Zerothreetwo Conversations: Interviews With The Creative Class

A big part of the Cebu experience is the food and drink. We're lucky to have an incredible variety of restaurants, cafes and bars. Anything from Filipino to Italian to Korean food and everything else in between, you name it, we've got it. Expect to hear more insight on these topics in the podcast.   This is why when Kahlil Corazo told me that he recorded a conversation with coffee trainer and cacao enthusiast, Vassily Lissouba, I told him to send me a copy of the recording. I learned so much from listening to the two of them talk. I asked Kahlil if I could publish the interview on Zerothreetwo Convesations. Fortunately, he said yes.   Chocolate happens to be my weakness. I love chocolate a little too much. Just ask anyone from my immediate family. And honestly, I've fantasized about retiring in a coastal town, opening a small cafe, and hanging out by the water. The contents of this episode is filed under the good to know once I have my own cafe.   In this episode, we talk about the coffee culture, cacao

When I record an interview, it usually comes out a month or so after I record it. This helps me keep the podcast organized, allows me to focus on other things between interviews, and is a good cushion between posts. But if you've follow the podcast, you know that we talk about the creative industry in Cebu. One of the most known creative industries in Cebu happens to be in music.   With the VISPOP controversy looming, it was almost impossible not to talk about it with guests. Fortunately, I happened to schedule an interview with someone right dab smack in the middle of the industry, but at the same time, he had no real ties to anyone other than himself. Paulo Varela happened to be one of the perfect people to give an outsiders view of the controversy.   In the beginning, we talked about Paulo's many experiences hosting and organizing events. His knowledge about the in and outs of the industry is unique in a sense because he has been doing it for years, but at the same time, he isn't necessarily featured a

  I can still remember when hip hop was still very underground. In my generation, it was unusual to see someone wearing baggy hip hop clothes in the mall. They were the true underground. Over the years, this musical genre has become more and more mainstream.   There was a short stint in my musical life when I listened to rap. So don't consider me an expert or anything, but that's precisely why I wanted to interview John Leo Pornea. In Cebu, it would be safe to say that he is one of the pillars of the rap community. Under Rapollo, they've managed to carve out a safe haven for all the rap fans and artists.   In this episode, we talk about the start of the hip hop community, who are the upcoming emcees, the mindset of battle rap, and a peek into their culture.   Enjoy this episode!   SHOWNOTES Rapollo Zigie Respect My Roots - 2012 Calle Fuerte Fliptop Dirtbag dan Mistah Lefty Eminem Fruity Loops King Cobra Productions Loonie Maestro Range Marshall CVCebu 8Mile GI Dalamdabad Anygma Midn

When creating art, in this case music, the hope is to get a message across. Sometimes, the best way is to say it out right. But in many cases, there's so much more to be said when the message is packaged in a thoughtful way. This is especially true when it comes to lyrics. Writing lyrics that touch the heart, but at the same time, make you laugh and smile is a gift.   This is something Jerika Teodorico has shown time and time again when she writes a song. I could simply say that she is an award winning songwriter, but that would be selling her short. She has the ability to write music that can truly move you. Her songs make you smile, it make you laugh, and even cry (I learned from this interview that she seems to cry a lot). What more can we ask from art?   In this episode, we talked about how she crafts songs, the origins of many of her songs, where she started, and what she hopes to accomplish.   Enjoy the episode!     SHOWNOTES Vispop 2019 ArtistKo Jude Gitamondoc note about Vispop Jude Gita

In the big scheme of things, we're all trying to make a difference. Most of us are trying to do so by making a difference in our lives, but as you get older, you quickly realize that the true path to purpose is finding it in the service of others. Many don't know where to start and what to expect.   I ran into Lianne Sala in a kiddie party a few months ago. I knew she had an NGO called Sistemang Pilipino (SP), but I confess, I didn't know much about it. So we chatted and I realized that she would be a great guest for the podcast. Fortunately, Lianne said yes and that she would bring along her partner in SP, Aurelio Maria R. Rodriguez, to help in the interview.   The both of them opened my eyes as to what it takes to not only start an NGO, but to keep it running. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes, so much struggle, but at the same time, so much reward. Of course they talked about what they are going through, but my favorite moments are when they talked about the people they helped through music

