The Show for April 17, 2026: Gov. Katie Hobbs’ bill moratorium, the Analogs finale

Gov. Katie Hobbs wants Arizona Republican lawmakers lawmakers to stop sending her bills until they show the public their budget proposal. The Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, the final installment in the series The Analogs shows the challenges of doing things the old-fashioned way.

Transcript

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I'm Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here's today's episode.

SAM DINGMAN: Good morning, and welcome to The Show on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I'm Sam Dingman.

MARK BRODIE: And I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, bringing indigenous food to fine dining. And the finale of our Analog series, about making things by hand.

SAM DINGMAN: But first, it is time for the Friday NewsCap and some voices from the news this week.

RUBEN GALLEGO: That clouded my judgment. My friendship with him, our family’s friendship together with him, clouded my judgment. And I was wrong. I deeply, deeply regret that.

WARREN PETERSEN: We’re about ready to put a budget on her desk and it’s something we need to do. So we’ll let our members know that that’s where they’re at, see if they want to keep moving their bills or not.

RALPH HEAP: Well, I’m hoping he doesn’t take that position so, and as far as I know he is not going to.

REPORTER: The question confronting the court is: Did Mr. Lytle's nomination paper and petitions substantially comply with the applicable statutes? And the answer is yes.

KRIS MAYES: This is a U.S. Attorney alongside a candidate for this office who is trying desperately to curry favor with Donald Trump as he comes to town on Friday where he’ll undoubtedly continue to lie about his loss in Arizona.

DAVID SCHWEIKERT: I’m sorry it hurt some people’s feelings, but have an honest conversation. Heaven forbid we were to lose again or lose the state legislature because we nominated a candidate that’s unelectable.

MARK BRODIE: : And with me to talk about Governor Hobbs’ bill moratorium, the shaping up of a likely three-way race for Governor later this year and more are Paul Bentz of HighGround. Paul, good morning.

PAUL BENTZ: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: And Matt Grodsky of Matter of State Strategies. Matt, good morning to you.

MATT GRODSKY: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So guys, U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s junior senator, faced a lot of scrutiny this week over his friendship—best friendship, he has said in the past—with now-former Congressman Eric Swalwell, who is accused of a number of incidents of sexual harassment and abuse and that sort of thing. Paul, I’m curious, like we’re not going to get into like what the rumors are, what the allegations are potentially with Senator Gallego, but obviously this is not great for somebody who has openly talked about thinking about running for President. What might the political implications of all this be, of course, not knowing sort of what’s happening now?

PAUL BENTZ: Well, first of all, he was a shining example in 2024 in a very dismal year for Democrats. And you know, part of the thing they pointed to is his blue-collar, rough-and-tumble personality and that how that appealed to some of these independent voters and made him somebody, you know, they said he’s somebody you want to have a beer with. And so I think those are the benefits that he drew during that race, but some of those seem to be coming back to bite him a little bit. You know, the New York Times just put out that he is probably the most vulgar Twitterer of all of the for the Senate.

MARK BRODIE: A lot of F-bombs.

PAUL BENTZ: Yes, on the—for the Senate. And I think that’s part of his personality, so it makes him susceptible to these things. But I mean long-term, I don’t know if he was a viable candidate for 2028. I think that’s more of getting into the mentioning game. It’ll certainly hurt in his mentioning game early on here, but he’s still fairly young. I think he’s got time to recover from something like this, but it certainly—it’s a pretty hot spotlight and it’s probably the first time he’s experienced it. He came from a legislative or a congressional district that was a very, you know, majority Democrat, majority-minority district, did not have a lot of pressure on him, had not seen a lot of really hard races until he went against Lake in the Senate race in ‘24. So I think this is a real big test for him.

MARK BRODIE: And Matt, his personal life has certainly come up in the past. Paul mentioned Kari Lake; she got his divorce records unsealed during that during that Senate race, hoping to see something salacious, and there really wasn't anything in there. Does this affect him in the long term, of course, again, not really knowing what the future might hold?

MATT GRODSKY: Yeah, I don’t think so. I mean, I think the right wing has been after him for a long time on stuff like this. I think the news cycle, especially with the Trump administration, it’s like ten years every day, right? So I think if you think two years out from now, I don’t think this is relevant. Um, you know, these things are rumored. I think that he went out there and it’s hard to admit that, you know, you were blindsided or lied to by your friend, right? So I think he’s owned that as difficult as it is. But what I just find crazy is, you know, a lot of the folks that are pointing at him and coming up with all these rumors, they’re the same folks that, you know, advocated for putting a convicted sexual predator back into the White House and an admitted one, too. Um, so I just think the double standard there is interesting. So we’ll just have to wait and see, but no, I don’t think it affects him long-term.

MARK BRODIE: Did you see him, Matt, as a viable candidate for President in 2028 if he chose to run?

MATT GRODSKY: Oh, surely, yeah. I mean, I think we’re—if we’ve got an embarrassment of riches right now between Senator Gallego and Senator Mark Kelly, regardless of what either of them decides to do, I think they’ve both been pretty clear that they’re focused on serving the people of Arizona as senators right now and they’ve been doing a good job.

