Episode 01 - 40 years in the making

In this debut episode, I introduce "This F*cking Guy" (a phrase we both used to use and crack up at) and share the inspiration behind the podcast. This journey began 40 years ago with my dad, Dan Culhane, a rock and roll radio personality in the Twin Cities welcomed his daughter, me, into this world. Throughout the episode, I reflect on my upbringing, my relationship with my dad, and the path that led me to create this podcast. From Minnesota to Bali, this episode is about love, loss, and honoring my father’s legacy through storytelling.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00:30] Introduction and a brief history of how this podcast came to be.
• [00:01:45] The significance of August 19th and the two-year anniversary of moving to Bali.
• [00:02:20] Memories of growing up with my dad in the radio industry and its impact on my life.
• [00:06:30] My journey from studying radio to finding a passion for technology and web design and beyond
• [00:09:50] The moment I learned of my father’s diagnosis and how it reshaped our relationship.
• [00:11:15] Navigating the grief of losing my father and the decision to leave my marriage and return to Bali.
• [00:13:30] How this podcast is helping me process my grief and keep my father’s memory alive.
• [00:14:00] Teaser for next week’s episode of Missed Calls: Listen to a snippet of a voicemail to my dad.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about the podcast and how to submit your own voicemail or story about Dan - https://coriorak.com/hey-pops-podcast
• Get involved and learn more about the Dan Culhane Memorial Fund - https://www.danculhanememorialfund.org/

Subscribe & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Your feedback helps others find the show and supports me in continuing to share these stories.

Next Week's Teaser:
Stay tuned for the next episode, which introduces the Missed Calls series—voicemails and called-in stories aimed directly for my pops. The preview starts at [00:14:00].

