 You know, punk rock proms? Punk rock prom, okay. I've never been to a punk rock prom. Yeah, it's cool. It's better than going to your regular ass prom. No kidding. When you're drinking like that, we should call the drink the creeper. The creeper. There was like six-year-old white ladies and like 23-year-old non-binary black thumbs hanging out in a space, where it didn't feel weird. Everybody welcome to the show. This is a show about, this is a show about tenacity, about making mistakes. This is about getting knocked down and getting back up again and duking it out. Like, we have lots of friends that tell you about how, well, maybe I'm the only one to have friends that tell you how brilliant they are and that they're self-made, whatever. Now they pick them up by their bootstraps and they're headed to the Arctic, all by them lonesome, right? But that's just not the case. Everybody falls down, everybody makes mistakes, everybody f***s up when they start something. You know, like, I'm positive that Tolstoy and Sylvia Plath did not want you to read their first drafts, because they were bad news. And we're gonna talk about first drafts. That's what we're doing, because I think that's more inspiring and more helpful to people that want to start their own business, get their idea out into the world, make something work well, make a dent, and they need to know. Like, all of us need to know. We need to be reminded that we're all gonna screw up while we're putting it together. And then we talk about some of the things they did to overcome it. So, tonight, we've got Fran from Jupe Jupe Creative. It's a creative agency out of Portland, Oregon, and they do all sorts of stuff. Like, I wish I could say, like, all right, they just make movies, or they just do social media stuff, or they just do print. They are a creative agency, and they focus a lot on small business, non-profits, small entrepreneurs, people that have sort of been bullied around through the marketplace. And that's awesome and really cool. It's something that I'm passionate about. I can't wait to talk to her more. Let's get going. Everybody, welcome to the show. I've got Fran here from Jupe Jupe Creative out of Portland, Oregon. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you. Tell me more about Jupe Jupe, what you do. Yeah, so Jupe Jupe Creative is what I'm calling a radical creative agency in Portland, Oregon, the widest city in America. That's rad. Yeah, and also, like, a talent management agency. So, yeah, it's kind of a lot of things. I'm kind of like a producer at heart, but I mostly have always just done, like, events. I'm like a punk kid, and so always throwing shows and doing, you know, that kind of vibe. So, I've always done it, and I didn't really, all right. Like, whoa, wait, is there money falling out of my body right now? I love this. Like, it's anything. It's like, things are made out of things. Dream come true. I was like, oh my God, money's happening right now. This is so good. Yeah, so you do, like, punk kids, you do shows and play that stuff together. Yeah, punk rock proms. Yeah, punk rock proms. Punk rock prom, okay. I've never been to a punk rock prom. Yeah, it's cool. I don't think I'm going to your regular ass prom. No kidding. Yeah, we just, you know, always kind of just trying to bring community together in like a way that is kind of like, I mean, anybody like me that was that kid was probably not gonna go to their prom. And I ended up weirdly enough going to prom, only my senior prom, and I brought a 15 year old rollerblader named Brad, which I'm not that excited to share, but I just did that on accident anyway. Wait, I love that his name's Brad. I don't know why that makes it better. Because it is- A 15 year old rollerblader named Brad. I was a senior and I'm like taking a 15 year old to my prom, you know? That's the thing. Yeah, I mean, I was like hanging out with punk kids and skater kids, you know? So like taking a rollerblader in my prom was like not cool or ideal at all, but that's what happened, you know? Basically, after coming out of high school, I ended up, my first job out of high school was at Universal Studios, which was across the street, because I went to the high school in Orlando, Florida. Wow, okay. So I got my first job there, and it was doing lights and sound at the horror makeup show. I was 17 years old. Wait, what's the horror makeup show in there? It's like, you know, at Universal Studios, yeah, like the stunt show. The stunt show and all that kind of thing, but this one is particular for like makeup effects and this kind of thing, and they have like an animatronic, what is the movie, American Werewolf in London? So they have like the animatronic bust. That just comes like that. And it actually does a thing. Yeah, it's just like all this kind of thing. So I was 17 years old. I got that job because I took a test, like an electrical test, and I just aced it because I just graduated. And you know, I got it over dudes that had been working there as stagehands. So they were not that helpful or welcoming when I rolled up. Little punk 17 year old coming in. And you know, almost all I'm a woman and a woman of color, right? So it was all the things. I got keys, I got a big old ring of keys, I got a walkie-talkie. I