Have you ever been in a dinner table with new parents? Or parents of toddlers? Then you know that we eventually talk about our kids. Raising kids in 2019 is an interesting experience. There's a lot more information widely available to parents, but at the same time, we know a lot less. Today's world is complicated place for raising kids.   It was a joy to talk to Ara Chawdhury about her parenting experiences. Of course, we touched on plenty of filmmaking stories as well, she is after all an award winning filmmaker. But I didn't want to miss the chance to have a recorded conversation about how we raise our children. So of course we talked about our kids, especially since we had a surprise guest.   In this episode of the podcast, we talked about her experience in the film industry in Manila, her story when she gave birth to her kids, how online content is currently taking over, and as I mentioned, parenting.   Enjoy the episode!   SHOWNOTES Miss Bulalacao Sabado, Sabado Operation Prutas Christian Lina

Making a movie is one of those creative fields that require so much. You need an incredible amount of talented people to make a two hour piece of entertainment. So many things have to go right, so much coordination needed with production, plenty of logistical challenges, even financial considerations need to be looked at and we haven't even talked about the art portion of creating a movie yet. It really is one of those disciplines that requires you to know a little about everything.   This was most apparent with my talk with Victor Villanueva. He was the director of the hit movie Patay na si Hesus. I knew conceptually that creating a movie was no small feat, but you don't truly understand it till you find yourself in the middle of one. Since I am unlikely to be working in movies anytime soon, I'll settle for the stories that Victor provided.   He shared so much trivia about Patay na si Hesus; that wasn't the original title, there was an extra character that was axed, there was controversy in the beginning

I didn't expect to be reminiscing about my college days, but I should have known better. A talk with old friends always brings old memories.   This will likely not be the first time you've heard my guest's voice. He has graced us with many tracks that have been played all over Cebu. Gabriel Keith Wong is the singer and front man of the Wonggoys. Once hearing their music, it's clear right away why they've made an impact, but it goes deeper than that. After talking to Gabriel, I realized that each song has a real story connected to it. It's not wonder their songs can connect to people.   In this episode, we talk about what it was like in our high school and college days, his relationship with his family, the root of his musical life, and a curious number of random personal stories.   Enjoy the episode!   SHOWNOTES Game Night 10 Year Challenge Luis Quibranza Bethany Rescue a Hero The Line Divides Foc Fashion Undercover Grasshoppers Chase the Girl or Rule the World Wa'y Blema FatBoys Production

I can't help but make this podcast a reflection of my interests. Like most people, I like a wide variety of topics, but recently I have been forcing all my friends and my wife to cycling. I can't get enough of it. Not only does it speak to me personally, the benefits of cycling is huge. So I try to convince as many people as possible to get into it.   Cycling is how I first stumbled on to the work of Ian Intong. Ian is a gifted graphic artist and photographer, we even commissioned him to shoot one of the Zerothreetwo Lookbooks, but the work I was most excited by was his documentary called En Masse: 500km Cebu Loop. It's a documentary chronicling five fixed gear cyclists as they bike around the Cebu coast. It took them about 35 hours to complete the 500km Cebu loop. Which is a crazy thing to do, fortunately, we get a sense of what it was like through the documentary.   In this episode, we talk about En Masse, the challenges of the shoot, cycling culture in Cebu, School Girl Classic, and Dirty Puma Coffee co

It was in the middle of a three hour car ride from Minglanilla on my way back to Mandaue when I realized that my days were being ruined by hours and hours of wasted time in the car. I couldn't stand it anymore. Then I fondly remembered a trip to Copenhagen. Everyone was riding a bike. But I thought that there's no way that would work in Cebu. Fast forward to two years later, my vehicle of choice is a bicycle. There's so much good from commuting via bicycle. I can't talk about it enough. So I realized it would be good to talk to another person who has been doing the same thing for much longer than me. It also helps that he was one of the pioneers of the Fixed Gear community in Cebu, had a hand in the Road Revolution in 2011, and has been preaching the bike as a commute for a while. I talked to Rye Kido. In this episode, we talk about the fixed gear community, his journey to cycling (there were girls involved), the state of commuting in Cebu, and musings about possible solutions. Enjoy!     SHOWNOTES Bottega