MARK BRODIE: All right, let’s move on to stuff at the state legislature. Paul, Governor Hobbs this week told legislators: stop sending me bills until you make your budget public. The governor, of course, in the Constitution it says the governor has to release their budget. She did, you know, the first week of session. We’ve heard from Republican legislative leaders calling this political theater. Of course, lots of governors put bill moratoriums in place for various reasons. Does this speed up the process at all? Does this lead to maybe a faster budget resolution, do you think?

PAUL BENTZ: I think it’s a step in the process. We saw Governor Ducey do it, we saw Governor Brewer do it, we’ve seen other governors do it. This is not sort of out of the norm these days. It’s sort of, unfortunately, feels a little like when we see these federal government shutdowns. Shutdowns seem to be becoming more of an actual part of the process, unfortunately, as opposed to just political theater. And so, um, you know, I think the governor does have to put out a budget and in the past what we’ve seen is the Republicans react to it or use it to negotiate. Now what she’s saying is, no, you’re going to have to come forward with what you want. We’ve got a shortfall, we’ve got challenges financially that need to be addressed. I want to see what your priorities are instead of just reacting to what I say. Put your money where your mouth is, tell us what you want to do so that she can then do the reaction game. I don’t think it’s going to make—I think we’re in for a long session no matter what. The only thing driving these folks is the fact that our primary was moved up to July 21st and so they need to get out and start campaigning. But short of that, I mean, we’re still really at a deadlock right now and this is part of it, but I don’t know if it’s going to motivate people to work any faster.

MARK BRODIE: Well, Paul, to your point about the reaction game, Republicans pretty early on basically said these numbers don’t add up, they’re relying on money that isn’t there or that we don’t think is going to be there. There’s obviously in any budget there’s going to be stuff that the other party likes and doesn’t like, but Republicans were pretty critical of this particular budget. And yet, as the governor is saying, we don’t really know—we have some sense of what they would like, but I mean is there—is it a fair argument, do you think, for the governor to say, look, we should all be able to see my plan and your plan and then, you know, we’ll figure it out?

PAUL BENTZ: Well, that’s generally part of negotiating. You know, right? You don’t negotiate against someone who doesn’t tell you what they want and you just keep throwing things out at them hoping for the best. That doesn’t ever work, really. I mean, you’ve tried that at the car dealership, it’s a terrible day at the car dealership, right? So, I think, you know, that’s what she’s saying. Listen, tell me what you want to do. Of course, I mean, certainly the budget that she put forth had some budget gimmicks and tricks like not deploying some of the tax cuts that the Republicans wanted, but I think there’s, you know, some more fundamental things that were in there that they didn’t agree with, but she’s saying, hey, listen, you tell me what you want then so that we have a place to start. And so we’ll see what they come forward with.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so Matt, the clock is ticking. I mean, usually we don’t get to May before we start saying the clock is ticking on the budget that has to be done by the end of June. But, you know, given that this is an election year, given as Paul said the primaries moved up, there’s motivation to maybe end a little sooner. Does this, do you think, maybe jumpstart the talks at all?

MATT GRODSKY: I think it could. I mean, I agree with Paul, it’s part of the process, less gamesmanship. I think the Republican caucus has to decide amongst themselves what they want. And I would say in terms of narrative control, I think that this is a good play on the governor’s part, right? The majority of Arizonans aren’t paying attention to every line item in these budget negotiations; they’re busy, they’re dealing with their lives. So I think it’s a very simple thing for them to understand is she’s saying: show me your guys’ budget so we can actually have a negotiation, right? And when they stall and kind of, you know, move around on it, um, it just makes them look like they’re out of touch, right? So I think it’s a good play on her end. We’ll see if it jumpstarts it. I know everybody wants to get done early; I didn't ever think it was going to get done early and I think Paul would agree with that.

PAUL BENTZ: I definitely do.

MATT GRODSKY: So we just gotta buckle up and see what happens.

MARK BRODIE: How much is Prop 123 sort of gumming up the works, if that’s the right phrase? Like it seems like that is a pretty significant area of disagreement.

MATT GRODSKY: It’s been an area of disagreement for a couple years now, right? Um, and I think it’ll continue to be a hot button issue. How they navigate around it, I think that remains to be seen. Um, but again, it’s going to have to be part of the conversation over the next few weeks. Um, you know, and if she’s got this leverage of she’s not signing anything until they get their house in order, you know, the pressure’s on them. So we just gotta see.

MARK BRODIE: Paul, is there any—is there any indication that the Republican caucus is on—like on the same page? Like is there something to be said that maybe if the legislative Republicans haven’t put a plan together, maybe it’s because their members aren’t all totally in lockstep here?

PAUL BENTZ: That’s a big question and certainly the Freedom Caucus has been known to not be in lockstep with other Republicans, and in particular Republicans who are in key swing districts and have much more competitive races. You remember that not every legislative district in Arizona is competitive; in fact, several of them, many of them, are either dominated by Republicans or dominated by Democrats. And so in the Republican-dominated districts where the Freedom Caucus members don’t ever really have to win anything besides a primary, they’re not as interested in negotiating. They’re interested in making points and scoring points. And so I think that there’s challenges. It’d be interesting to see, I know they’ve had a couple of closed-door meetings, um, you know, that has been described as sort of, you know, rough and tumble brawls. So I will see, um, but you know, if they can come out together, they’ve voted together on several other bills that now the governor is vetoing. But, um, you know, I think that’s part of what’s the delay here.