had to take a weapons training class because there was a revolver that shot blanks in the show. What? Yeah. So I was just doing this ridiculous job. And I kind of never, I just never had anybody take me under their wing. Nobody was ever like, oh, you're actually really good at this. You're great at this. I just were like mad at me. You're like a threat. It was a threat, right? Unfortunately, I didn't last very long doing that job because it was so unwelcoming. And it was just really hard. And so it was kind of sad because I really thought like I was going down this road where I could like do theater or I could do concerts. You know, I just really wanted to be a tech. Stay in there, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I was the same person, you know? And that didn't work out. And so after that, you know, was kind of when I started really getting more into like activism and the punk scene and like doing that kind of thing. And I was doing Food Not Bombs, which is like this organization where you go and get food that can't be sold to like the public. Like like bruised bananas and this kind of day old meatballs and things like that. And I was feeding or making food for the household folks two times a week for like three years. Oh, wow. Where was this in Florida? In Orlando. Yeah, in Orlando, yeah. So we were doing that. And that was interesting because, you know, you kind of have to learn how to cook in a way with stuff that you might not have. Yeah, yeah. You don't know. So it's very, it was very iron chef style. Emporized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that ended up leading me to going to a culinary school. Oh my God. So I wasn't even expecting to talk about that. So you went from there then to culinary school? Yeah, I think I always had a love for food. My mom's an amazing cook, you know, home cook. And yeah, it just was like, oh my gosh, I think this is something that I wanna do. Of course, my mom does not want this for me. I'm like, please pay for me to go to culinary school. It's like, no, like I don't want, you know. And then I ended up coming to Portland in like 2000 to move my best friend here at that time and had food, you know, at a restaurant. And I was like, this salad has hazelnuts and pears and blue cheese on it. And I'm like, my mind's being blown because my salad in Orlando is like shredded cheddar and like two croutons and I don't know, some white-ass iceberg lettuce, right? And like some white tomatoes that are not right. You're totally right. Right, and so I'm like, what is the salad? This is like mind blowing. And I was like, well, I wanna, like I should move here if I wanna go, you know, I went to culinary school. Like the food here is amazing. So yeah, I was either like, you know, moved to New York or LA, right? Or Portland, like, I mean, but it was like accessible and it was punk and it felt underground and it felt like... Still kinda does. Yeah, and it's like, felt like the community of people that I kinda wanted to be around, right? And because I knew I was like, you know, very creative person. So I ended up moving to Portland and going to Le Cordon Bleu to get my like business hospitality management thing because I knew that, you know, I wouldn't be able to get a job at a restaurant in like a higher paying position. Or if I wanted to open my own restaurant, I should probably know how to do that part too. Yeah, so I ended up moving here and going to school for that. Lo and behold, my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, got a job at a local screen printing shop and the guy that owns that shop was famous for making that mean people suck sticker. Yeah, I know what that is. Yeah. It's like the smiley face. Mean people suck sticker? Yeah, that was him. He was like, we made a lot of those stickers. Yeah. At the time, Andy was doing T-shirts and stickers and posters and had like a limited edition toy store also. Like he was doing that giant robot heyday vibes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was doing a lot of stuff and eventually he was just started, wanted to sell off the different parts of the business. So we kind of got the flat stock part. So then we opened up the screen printing shop called Seizure Palace in 2007. Seizure Palace? Seizure Palace. Seizure? I know. It's a silly name. It's a name of- That's great. I don't forget. Well, the thing is it's like one of those names where like people are like, excuse me? Oh. They think I'm saying Seizure Palace. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I have to spell the word seizure about a hundred times in a day. It's still going. It's still going. Yeah, totally. So 12 years now doing that. And so we do, we specialize in flat stock. So we do custom art prints, record covers sometimes, and movie posters. So we've been doing that forever. Wow. Which is really awesome. And having like a mom and pop type business with my partner and- That's amazing. Yeah, it's really cool. I'm surprised we haven't killed each other at this point. Like backing up just a little bit because I'm really fascinated by the trajectory that you took. And so doing the corn blue and do that sort of thing. Did you, growing up, wake with your family, influences, friends, other people? Did they have also this sort of- You know, my mom has like a really, kind of has like a hustler spirit. Yeah. She just is like a really hard worker and she was a nurse. She would work these 12 hour shifts, you know, but to make extra money, she would like make Thai food and package them up and then sell them to like the nurses and the doctors at the hospital because they were so sick of eating the food of the cafeteria. And then when we lived in Chicago, she would go to like the Vietnamese part of town and go to the gold shops there and like hustle good prices on gold chains and then bring those and sell them at the hospital too. Like my mom was like- Wait, your mom, this is amazing. Your mom's selling gold and Thai food. To nurses and doctors. Can you smell what he's doing? I smelled it about five minutes ago and I was like, I was gonna turn around and I'd be like, because you know- I'll find out, Jack, how close are you to the drinks? Well, I'm just playing with the garnish and the drinks are ready. Oh, the drinks are ready. He's just playing with the garnish. It smells so good. Yeah, it smells so good. All right, Jack, what are we drinking? Oh, well, I have a very lovely drink called Hado Earth. Served in a globe with a tree on top. I see it now. I thought it was like a prop but now I realize I'm gonna drink that. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God. There's even a straw and stuff. So we've got fresh mandarin juice. Sam Pellegrino makes a entrant into the spirit world by making an aperitivo. So it's a non-alcoholic version of compari. Oh, foreign. And then you've got a Finaman's Tonic. They're a pink grapefruit with terpenes from House of Cultivar. Oh my God. House of Cultivar. Yeah. This is gonna be the fanciest drink I've ever had. Do you know what House of Cultivar is? I don't. I don't. It sounds awesome. Whatever it is, I'm buying it. I know. Like, welcome to the House of Cultivar. Sure, they were good. That sounds good. Welcome to the House of Cultivar. Non-alcoholic. It's a load of no-A-B-V. Yeah, give props to you. But it's fantastic. So underneath here is a bruleed mandarin. Do I get to eat that? Yes, you do. Do I eat it before or after? Oh. Whenever you want. Oh. I don't know why. This is like the fanciest drink I've ever seen in my life. I could not even. Like, where do you even get this, like, alchemy set for, I mean, for once in my speeches? Like, are we both? Can't talk right after? Like, keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. Keep talking, keep talking. Oh my gosh. All right. What is this? What's the branch? That's a little bit of, what is it, yellow cypress? Lemon cypress. Lemon cypress. All right. Well, are we going to cheers? Yeah, yeah. Do you just do cheers? I mean, I'm holding with both hands because I'm terrified of dropping this thing. Salute. I don't know. Cheers. That sounds good. Yeah, we don't care. Cheers. Do you get it on camera? I bet it does. So, when you drink it like that, you should call the drink the creeper. Because you are totally looking at her through the bush. The creeper? Yeah. You run now an agency. When I took a look at it, there's so many different things that you do in the agency. It's not just print work. It looks like there's digital work. There's, like, sort of marketing, full marketing agency type of thing. I mean, it's a lot going on, so I'll try to explain it a little bit. So, I think in the sense of being a creative person and dipping my hands in so many things or wanting to try so many things, I am trying to sort of lift the communities that I'm around all the time in Portland. So we're talking mostly creatives of color, queer folks and women, and kind of trying to adhere a social justice framework to what I'm doing. So it's kind of being tapped into this really amazing creative community and trying to use my platform, especially as, like, a non-black person of color to lift these folks, right? So everything's done with a lot of intention. Even me making content that is actually just the people, like, it is just our story. It is just our lives. And maybe it's actually not really that special in the context of the world, but we don't see it. I know. I don't need it to be for the context of the world, necessarily. Yeah. And so, you know, just even recently I got to speak at PSU, which is Portland State University. Yeah. And they invited me to come do a thing called a show and tell. Yeah. And I spoke, and I just, you know, I've never done a presentation before. I don't know how many slides equals 45 minutes. I'm, like, guessing. I, like, stayed up until two in the morning making this keynote presentation, then I found out that you could do animation, then was, like, setting everything on fire, you know, like, it was just kind of a mess, but kind of, like, queued in its own way. And so I go to do this presentation. And the room is pretty full. There's probably, like, 75 people there. And I finished talking. I think that I did a pretty good job of engaging folks. And I kind of wish I was a little bit less nervous because I think it could have been even funnier. Yeah, yeah. But it was just, it's kind of... But they're, like, rooting for you no matter what. Yeah, totally. Like, you get up there, yeah. Yeah. And so then