Transcript

Hey, I'm Cori and this is Hey Pops. Hey everyone and welcome to the first episode. I actually recorded this episode about a week and a half ago, thinking it was going to be the trailer and quickly realized it was far too long for a trailer, gave away far too much information and Had the wrong dates in it. Well, technically not the wrong dates. I initially thought I'd launch a podcast on the 16th of August rather than the 19th, which today is the 19th. I chose the 16th because it was the day I left Minnesota. But you'll hear about that in a minute. Stay tuned at the end of the episode. I will play a teaser of next week's episode just to kind of introduce what those will sound and feel like. I also wanted to have a voicemail for my dad today because today was the day. It's an important day for me, a two year mark anniversary of being in Bali and the first official day of launching the podcast. So just fell right, uh, without further ado, here is episode one of Hey Pops. Hey everyone out there. I am happy and excited and nervous and anxious to introduce a project that is technically 40 years in the making. It all started when I was born and my dad had a rock and roll radio morning show, um, in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And that meant all my life, all my childhood growing up, my dad was the coolest dude there was. He worked in a number of different radio stations, voiceover work for TV and radio. He was a production director. He had his own TV show called Minnesota Voices, where he just talked about cool history around Minnesota. Needless to say, every bring your daughter to work day, I was with my pops. Every summer I was helping with some sort of event with the radio stations. I even did a few, uh, TV Spots with him for the local media. I just, you know, wanted to be him, wanted to shadow him, wanted to do all the cool stuff that he was doing. And, uh, this led into my late teen years when I started working nights doing the red eye shift of being a board operator for the radio station. And this would be awesome because when he was clocking out for the day, I was clocking in and I'd get to see him. And I got to learn, you know, the inner workings of mixing board operating and just, you know, falling further in love with it. So then all through my senior year of high school, I didn't really like. Look into colleges, anything other than going exactly where he went to the University of Wisconsin Superior. I just, I didn't even have a fallback, a safety school or anything. I applied to one school for one program to be in a communications major, to have broadcast journalism and to be on the radio. So I spent my freshman year, uh, loving radio. It, living up there, living by my grandparents, enjoying kind of reliving his freshman year of college in my own way. The only thing that I didn't have is a bowling alley in the school, which I learned later that he had, which would have been baller. But I even started working at the, the Duluth radio station where he worked in university and just continued on that journey. And as I, you know, was 2002, 2003, I was 18, 19. I was starting to get a little itchy and not sure that radio was going to be a thing and wasn't sure if that was. Where I should be focusing and I've always been a nerd for computers and learning design and just being an early adapter to everything technology based. So I shifted and spent my four years of university going to three different schools. two of them technical colleges and ending out with a associate's decree in web design. So obviously my life took a turn and I, you know, kept trying things out. That's something about me that I have learned to love is that I will go where the wind blows me for as long as I love it or I'm learning and I'm satisfied and I'm helping others and I'm enjoying life. And so During that final year, no, in the middle of university, I met a boy and he was so cool. And he'd been to Southeast Asia for a study abroad program. And I found it so fascinating. And so as the years went on and we were dating and he was, um, in design school and we were five hours apart and did the whole long distance university life. I got close to graduating and realized I. Didn't want to do it. I didn't like it. I had done a, uh, internship with a guy and I just, I really didn't like designing for someone who had very particular ideas. I couldn't find a way to meet him where he was and it just wasn't my heart. And so in the last few months of school, I organized with the help of my dad and my stepmom, a fundraiser to support myself to do a two month volunteer trip in Arusha, Tanzania. And I went to be a volunteer teacher for HIV AIDS prevention education for a month. And then for the second month, I was doing web design for web design for a local school in a local gemstone business. And right dab in the middle of it, my boyfriend at the time got a job offer in Vietnam and he, we were on a phone card, phone date, I don't know, maybe at a cafe. I don't know. I feel 90 years old, but we were on a phone call check in and he was like, I got the job. And do you want to come? And so I researched teach English as a foreign language. I was really liking teaching during my time there as a volunteer. And so I researched that. And at the end of my two months, I bought home to America for about 10 days, packed up all of my stuff. And joined him in Vietnam. That started the course of living from 2006 till now living abroad and living an entirely different life than I ever could have imagined. I've been a English as a foreign language teacher, a kindergarten teacher, a preschool teacher. Uh, there was a year there where we were in California, where I was the assistant manager of a Pete's coffee. There was a year we went to Switzerland and I was a au pair. before getting deported, uh, where we actually got married, um, in a civil ceremony. And then, uh, during that same time, my partner was starting his own business. And as our decade of being abroad and being insane came up in 2016, we decided to move to Bali, Indonesia, just to get a change of life, learn a new culture, experience something new. And I've been there ever since. with a tiny little blip year back in the States. Part of that blip year in the States is why I'm here with you today and what I am releasing into the world. In 2019, end of 2019, my father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which is a blood and bone cancer and uh, horrifying. I flew home immediately and spent two months during the initial stages of his first chemo and learning all about it and just really rebuilding and strengthening our relationship. As many relationships with parents and children are difficult, mine was no different. Add in living abroad and having complicated experiences. family issues and all these different things. That time was a real eye opener of like, you know what? Hear me out. Here's where I was coming from. Here's where you're coming from. I apologize. And I understand. I love you. And let's take a new chapter. And from both sides, just, you know, wiped it clean. Came to an agreement, understood each other and reignited this love that we had all my childhood. And right upon coming back to Indonesia, the pandemic hit and obviously this was scary, but my dad was soaring through it and he was already on the other side. And as the world was coming out of the pandemic, he was getting a, you know, getting the AOK saying he was healthy, saying they were strong, which made the next thing a huge kick in the teeth. So on the eve of my birthday, uh, my dad passed away and it was sudden and it was unexpected and it was horrifying. And I was in Indonesia and I wasn't there. There was no point in immediately moving back. My husband at the time and I were talking about, You know, our parents are getting older, life is changing, we should really give it a shot, move back to Minnesota. We love Minnesota. Minnesota is a beautiful state. It had obviously gone through a lot of turmoil with George Floyd, all of these things had happened, the, you know, landscape had changed, but we were ready to give it a try. So we moved with our Balinese cat back to the States about four months after my dad passed away, and we were there in time and settled to be there for his funeral. celebration of life. During that year, it was interesting. It was reverse culture shock. It was very difficult to get comfortable and to figure myself out. Our family business was, you know, a challenging thing because it was a product based business and it deals with five different countries in the process of making all of the materials and creating the bags, let alone shipping it all to our warehouses to get it out to customers. It was insane and so much work. And it was difficult to live and work as a husband and wife duo. And I, I broke, I broke after the ceremony of life. I broke after a Minnesota winter. I, I broke and we broke. And, and at the start of 2022, when I was getting close to my first anniversary of my father's passing and my birthday, obviously these are a few hours apart, so it's a day apart. I decided I would take those two days as my private personal celebration of myself and of my father, and I would go somewhere new and or somewhere near the ocean. We both had a love for the ocean and for having a beer and reading a book by the sea. So I went to Oaxaca, Mexico and celebrated surviving that year without him, which I never wanted to live a life like that this young and my birthday and myself. And it was amazing to do. this trip by myself. It was an incredible trip to learn more about myself, to explore a new culture, to eat the most delicious food and really sit with myself and what I wanted next. And what I wanted next was to leave my marriage and to move back to Bali. So that is what I did. I'm now coming up on the two year mark of being back here in Bali and all of this to say, all of this history, all of this. All of this 40 years in the making. I did just turn 40 this March on my third anniversary of my dad's passing, and I have been on a bit of a sabbatical as I just completely and entirely broke last year. And I have been thinking and being pulled back into the podcast world. At the end of last year, I was helping a few clients with their podcast. And I was like, Oh my God, I remember this. I remember you, dad. I remember all of this. And I feel this love and excitement. And so as my sabbatical has been wrapping up, I have been, you know, starting my own path and career as a podcast producer. And I thought, what better way to learn something, which is what he said at the end of almost every phone call we ever had from my childhood till the last days to learn something, to teach myself the process of podcasting and the inner workings and. You know, learn by doing and to process my grief and share stories and honor my dad in the best way I know how through a microphone. So stay tuned. August 16th will be the two year mark exactly of the last two years. day in Minnesota where I actually had been staying at his house in the last room he stayed in. The 16th was the day I left with me and my cat on the way back to Bali. And what perfect timing then that day to commemorate this brand new life. Two years in, uh, with this podcast, it is not necessarily a podcast that I intended to have anyone else listen to, but I thought, you know, I really benefit from listening to people process their feelings, their experiences and their grief, and maybe someone out there will as well. So I have the rest of the year planned out and hopefully I'll be starting to get some clients that I'll be doing some podcast editing and production during that time and learning and growing. And maybe you know Dan Culhane of Minnesota. Uh, maybe you know me, maybe you don't know anything about me or my bots. But I'm excited to dive in and to live with my dad again, because I feel him every day, but I get to go back to bring your daughter to work days and I can't wait to introduce you to Dan Culhane. Thanks for listening. And I can't even. begin to describe what it means to me to know you're out there and that I'm being heard. As always, it's important to review and subscribe. It helps other people find the podcast. It helps me understand the analytics of hosting your own podcast. And it it really makes. I don't know. It makes me smile. I hope you all have a wonderful week. And don't forget to learn something. Hi, it's Dan. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, I'll call you right back. Thanks.