MARK BRODIE: Obviously crystal balls are often cloudy. Do you think Prop 123 ultimately is part of this budget or is that can continue to be kicked down the road?

PAUL BENTZ: Well, unfortunately, I think they had a better chance of solving it last year when they left they said: oh, we have the money in the budget and we don’t need to deal with it. And now it’s, uh, you know, they don’t have as much money and it’s a bigger challenge for them and, you know, uh, Gress has said himself that he doesn’t think it’s going to get done and he’s been sort of the big driver behind it. So I tend to believe no, unfortunately. Um, they’ve got major issues including the aggregate expenditure limit that they just keep kicking down the—they’ve got a place to negotiate and create sort of a, I think, a compromise, but I’m just not sure they’re there yet.

MARK BRODIE: Matt, do you think it’s ultimately part of the—part of the budget or something else this year?

MATT GRODSKY: I think it gets kicked in some form or the other. I agree. I think their best shot was a couple years ago, but who knows.

MARK BRODIE: Guys, a judge this week allowed the—what I guess we’re not calling again, the No Labels Party candidate for Governor, Hugh Laitel, to be on the ballot. A couple of challenges to his candidacy were rejected. So in theory now, we’re going to have a three-way race. And this came after there was a lawsuit, of course, by Adrian Fontes against—dealing against Adrian Fontes—whether or not the No Labels Party could be called the Arizona Independent Party, and it can’t be. Matt, the conventional wisdom here is that a Laitel candidacy would siphon votes more away from Governor Hobbs than it would be whichever Republican comes out of the primary. If you are in Governor Hobbs' campaign, which you’re not—you’re part of Adrian Fontes' campaign, we’ll say that—you’re not a part of Governor Hobbs' campaign, but if you were, would you be nervous about this?

MATT GRODSKY: I wouldn’t be, just given the dynamics. I think it’s clear that she’s prepared to face anybody on the ballot regardless of who emerges from the Republican primary and now that, you know, the Laitels through, great, we’ll see what happens. I think most Arizonans are tracking the stakes in this election and they don’t want to waste their vote, right? And I don’t think they want to just toss it to, assuming it’s Biggs, right? I don’t think they want more chaos in Arizona that’s, you know, playing off of what’s happening in Washington, right? So I don’t think it’s as big of a risk as it might have been had her election been in 2024, right? So, um, you know, he’s getting through, whatever. I think they’re prepared for it and she’s got a ton of money. So she’s going to be able to compete regardless of what happens.

MARK BRODIE: But you’re not—you wouldn’t be concerned even with that very, very narrow margin of victory? I mean, even if, you know, even if Laitel gets, you know, what, three, four percent of the vote, that could in theory be the difference.

MATT GRODSKY: You can’t take it for granted, but the way I operate is you should always look like you’re running five points behind, right? And then overperform. So I think it’s good to have a little bit of the competition here, you know, keeps you motivated. Um, you just got to shore up those other votes. But she’s got a good team, this is not her first rodeo. Um, I think they’re ready for it and they’ve been preparing, so let’s see.

MARK BRODIE: So let me ask the pollster in the room, Mr. Bentz: should Governor Hobbs' team be worried about this?

PAUL BENTZ: Well, I think both candidates should be worried about it. There’s only two ways to run, as Matt was referring to: you either run scared or you run unopposed. And so both teams need to be mindful of what he brings to the table. He’s certainly independently wealthy, seems to want to put forth a pretty good campaign. Um, the challenge for Democrats is that to win statewide office, it’s been a pretty proven formula because they have such a registration disadvantage to Republicans, um, that they need to win a large portion of the independent vote. Uh, Governor Hobbs won the race by what, 17,000 votes last time? Um, and certainly we could see a spot where Laitel does seem to siphon off some of those independent-leaning, unaffiliated voters, folks that don’t want to vote for Biggs but can’t bring themselves to—and I again agree with Matt that I think Biggs is the frontrunner—but can’t vote for the Republican and want to find somewhere else to go. But, um, you know, certainly the nice thing is that the Governor right now is unopposed in her primary. So she can start appealing to those voters now. That’s the methodology we saw in every successful Democratic race, whether it was Sinema or Kelly or her the first time, is that they’ve got a lot more runway while Biggs has to win a primary. And so, you know, Biggs is going to be on the stage with Trump at the rally, you know, later today. Yeah, and those are the sorts of things that we see that Republicans have to do to win that primary. Trump is very effective in the primary; his benefits in the general are much more mixed. Hobbs has got a lot more runway then to go out and appeal to those unaffiliated voters now and she should be to build that coalition that’s won Democrats in the past.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and I guess even advancing that point a little bit, Paul, like even Laitel has a primary, right? I mean, there’s another No Labels candidate on the ballot. So I don’t know how competitive that race is going to be, but in terms of runway, it seems like Governor Hobbs has it and the the other two don’t.

PAUL BENTZ: Right. I mean, I think there’s certainly a challenge there she’s got and they’ve seen the playbook. I mean, like Matt said, it’s not their first rodeo, they’ve seen the playbook that works. I think they know affordability’s going to be the big issue, right? Right now, and it’s not just inflation or high prices or, you know, high interest rates; it’s actual like the pocketbook issues. And survey after survey I’ve done recently, people are talking about household stretch thin, can’t afford basic necessities like groceries and gas. And I think that’s going to be—she needs an answer to that and it needs to be a little bit more than just "it’s Trump’s problem, Trump did this," because, you know, articulating against Trump gets you so far, but they got to articulate at some point what they’re for.