at the very end, I have a couple people waiting in line to talk to me. And there's this amazing kid, and he's, like, you know, I live in Seattle. I've been in Portland for two months trying to find a place to live and find work. But I do, like, tech stuff. And I really want to move into a more creative vibe. And so I came here today, actually, because your name on the fly for this event is in Thai, and I'm Thai. And he's, like, I came here because it's, like, I came and saw you talk. And I have never seen or heard a Thai person talking about being a creative person before. So I could completely resonate with that kid, right? Yeah. And then right afterwards, I did a little, like, hangout with the Kama kids, which is the BIPOC graphic designer kids in Portland. In Portland. Yeah. Yeah. At PSU specifically. Okay. So when it comes to being a first generation American kid, they all want to talk about that experience. And almost like everybody's kind of talking at me, because everybody is just so excited that there's, like, this person that is talking about something that resonates with them. And they even said, like, most of the time when we come to these show and tells, like, they rarely ever have a person on this that's brown or black either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So I think out of that one speaking engagement, it definitely made me feel like my words mean something, taking up that space means something, and it's important. And I feel like way less nervous about doing stuff like this now, because I just know that someone's going to see this. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And really be able to connect with what it is that I'm doing and what I'm saying. So that feels really great. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, basically, you know, I can produce events. I've actually been getting hired a lot by local nonprofits and, like, to kind of make their parties a little bit more exciting. Because who's been to like a nonprofit gala or option or, you know, it's like, but actually I did one on Wednesday night for the Women's Foundation of Oregon. And they hired me to do this amazing, like sort of all of branch event, because they hadn't done one in a couple years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, so it's like, you know, we had a self-care station. We had tarot card reading. We had a chair massage. We had DJs. We had bands. We had a professional, like, headshot pop-up station, because I'm like, everybody gets those photos at parties where it's like a fuzzy mustache. And like, what are you going to do with that photo after? Right? So I'm like, all these women are going to come to this event. Let's get them a photo they can use on their LinkedIn or whatever, right? Yeah, for sure. So actually taking something back with you. And we even offered free childcare, too. In the 15 years that I've lived in Portland, I had not really been in a room where there was like 60-year-old white ladies and like 23-year-old non-binary black fems hanging out in a space where it didn't feel weird. Everybody was just chilling and having the best time, right? And we were raising money for a really good cause. And so yeah, that's kind of what I try to do in everything that I curate. And I love curation also, so I'm always trying to be really intentful with what I'm doing. So yeah, so it's music videos, it's photo shoots, it's events. Everything you're doing, did you just tack on different things like as they became necessary or like somebody offered you like, hey, I know you only do this, but could you do this creative thing for us as well? And then you would do it? Or are there things that you loved and then you just pitch yourself and get out to the market? It's just basically like me knowing people that need stuff. Like I can see my friends working at whatever it is that they're doing and seeing that they don't have access or money or the privilege to be able to make things for themselves. And then out of that, then comes like the talent management side. And so it's not necessarily like models and actors and this kind of thing, but it is like crew. It's videographers, it's DPs, it's Gaffers, it's Grip, it's art directors. So do you have a crew that I mean, I guess you don't necessarily you hire them out that they're not like beholden. You're like, no, no, no, no, let me hire them out to the masses in the Northwest. But do people come to you for that type of? Like, hey, I'm looking for a Gaffer. Hey, I'm looking for somebody. Well, that's the idea. So this is what's happening. So in Portland right now, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, DEI is very like trending. Yeah. Everybody wants to now be like, OK, I want to make my workforce a bit more diverse and blah, blah, blah. And so this is what's going to happen. So people are doing DEI work now. By the way, I love the way you just said that, which is even better. Yeah. Like, this is what's going to happen. This is what's going to happen. Not like, here's the plan or here's the idea. No, no, no, no, this is what's happening. This is what's going to happen. I'll preface this with the fact that most of my life, I've basically felt like I've been living in the future. Like, I'm constantly