Most musicians know a guy who happens to be part of a million bands. With the utmost respect, I call them a band whore. When a musician plants himself in multiple musical situations, performs like a pro, and is able to do it over and over again, they have very high musical chops. Not many people can do that comfortably and much less thrive. With that said, that's how I got to know J Martino "Bobbidee" Olvido. Usually when I interview a musician, it becomes clear quickly what music group I should attach them to. With Bobbi, this was not so easy. Here's an incomplete list of his bands; Sunday Sunday, Snubear, Foc Fashion, The Spirals, Kids Acting Cool, Soda Can Genie, Red Twin Motel, and his newest and current focus Kubra Commander. It was fun to talk to a guy who genuinely loves music, and doesn't care about all the other trappings of being a musician. When I get a chance to talk to someone like that, I take it. Oh and he talks about meeting one of his heroes, Raimund Marasigan, by the urinal. It was a fun sto

If you base Zerothreetwo's 2018 on our New Year's Resolutions, you will see that last year was a complete failure. Will 2019 mirror 2018 and be just as bad? If we always judged ourselves based on arbitrary goals, it would make for a difficult existence. Fortunately, I don't base our year on silly things like New Year's Resolutions. But that doesn't stop me from making them. For this episode, I look back at 2018, make another set of New Year's Resolutions for 2019, and make a huge announcement (sort of).   SHOWNOTES My Year in Photos 2017 My Year in Photos 2016 My Year in Photos 2015 My Year in Photos 2014 2018 new year's resolutions Monday Musings Newsletter Happy Garaje (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Festive 500 Sinulog 2019 Lookbook   Where can you find Carlo Villarica? https://instagram.com/sobermusings https://twitter.com/sobermusings       If you don't want to listen to the podcast (why?!?!?!), here are the resolutions for 2019: MY PERSONAL GOALS At least one epic bike ride per

Happy New Year! This is part two of the Best Episodes of 2018! If you want to listen to part one, head on back to the previous episode to get a complete sense of this one. But you won't need to listen to part one to enjoy this. My guest is my wife Stephanie Villarica. She and I talk about the past guests, how we perceive them, how they've impacted the culture, and what we can do in the future. Enjoy the episode!   SHOWNOTES Chad Manzo (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Karl Lucente (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Rescue a Hero (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Shak Mancao (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Franz Deadways (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Happy Garaje (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Kathryn Layno (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Cortz Cortes (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode)   Where can you find Steph? http://instagram.com/stepak https://www.instagram.com/economommy.ph/ https://twitter.com/stepak   This podcast is brought to you by Destination Special

I was kinda stressed when I saw the calendar for the holidays. Christmas and New Year's day is on a Tuesday? What am I going to release on those days? I'm typing this right before we head out for Christmas eve dinner. So this is going to be quick. I thought it would be a good idea to recap some of the most downloaded episodes of 2018. The perfect person to talk to for these episodes is Stephanie Villarica. She's my wife and she was awesome in this episode. It was fun to sit down for an hour and talk about the guests, her thoughts on the episodes, and just spend time with her. So if you are reading this when it came out, Merry Christmas! I hope this episode tides you over for the holidays. If you haven't listened to all the episodes, go ahead and look at the back catalog. There's more than 40 episodes to choose from. I think you'll enjoy it. Merry Christmas again!   SHOWNOTES Boots Brandon (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Kaloy Uypuanco (Zerothreetwo Conversations episode) Deep Gold trailer Bart Bros

We've worked with our fair share of artists and designers. More often than not, we've had great experiences with the talented creatives in Cebu. But problems arise when we don't know if the project needs a designer or an artist. Sometimes the creative comes up with something that totally misses the mark, sometimes we aren't clear with what we want, and in those cases, the project tends to flounder. So it was a good subject to talk about with Bry Onglatco. He's a freelance graphic designer in both logo design/branding and anything print design related, but I know him more for his personal work. He has printed a few comic books. Notably a comic called Heathen Humor and iMBry, but many of his best work is simply posted on Instagram. In this podcast, we talk about the scarcity mindset, mastering your tools, the freelance life, how to find a routine to create art, and the tools of his craft. Enjoy the podcast!   SHOWNOTES Iyad Padriga HCG Campaigns Cebu / Grey Cebu Jules Cabigon Abaca Group BE Resorts Happ