MARK BRODIE: Does the—does the name of the party on the ballot matter? Like does it help, hurt, or not affect Laitel or whoever wins that primary in any event if it’s under the No Labels Party or the Arizona Independent Party?

PAUL BENTZ: I think—they seem to think so, that’s why they wanted to change the name. I mean, right? So I would go as far as that; they seem to think so. You know, the issue with independents is most independents don’t want to be of a party. You know, they want to be independent small "i." So I don’t know, I haven’t taken that into account yet, but it is an interesting question.

MATT GRODSKY: I think because you haven’t seen droves and droves of people go and sign up under it, I think that answers your question, right? I think to Paul’s point, they like being unaffiliated, you know. They don’t want to be—literally don’t want to be a label even if it says "no labels." So I don’t think it’s got that that attraction even when they had the name changed for five minutes, right? Uh, so I think they want to be unaffiliated, they don’t want to feel like they’re owned by a certain brand. Um, so yeah, that’s my two cents on party names.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. Matt, let me stick with you on news that we got this week that the DOJ is looking into allegations from Senate President Warren Petersen that the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are interfering in a federal investigation when they told county recorders not to turn stuff over based on the 2020 election. The U.S. Attorney for Arizona seems to be looking into this. I hate to keep asking like is so-and-so concerned, is so-and-so concerned. I guess like what do you make of the fact that DOJ is apparently investigating this?

MATT GRODSKY: Yeah, our mind folks again, I am on the Fontes campaign team. Look, I think there’s not a lot of concern with this other than the fact that, unfortunately, it’s a bit of a perversion of the office of U.S. Attorney and quite frankly the Senate President, right? Um, it’s unfortunate to see the politicization of these offices. Um, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State are bound by law to protect Arizonans' privacy. So they did not do anything wrong by trying to make sure that, hey, don’t turn this stuff over; it’s going to violate the law, right? Um, the DOJ is playing games, as is the Senate President to try and appease Trump as the Attorney General spelled out in the clip you played at the top of the show. So: not concerned, just disappointed.

MARK BRODIE: Paul, we’ve been talking maybe six years on this show. Every time you come on, talking about how the 2020 election is not a great election issue, especially for Republicans. Is it surprising to you that here we are in 2026 still talking about it?

PAUL BENTZ: It’s surprising because it’s still a bad idea. This is 100% Trump-driven, and I suspect when he’s in town today he’ll talk about it because he’s still sore that he lost Arizona in 2020 and that’s why he’s bringing it back up. And he’s also bringing it back for the utility of: if they lose in November, um, if they lose the house or if they lose Arizona, um, they can point to the previous fraud and start to bring that back up. They’re trying to dig up these fraud allegations to try to keep that in people’s mind. But it was a loser then and it’s a loser now. It’s the same thing with banning early voting. Early voting is incredibly popular in the state and most people have faith that the election was conducted well. Going back to those topics is not moving forward; it’s moving backward, and those aren’t—those will not erase economic concerns that we have, concerns about immigration, other things that are going on. Talking about the 2020 election is not a winning strategy for Republicans.

MARK BRODIE: And yet I think—I assume that both of you believe that we’ll be hearing about it later today when Trump takes the stage and other candidates come up with him.

PAUL BENTZ: Oh, yeah.

MATT GRODSKY: Definitely.

PAUL BENTZ: I think so, but one thing I will say is that Biggs has been very smart to not be focused on that. I think that’s one of the biggest issues that Kari Lake had—every time she ran as she harped on that, that was one of her big talking points and she kept going back to the well. I mean, we saw she lost twice. It’s a—it’s not a winning strategy and I think smart Republicans understand that.

SAM DINGMAN: Good morning, and welcome back to The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Sam Dingman.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Indigenous food has taken off in recent years with high-profile chefs like Sean Sherman spearheading the movement for food sovereignty and high-end kitchens around the country. And this weekend at the S'edav Va'aki Museum in Phoenix, a group of chefs will gather to celebrate it. One of those is Navajo chef Justin Pioche. Pioche runs the Pioche Food Group in Fruitland, New Mexico, where, along with his sister Tia and his mother Janet, he runs a food truck, a high-end catering company, and a non-profit educational farm where they teach Navajo youth about their food culture and history. But as he told our co-host Lauren Gilger, he didn’t start out doing fine dining. In fact, he was working at a Fuddruckers in Glendale when a chance encounter with a celebrity chef turned his luck around.

JUSTIN PIOCHE: I went on a trip with my family to Disney World and my dad and I were sitting and having lunch somewhere and my dad was like, "Hey, look, there’s that one guy from that TV show," and it happened to be Robert Irvine. So I went up there to him and introduced myself, told him what I was trying to do, and he called Beau MacMillan for me. And told Beau, "Give this kid a job. He’s got tattoos. He’s some punk, some punk with tattoos and everything."

LAUREN GILGER: Some punk with tattoos and everything, give him a job. So you did. I mean, you went and worked for Beau MacMillan at Sanctuary on Camelback, one of the best chefs in the state. You’ve worked for many of the other top chefs in our region over the years since then. When did it become your own cuisine that you got to cook? Like taking those ideas, those techniques, those kind of fine dining level of cooking and making indigenous food out of it?

