertorio Español, LAByrinth Theater Company, Ars Nova (ANT Fest 2021), Dallas Theater Center, the William Inge Theatre Festival, Austin Latinx New Play Festival, Stages Repertory Theatre's Sin Muros Latinx Theatre Festival, the Latino Theatre Company’s RE:Encuentro 2021: National Virtual Latina/o/x Theatre Festival, the Latinx Theatre Commons 2022 Comedy Carnaval, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, the HBMG Foundation National Winter Playwrights Retreat, Tofte Lake Center, Ignition Arts, Play4Keeps Podcast, the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, Clamour Theatre Company, Ammunition Theater Company, Greenway Court Theatre, the Cloud Factory, The Mid-America Theatre Conference, The Midwest Dramatists Conference, and the One-Minute Play Festival. Franky was a recipient of the Charles Rowan Beye New Play Commission, an MTC/Sloan Commission, the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Prize, co-recipient of the MetLife Nuestras Voces Latino Playwriting Award, won the Crossroads Project Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative Award, the Judith Royer Award for Excellence in Playwriting, the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Manila Best Overall Production Prize, and was a staff writer for the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. The 2023 Chicago Production of his play That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven garnered two Non-Equity Jeff Awards (for Short Run Production and Director). Previously Franky was named the 4 Seasons Resident Playwright, a Sony Pictures Television Diverse Writers Program Fellow, and a Core Writer with the Playwrights Center. Currently Franky serves as the Bishop Arts Theatre Center Playwright-in-Residence, is writing on a Sony/Amazon show, and is developing a series with Sony Pictures Television. He is proudly represented by Valor Entertainment, the Gersh Agency, and the law firm Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bonn & Dang.

Full Play Reading of Even Flowers Bloom in Hell, Sometimes By Franky D. Gonzalez - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qHu05Z8Wzw6lkAVoR6KmE?si=_yyuEjKCRzeD3zNcPQ2AEw

Andy's Past Interview with Franky on the Ashland New Plays Festival Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/2M9TDqe7B2hCh9DCBZN81c?si=Ul5g2-g_QSmND2Hxa1U0MQ

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Subscribe to my YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠www.youtube.com/@andyfilmsandhikes⁠⁠⁠

Follow Host Andy Neal on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/andyfilmsandhikes⁠⁠⁠⁠

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I am so excited to have Erick Andino trail name "Dogfoot" on the show this week! Dogfoot was born and raised in L.A. but traces his roots toHonduras, Central America. Erick served as a firefighter/medic in the Navy from Aug 2001 to April 2009. In 2022 he took on the PCT as his 1st thru hike with the ultimate goal of going for the triple crown. 

We'd like to thank our sponsors: 

Gregory Packs. To get 15% off your order, and help Andy out use promo code ‘Andy15’ when you check out at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.gregorypacks.com 

Music is licensed from Musicbed.com.  

Subscribe to my YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠www.youtube.com/@andyfilmsandhikes⁠⁠⁠ Follow Host Andy Neal on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/andyfilmsandhikes⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

Check out my TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠www.tiktok.com/@andyfilmsandhikes ⁠⁠

Buy Andy a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/andyfilmsandhikes