like, I'm not here right now. I'm not even here right now. Oh. This is out weird, huh? You're like, wait a minute, what's happening? I'm not even here right now. I'm not here right now. You just keep drinking that. Yeah, I'm going to drink this. Everybody now is going to sign up for their DEI consultation. They're going to try to be more aware of all the things that are going to happen. And, you know, maybe in the next year, two or three, people then, that information hopefully will actually start seeping in, right? And people will actually start unpacking their and start figuring things out, how to make their communities better and support communities of color and, you know, all these things. So once that happens, they're going to be like, huh, where are all the creators of color that are the DPs and the editors and the makeup artists and the stylists and the prop people, right? Where, where are they? Where, like, okay, now that we're supposed to hire these people, where are they? I'm going to be like, they're right here. So my idea is that I'll charge like a 20% agency fee, just like any other handling the contract, scheduling, doing all the things, right? That's amazing. But here's the radical part. So when I was doing research for writing that grant to make that film, I like realized, oh, Asian women make 70 cents on the dollar. But I thought a really good idea for the talent management side would be then, if you wanted to hire that person, that I would tack on that percentage as an extra fee to kind of make that pay gap more equitable. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also that client showing up as an ally and actually putting their money where their mouth is. And actually- That is radical part. Participating in it in this other way. It's a lot of this sort of like future thinking, kind of like trying to think like, how can I build this community? Like what does it look like if you signed on to be a part of my agency and I got you know your rights training, maybe a self-defense class, you know, maybe some radical financial literacy. Then you have- Yeah, so it's a lot of us kind of pitching in and like kind of putting our best foot forward and saying we want to lead with best practices. We want to be intentional. We want to be thoughtful and we want to be authentic about what it is that we're doing. And so yeah, I mean it's like, I don't have to worry about my work not being great because it's going to be great regardless. Because it can't not be because of all the different lenses that are a part of making it. There's a lot of writers, a lot of artists, a lot of musicians. They all say the same thing. When somebody asks them, hey, how can I do what you do? How can I become a writer? How can I become? And a lot of times they'll say, it's like they're selling the negative. Let's say if you can do anything else, do it. Because this is not easy. Yeah, it's not easy. And I know that, yeah, I struggle it's up and down. There was like a moment where I had a friend kind of give me some tough love and I was like, I actually, I did start crying because it was hard to hear. She was just like, your cart's a little bit in front of your horse. You're making all this really beautiful content. You're making these music videos, you're doing all this stuff. But you don't even really have a solidified mission statement written. You don't really have XYZ, these things that you kind of need as like the foundation. And so I feel like maybe I got it out of my system a little bit last year. And then this year, like I said, it will be much, much more business forward. I'm hoping that it doesn't stay like that forever. I'm hoping that I find a radical business person that loves negotiating and writing contract. I hope I find that person. You're like, welcome aboard. I don't wanna do it. I just don't wanna do it. But I have to do it and obviously it's better if I learn how to do those things too, right? It'll just be a puzzle piece until I figure it out. But I definitely feel like I absolutely 100% know that it's completely valid for me to take up that space, especially in Portland. I just know that I'm on the verge of something that can be really impactful and really amazing and really community driven. And it's like, if I can smash all of those worlds together, right? The creative stuff and also like the social justice work part of it, like in the community organizing. I couldn't have asked for a better job. I basically, I'm just trying to create my own magical job because no one will hire me to do this job, right? So I have to make my own job. I mean, that's really what it goes down to. Well, it sounds like you've been able to mash a lot of that up and it's just seeing like where it goes and how it grows. I think it's amazing. Yeah, it's great. Thank you so much. Cheers. Let's cheers again. Cheers. Thanks. Fran, thank you for being on the show. I love everything we were talking about. I especially love the type of work that you're doing and who you're doing it for. Struck in court with me. If you want to see more stuff like this, then ring the bell, subscribe, click the buttons. And if you have your own, or story or recovery that you want to talk about, go to fups.com. We would love to have you on the show.