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Well, I seen my buddy now, Sean Sherman, on a commercial one time for American Express and he was pushing the envelope for what indigenous foods can look like and can be. And I’m not saying that I was wanting to ride his coattails or anything, but I realized that there was no real Navajo representation at the time. And so I had the the teaching and the knowledge and stuff like that. But once I started working back on the farm, that’s when things really got serious because I realized that with not only just cooking comes the stories, and the stories are what’s important because Navajos are more of a—we didn’t really write anything down whatsoever. It’s taught to you by your elders through stories and all the above. And so that’s when I was like, "I need to help protect these stories and keep them going because who else is going to?" And I hate to say that another white guy is going to come in and steal all of our stories and then write a book, another book about us, and then we’re lost again a little bit. And so I would rather it be passed down from one Navajo to the next.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s so interesting that for you, the preservation of your culture and this kind of oral history that you’re talking about there, these stories, can be preserved through food. Like draw the line for us from a dish, maybe an example of a dish that you serve sometimes to one of those stories. Is it like a translation in food?

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Oh, yeah, of course. So one of our dishes, Tia and I have named it Textures of Squash. And we basically take a squash that’s in season and we transform it and plate it seven different ways on one plate. But the reason we did that was to get some of the students more into basically eating their vegetables and that’s where we get to push the envelope and then help make that little piece of squash more interesting. And so we’ve gone to schools and had all the elements laid out in front of the students and be like, "This is what you can do with one squash. Full utilization."

LAUREN GILGER: That’s amazing. How do you make a squash that many different ways?

JUSTIN PIOCHE: So we’ll make little pucks out of them and we’ll sear those and then baste it with honey on top of it, which is another indigenous ingredient. Um, we’ll make little ribbons out of them and pickle them. We’ll take the seeds, toast them, crush them so add some texture to the dish. We like to even take the guts, Tia and I call those little strings inside of the squash, lay those out, either dehydrate them or something like that, turn them into a pickling liquid or—yeah, there’s so many different ways that we can go about presenting that little one piece of squash. And squash is one of the three sisters as well, so that’s another story we’re able to tell.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. Squash, beans, and corn. Yeah. So you’ll be cooking in the Valley this weekend at the S'edav Va'aki Museum with this slate of chefs who use indigenous ingredients and who are, you know, dedicated to that. I wonder how you view your role in this broader movement that seems to be happening around the country now. Like you mentioned Chef Sherman. Like how do you hope that the country is starting to view indigenous food in light of all of these chefs like yourself trying to really redefine it?

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Well, I hope they realize that our people were here first and we’re still here. I mean, there’s stories of Kit Carson burning 3,000 trees a day down by Canyon de Chelly in order to rid us off of the planet because his idea was: get rid of their food, you get rid of the people. But with all that being said, the Long Walk is really a tragic story, but that’s also where Navajos got to help create fry bread. And each tribe has their own type of fry bread, of course, and each one of them are equally proud of it. But that’s a story I get to tell as well. And I’ve met people around the country who have degrees from Harvard and stuff like that and they’ve never heard of the Long Walk because stories like that are being taken out of textbook. But it still alive in a lot of our native people still hold that very true in their our hearts. So I would like to help preserve the foods that helped keep us alive, help keep our stories alive because food is more than just nurturing; it’s the essence of healing and helps us brings us all together to laugh, but it also brings us together to cry. We celebrate with it, we mourn death with it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you lastly about fry bread because I think it’s one of those things like if I think of Navajo food, I think of fry bread. But I’ve heard also that Navajo chefs are, you know, indigenous chefs say, "We got to get beyond that." You embrace it?

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s still going to be a part of our culture no matter what. But I hope that we’re also passing on the knowledge of how we got fry bread because basically all of the ingredients are not what our peoples used to eat hundreds of years ago. And that was forced upon us and we were all guinea pigs in the process of bringing those into the country: canned foods, Spam, bleached flour, refined sugar, lard, even coffee. Those are all things that were forced into our diet. That stuff is not good for us; our bodies weren’t meant to break that down. And I read stories of back in the day, there was only like one Navajo on the whole reservation who had diabetes. Now it’s one in three. That’s 30%. That’s really bad. That’s a huge endemic in itself.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. But you feel like by making fry bread still today, and I know you make it fresh every time, even if you’re in your food truck, right? Like this is a reclaiming, this is an important part of our culture that maybe you have taken back.

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Definitely. And I like to say that my mom makes the best fry bread and I still will go to my grave saying that.

LAUREN GILGER: I’m sure you will. All right, well we’ll end it there. That is Justin Pioche joining us, the chef and owner of Pioche Food Group. Thank you so much, Chef, for coming on the show. I appreciate you taking the time.

JUSTIN PIOCHE: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you.

SAM DINGMAN: Over the last 75 years, hair shows have become a staple of black culture in the US. These events celebrate textured hair through the creative and often sculptural styling of centuries-old techniques like braiding and barbering. The biggest hair shows in the country take place in cities with a much larger black population than Phoenix, like Bronner Bros. in Atlanta, which can bring in around 30,000 people semi-annually. But as the black community here grows and newer Arizona residents bring the culture with them, hair shows have started to pop up in town. The fourth annual Fantasy Expo Hair Show will return this weekend to Metro Phoenix. Show producer Athena Ankra attended the third annual Fantasy Expo Hair Show in Phoenix last April.