I've been fortunate to do my own fair share of traveling. In fact, I can say that many of the choices I've made in my life has been indirectly due to what I've seen in my travels. You've likely heard this before, but it's worth saying again, it's amazing how much your worldview expands when you travel.   With that in mind, I wanted to expand my world by talking to someone who travels as a profession. Edgar Alan Zeta-Yap is a travel writer, photographer, and blogger from the Philippines. He has traveled to all 81 provinces in the Philippines from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi, and all 11 nations in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar (Burma) and Timor-Leste (East Timor).   In this episode of Zerothreetwo Conversations, we talked about what it is like to eat rat and deep fried tarantula, how he became a travel blogger, what it was like traveling with armed escorts, and his many adventures all over the world.   Enjoy this episode!   SHOWNOTES Ink Smile Magazine Pacamara Boutique Coffee Roasters Common Man Coffe

Whoever said history is boring needed better school teachers. That's the main problem with history. If you think about it, history is literally the chika2x of what happened in the past, best stories worth telling today, like the fabled story your family keeps coming back to. Maybe you had a famous great grand father, the one who fought and died for his country... or something like that. With that in mind, I couldn't wait to get Amiel "Cortz" Cortes in the podcast. In a word, he's an honest to goodness historian (he won't say it, but I will) or if you want to get technical, he's a researcher for the culture and heritage unit in the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation (RAFI). Digging into the past of Cebu is always something fun to do, and I could not have picked a better person to share a few of those stories. In this episode, we talked about Cortz music background, why Cebu doesn't have a Chinatown, when America bombed Cebu, and why our roads are like this. Enjoy the interview!   SHOWNOTES The Wirecutter Podcast Hist

One of the pleasures of this podcast is learning new things. It's surprising how much you can learn from another person, especially if you keep an open mind.   With that in mind, this conversation with Kathryn Layno gave me a glimpse of a life I couldn't even imagine. Not only did I have an honest to goodness talk about relationships and how complicated they can be, but I also learned a ton of new terms. To name a few, polyamory, demi-sexual, the male gaze, etc.   Kathryn is a freelance artist, cat-mother, food-lover and child of the sea. Whether it's through illustration color or music, she has always been driven by the idea of pushing a story forward without words. Her work has appeared in Space (IDW), Skyward (Action Lab), One Week in the Library (Image), He-Man, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (DC Comics).   This conversation was a joy as we talked about our experiences in gaming, how relationships are different and difficult, her start at freelancing, Patreon, Twitch, and a ton more.   Enjoy the podca

I always think of my time with the band, Rescue a Hero, as some of the best times in my life. Hanging out with my best friends, doing something we love, and having people care about what we do (even if only for a few). My time in a band was something really really really fun, and something that I may never experience again. So whenever I get the chance, I like to speak to people in the band scene. Someone currently experiencing gigs and playing. When Wessui Bacareza of Cosmic Kid reached out to me, it was a good opportunity to get the temperature of the current gig scene, especially when it comes to punk. It was fun sharing stories with Wes and comparing what it was like during my time in the band and his time in Cosmic Kid. In this episode, we talked about the state of rock venues in Cebu, the genesis of Cosmic Kid, the outfits currently helping the local music scene, and pop punk bands to listen to. Enjoy this episode! SHOWNOTES Paolo dela Victoria Finding Apollo Carlo Rodriguez (Zerothreetwo Conversations

My favorite way to discover artists is not through the internet, that's where I like to follow artists, but discovery is a different matter. I like to discover artists through the art that I see on the streets. There's something about the immediacy of street art that touches on my sensibility. That's where I first encountered the work of Wyndelle Remonde. I noticed the symbol of a carabao in various places around Cebu. I didn't know what it was at first, but somewhere along the way, I found his Instagram handle and noticed the symbol there. I enjoyed his work and gave him a follow. When I caught him for the interview he had just done a Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery show in Manila. So we talked about his experience joining exhibits, how he priced his art, his journey into becoming an artist, what it is like being an artist today. Enjoy the episode!   SHOWNOTES Asylum38 Soika Mark Kidlat Jan Sunday Khriss Bajade Joe Rogan David Choe Tiger Belly The Nine Club Nicolo Nimor Venom III Nick Automatic Qube Gal