ATHENA ANKRA: About 200 people crowded La Princesa event hall in North Phoenix on a Sunday evening last April. Music blasts from speakers on either side of a stage and flows into the dance floor below. There are people of all ages here. Most attendees are dressed in white to match the all-white ball theme, but there’s no shortage of color atop models' heads. 20-year-old Lauren Jackson just graduated from a barber school in Phoenix. We’re watching a competition between two barbers: who can shave the cleanest tapered fade the fastest, when she tells me her plans for the event she’s competing in, the lock battle.

LAUREN JACKSON: So I made a basketball hoop out of locks.

ATHENA ANKRA: You’re joking.

LAUREN JACKSON: I’m sorry.

ATHENA ANKRA: Hair shows give local hair stylists, barbers, and braiders the chance to show off their creative talents through showcases and competitions. Some stylists had been working on their entries for more than a year leading up to the Fantasy Hair Expo. But when the event’s organizers promoted the show at Jackson’s barber school...

LAUREN JACKSON: I’m like, "Okay, bet." Mind you, this was a week before the hair show.

ATHENA ANKRA: Hair shows are a black American tradition dating back about 75 years. The creative hair styling can be so eccentric, it’s almost performance art. Because it’s not just the hair style on display. It’s a message conveyed through clothes and sometimes choreography. And a chance to delight in hair textures and styles that have historically been a target of discrimination.

AYESHA WESLEY: A lot of us are like really creative and there’s styles that you just can’t do on a daily basis. So the hair show just kind of gives you the platform to just have fun with it, you know, just be really artistic.

ATHENA ANKRA: That’s cosmetologist Ayesha Wesley, who organized the event with fellow cosmetologist and friend Latricia Williams.

LATRICIA WILLIAMS: I definitely think that the hair show is empowering to the community because it’s like if nobody else accepts us, we accept us, right? So I’ve had clients before that have had to come back and get their hair redone because their job was like, "You can’t wear that." You know, and the hair show just kind of gives that like that freedom.

ATHENA ANKRA: "I can wear whatever I want to wear." That freedom and ingenuity was on display at the show. Now, seeing 40 inches of dollar bills sewed into the bottom of a pixie haircut would have been enough. But the same stylist, Sheree Nelson of Majestic Hands Beauty Demand in Mesa, put together a whole crew of models in 90s-inspired streetwear and exuberant hair to match. Nelson put one model in vivid bubblegum pink afro puffs. Another with huge headphones over her ears made entirely of braids. And for the finale, a young woman crawls on stage covered in wigs. She’s wearing crimped wigs from head to toe. Underneath, the leather catsuit, knee-high boots, and afro wreath around her face gives her a sort of Janet Jackson lioness look. She stalks downstage, rises to her feet, and pulls the lion’s mane onto her shoulders to reveal Bantu knots, sleek sectioned hair twisted into knots, a protective style dating back to Zulu women in South Africa. The crowd is loving it. Finally, it’s time for Lauren Jackson’s event: the lock battle. It’s all about who can craft the most creative and colorful style out of locks and accessories with extra points for technique and detail. For the uninitiated, locks aren't always dreadlocks. The term often refers to a more structured twist or coiling of hair rather than the Rastafari style organic locking of hair. Lock specialists, also called locticians, can build their styles ahead of time, but on competition day, they only have 30 minutes to attach everything to their model’s head and make any finishing touches. Anne Holly drove all the way from San Francisco the night before to compete with her mom as her hair model. Despite the time constraint, Lauren Jackson’s entry is not insignificant.

LAUREN JACKSON: So I made a basketball hoop out of locks.

ATHENA ANKRA: She superglued, painted, and shaped synthetic hair onto a basketball hoop with about a foot-tall backboard.

LAUREN JACKSON: So I bought a box of like those the sandwich bags and I’m like, "Well, I can use this." And then at Dollar Tree they also had a hoop already made. So I basically wrapped the whole thing with locks. And then I took like some orange lock hair and I wrapped that with the rim. I took some silver-grayish lock hair as well for the the net for the basketball hoop? Yeah, that’s what I did. It was hard, it was so hard I’m not gonna lie. Um, I stayed up like day and night.

ATHENA ANKRA: And it’s functional too. She brought a teeny-tiny basketball to prove it. Another loctician, Alicia Davis, has built a sea goddess look that’s essentially a huge halo of locks sticking straight up. It’s woven with seashells. The stylist and her model have matching glittery siren makeup. The design is minimal enough that you can really see the details. And Anne Holly is installing a replica of a famous landmark on her mother’s head. Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge, made entirely of hair.

LAUREN JACKSON: I’m like, "Aing! I didn’t even know that was possible, yo!"

ATHENA ANKRA: Master loctician and cosmetologist J Davis is this event’s judge.

J DAVIS: Um, I’m looking for health of hair. I’m looking for detail, um, creativity. I like integrity more than flash. I like skill more than flash.

ATHENA ANKRA: It was a tight race, but a winner and runner-up are announced.

JUDGE: This was super, super hard. Super, super hard. We had to go all the way down to details. We had to look at edges and fresh retwists because the creativity in this competition was so cold. So, because we had to go down to detail and crispy edges and we’re going to give it the Golden State Bridge!

ATHENA ANKRA: Jackson’s basketball hoop didn’t win. But despite that, she says...

LAUREN JACKSON: It was so fun, it was so worth it. If I can go back, I would do it all over again.

ATHENA ANKRA: And next time, she’ll be ready. For KJZZ’s The Show, I’m Athena Ankra.

SAM DINGMAN: The fourth annual Fantasy Expo Hair Show takes place this Sunday in Metro Phoenix. And you’re listening to The Show. Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

SAM DINGMAN: And I’m Sam Dingman. We continue now with our ongoing series, The Analogs: stories about people who make things by hand and what those things tell us about those people.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): The first thing I remember trying to make by hand is a wooden race car. I was about 10, and a Cub Scout. The annual Pinewood Derby was coming up, and it was the first year I was eligible to enter. The way it works is that your scoutmaster gives you a block of wood, a set of wheels, and some paint. The goal is to build the fastest toy car you can and then run it in a race against your fellow scouts on a tabletop track. I spent two days hacking and sawing and painting. It seemed like every cut I made took off more wood than it was supposed to, and every stroke of the paintbrush seemed to somehow smudge and bleed into another color. On Derby Day, as the other scouts' cars zoomed along the track, mine slid erratically down the initial hill and then keeled over on its side. This would have been humiliating under any circumstances, but I felt particularly ashamed because I grew up in what our family affectionately referred to as the homemade house. We drank our coffee from mugs my mom turned on a pottery wheel and ate dinner off a table she built in her woodshop. The walls were lined with photographs she made using a pinhole camera. She even built the frame for our living room couch. I remember sitting on that couch when company came over. They would drink out of the mugs and marvel at the art on the wall. They clearly thought my mom was the coolest person they knew. Making things, whether they were functional or expressive, seemed like second nature to her. And I couldn’t even make a toy car capable of rolling downhill on wheels. When I was 15, I got my first job scooping ice cream. One day on the way to work, I bought a pocket-sized notebook. People were constantly doing and saying these absurd, insufferable, and beautiful things at the ice cream shop. And that night, I thought maybe I’d start writing them down. And a few hours later, the captain of my baseball team, who was at the time the coolest person I knew, came into the shop with bloodshot eyes and a slack-jawed smile. "Dingman," he slurred as he ordered his cone. "You ever feel like no matter how hard you hit a ball, it’ll never quite go far enough?" I wrote it down. And I started carrying that notebook with me everywhere, filling it with moments like that. And little by little, that daily anxiety that I didn’t know how to do anything that really mattered to anyone started to fade. I didn’t exactly understand why until I was on an Amtrak train a few years later. And the guy next to me, this bear of a man with blurry tattoos reminiscent of my mom’s photographs, started telling me about what it was like to serve in Vietnam. His eyes welled with tears as he described the isolation he felt when he came home, surviving a series of drunk driving incidents, losing his relationship with his daughter. As soon as I got back to my house, I pulled out the notebook and wrote down everything I could remember as fast as I could. It filled almost half the pages. And as I flipped back through it, it occurred to me that maybe this was my version of making things by hand. That there were people out there with stories to tell, wondering if anyone else cared about what they’d been through. And that if I could somehow capture those stories, give them form and shape in the world, it might remind all of us that we all matter to each other. Not long after that, I discovered radio journalism. And as I began to tell stories on the air, I told myself that they should always start on the page of a notebook. Even though their final form would just be sound waves drifting through the atmosphere, I convinced myself that if they had this tangible origin, they would be more significant somehow. And so last year, when I saw that Walter Studios was hosting a journal-making workshop at Changing Hands Bookstore, I thought this might be my chance to make up for the Derby debacle. If I could start my stories in the pages of a notebook that I made myself, maybe I’d experience something like what the subjects of this series, The Analogs, often talk about. Like bookmaker Dan Mayer:

DAN MAYER: It's really an extension of the self.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): Or blacksmith Richard Connolly:

RICHARD CONNOLLY: When I really get into work, the rest of the world just goes away and it's peaceful.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): Or a certain ceramicist/furniture maker/pinhole photographer:

NARRATOR: I like when something looks like it was made by hand, because that's to me what making things is.

SAM DINGMAN: Hello.

FACILITATOR: Hi. Are you here for the workshop?

SAM DINGMAN: I am.

FACILITATOR: What's your last name?

SAM DINGMAN: Dingman, D-I-N-G-M-A-N.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): Jules Brandenberger, whose voice you just heard, was running the workshop along with Mary Strawn. To start, they handed me a bundle of writing paper, which I was instructed to fold in half. Each folded bundle is called a signature. And when you stack those on top of each other, they make the series of facing pages in an eventual journal. Once I finished folding my signatures, 10 in all, it was time to start poking holes through the spine with an awl, a kind of a big needle, so that I could thread string through the signatures and bind them together. That’s where the trouble started.

SAM DINGMAN: Are you supposed to stab yourself with the awl?

MARY STRAWN: No. I think the goal is not to do that.

SAM DINGMAN: I definitely did the opposite. Okay.

MARY STRAWN: Unless you like that kind of thing.

SAM DINGMAN: To each their own, I guess. No judgment.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): I was certainly trying not to judge myself, but my awl technique was getting worse with each signature. The holes I was making were ragged and misaligned, and I kept poking additional holes in myself.

SAM DINGMAN: Not a real craft project unless you poke yourself. If you're not bleeding, it doesn't count.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): I wasn’t quite crying yet, but I was definitely bleeding and sweating. And it turned out poking holes wasn’t even the hard part. Next, I pressed cardstock onto either side of my signatures and I started trying and failing to sew the whole thing together with a long piece of string. Thankfully, one of my tablemates had done this before.

TABLEMATE: So how many do you have?

SAM DINGMAN: I guess 10 of these plus two.

TABLEMATE: Okay, so you want to go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, up to 12. And you want to leave yourself like a bunch of these. Now wrap that around 12 times.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): With a little more coaching, I somehow wound my thread through the signatures and the cardstock. But there was just one problem. Right before I got to the end, the string disappeared.

SAM DINGMAN: What does it say about me that I ran out of string? That seems bad. I can't count to 12. That may be true.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): Jules, one of the facilitators, swooped in and added a bit of extra thread to my binding. It meant we had to tie a giant knot at the base of the spine of my journal, but she told me not to worry.

JULES BRANDENBERGER: If you cover the end of tape, then you're not really even going to see it. So as long as it holds up, you're good!

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): I pressed a thick layer of tape along the spine and walked to the front of the room where Mary, the other facilitator, was waiting next to an enormous paper cutter.

SAM DINGMAN: Hello. I have a potentially difficult project for you here.

MARY STRAWN: Okay. I'm taking it on. Let's see.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): I handed Mary my journal, which was really more of a paper sandwich held together with tape. She looked at it for a moment and then slid it into the paper cutter. She lopped off some of the errant edges of my signatures. She didn’t ask how I was feeling, but I decided to tell her anyway.

SAM DINGMAN: I just kept feeling like every choice I was making was like permanent. And then I got choice anxiety.

MARY STRAWN: Uh-huh. So it's like scary?

SAM DINGMAN: Yeah.

MARY STRAWN: Oh, and you're going to make it look like I got my signatures even. Because you did! You're too generous. Okay, that looks better. Oh, looks like a journal! It is a journal.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): In the months since I made my journal, I’ve come to see it as less of a journal and more of a reminder. I don’t find peace from making things by hand. Quite the opposite. And it will always break my heart a little bit that the stories I tell on the radio only really exist for the split second that I speak them into a microphone. But as long as there’s another blank page in the notebook, there will always be another story to tell. And sometimes in the course of telling one of those stories, someone will say something that does bring me peace. When that happens, I write it down. As I was working on this story, I opened my notebook and flipped through some of my favorites. And I found this one from the singer-songwriter Neko Case:

NEKO CASE: All the radio broadcasts that have ever been made are still echoing out into the universe. Even now, the radio waves carry into the universe, which I think is so comforting and beautiful. It never stops. They’re traveling through the universe like beautiful ripples on a lake.

SAM DINGMAN (NARRATION): You ever feel like when you hit a ball, you have no idea how far it might go?

SAM DINGMAN: And The Analogs is now a podcast. Season one is available wherever you listen, and you can find all previous episodes at kjzz.org/analogs. All right, we end today’s program with some bittersweet news for us here at the show. We’re saying goodbye to our colleague Sam Dingman. He’s heading back east. The good news, though, he’ll still be telling stories on the radio. Sam has spent the past couple of years here introducing us to fascinating people with fascinating stories from sword swallowers to influencers to people who do things the old-fashioned way to people who just want to figure out how to find a friend. He also brought us nuanced conversations with attendees at Turning Point USA events in the Valley, getting beyond the political shouting to hear what people really had to say. Now, I hope this is just a coincidence. Sam, you can confirm this for me. His departure comes not that long after he started sitting next to me in the newsroom here at KJZZ. I mean, I don’t think I typically have anything too fragrant for lunch. Maybe I’m mistaken. And I continue to apologize for that one cord that hangs over the line between our desks. I am really, really sorry about that. I’ve tried to fix it. I promise. So I think I speak for everyone at the show as well as our listeners when I say we will miss Sam’s thoughtfulness, his warmth, his interest in talking to people we don’t often hear from. Personally, I’ll miss his ability to get my sometimes obscure references and having someone right next to me who’s as excited to talk about baseball as I am. So, Sam, best of luck in your next endeavors. Not that you need it. And thanks for letting us see Phoenix and the Valley through your eyes these last couple of years.

SAM DINGMAN: Mark, that’s all very meaningful. Thank you very much. I promise I would take you as my desk mate no matter how stinky the food, no matter how pendulous the wire. Um, it has been the honor of my life to be on the radio with you and Lauren and our wonderful team here at the show. And I will take so much of Phoenix with me through all of my radio travels. I just thank all the listeners so much for listening to the things I said whether they made sense or not. I’m so grateful.

MARK BRODIE: Well, we are grateful to have had you here and wish you the best of luck going forward back east. For Sam Dingman and Lauren Gilger, I’m Mark Brodie here in Phoenix. Have a terrific rest of your day, have a great weekend. Hope to have you right back here on Monday. Thanks for listening to The Show's podcast. The Show is produced by Satish Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankra, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by John Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.