(bright music) - Hi, and thank you for joining us for another edition of Kansas City Experience.

I'm Catherine Hoffman.

Coming up this month on KCX, we find out how making spices has opened up new opportunities for one local teen.

- [Woman] It's never too early to teach them life skills.

- [Catherine] We stop into Thelma's kitchen and find out how they're using food to improve mental health.

- [Man] The core of what we do is not just handing things out.

That is a means of building relationship, where we then have the privilege to be able to walk with somebody who's going through a mental health crisis.

- [Catherine] Just as houseplants help filter the air in your home, trees play a crucial role in absorbing carbon dioxide outside.

We see how one organization is combating climate change, one tree at a time.

- [Woman] Larger trees are providing more benefits.

So we would like to see more trees saved versus more trees planted, right?

If we can find the happy medium between both and have that upward curve of canopy growth.

- [Catherine] We find out how a local woman improved her health and had fun while doing it, and how she hopes to spread the word of hoop.

Plus, we get a 90.9 The Bridge out-of-studio performance from Illiterate Light and Devon Gilfillan.

- I said freedom.

- Through the window.

- Overtake me.

- I saw the man I can be.

- But first up this month, we learn a bit about NFTs and find out how a local filmmaker broke new ground with his film, Lotawana.

- So how do you plan on taking care of me when we get older, Mr. Lake man.

- I thought you were going to take care of me.

- So Lotawana is based and set on the real life Lake Lotawana, where I live.

I'm at home right now.

(laughing) And it deals with a lot of the themes that I was exploring at the time I wrote the film.

And it's essentially about a young couple that is kind of not satisfied with maybe the art, the artificial, superficial life that they were living and decided to reinvent themselves out on a sailboat and kind of cast the old world aside, and maybe a bit of because of their lack of preparedness the world kind of crashes down on them.

And so the whole movie is sort of this thought experiment to the viewer of: can we rewrite our own rules of modern existence or does society operate the way it does for a reason?

And it's very much based in, a buddy of mine and I were going to sail around the world, and what happened was, as we were preparing for the trip and realizing that this trip was going to be several years long, I realized that it was going to come at the sacrifice of all this momentum I had been building with my production company Mammoth, and becoming a filmmaker and all that.

And I cared so much more about becoming a filmmaker than sailing around the world.

And it was just this weird moment in my life where these, like, young idealistic dreams had to, like, the rubber had to meet the road somewhere where I had to, like, figure out if they were worth hanging onto or should I just sort of, like, bury the hatchet in, like, a, a future.

I guess what I mean in, like, a more typical sense.

'Cause now I have a son.

We have a young family, and it's fun to dream and it's fun to, like, like, throw caution to the wind.

But at some point you have to take care of yourself.

And so it's just this really interesting unique interface between these competing ideas that I've, I've wrote the movie around.

(somber chiming music) - Oh, we'll figure it out.

- [Interviewer] What I really liked, Trev, was the Terrence Malick influence.

Am I wrong there?

Is, is this guy a champion of yours?

The photography is amazing.

I saw a lot of, like, Tree of Life, Terrence Malick.

- Man, That's a huge compliment.

And thank you so much.

Obviously, if anyone's seen any of the movie, he is a huge influence of mine.

You nailed it on the head there.

Tree of Life is my favorite movie of all time.

(dramatic music) - [Woman whispering] Your life will flash by.

- [Trevor] And this whole movie is sort of a love letter to his style.

(laughing) Hopefully it's not ripping it off too much because I love the guy so much, but I, you, you nailed it, man.

That's exactly what I was going for.

And that's a huge compliment that you would even put me in the same ballpark.

(engine roaring) (guitar strumming) - [Man] I once believed that no man can own land anymore than a tree squirrel can.

- [Interviewer] It says it right on your website: It's the first NFT movie, exclamation point.

Okay, so my friend, explain for all of us dummies out there, explain from kind of the bottom of what NFTs mean and what this means to your movie and kind of the future of media in general.

- Sure, sure, sure.

So don't feel like a dummy if it's difficult to understand because it is quite difficult to understand, and I've been dealing with this for a few weeks now, and I still feel like I barely have a grasp on it.

It's a lot of it's really counterintuitive, but just like we made the movie in a very unorthodox way and kind of just did what felt right, this kind of feels right too.

Like I said, we just were, we had an indie film that was recently finished.

And what had happened was, is Tucker Adams, one of the guys on our production team, he told us about, "Hey what if we just thought outside the box, and what if we released this movie on this new NFT thing that everyone's talking about?"

So sure enough, we looked it up, read some articles and decided to take the leap.

And now we are pioneers on a new frontier.

Somehow we are the first film of all time to premiere and sell via NFTs on the blockchain.

I didn't even know what most of those words meant, like, two weeks ago.

And so what we've been doing is releasing the film this way, sort of creating a case study in real time of a different way to get a movie out into the world.

So we're sort of, like, creating a new way to distribute a film.

And what we're doing on top of that is trying to discover a new path for sustainable artists in the filmmaking community.

So any artist in any industry can tell you that it's pretty tough to make a living with your art and keep your soul intact.

And so the way these NFTs work is you can set a commission.

Any time one of your NFT sells that you get a 10% kickback anytime it changes hands, straight to the artist.

And so what that does is it really opens up a door to this new possibility of artists being able to sustain themselves, just off of their artwork alone.

The way NFTs work is, without getting too technical and wordy, are you familiar with the way, are you familiar with the movie Ready Player One?

- [Boy] My name's Wade Watts.

My dad picked that name because it sounded like a super hero's alter ego.

Like Peter Parker or Bruce banner.

- [Trevor] Yeah, so the idea of that movie, for anyone who doesn't know, is that the real world that these people live in is not that cool.

It's not that nice.

They kind of live in cruddy run-down places, but they can put on their VR goggles and go live in a digital world and be whatever they want, whenever they want.

- [Wade] Accept the OASIS (zapping) (high intensity buzzing) A whole virtual universe.

- [Trevor] From what I understand, the NFT marketplace kind of arose out of the digital-sphere, where just like in Ready Player One, people are purchasing digital real estate, and now they're purchasing original digital art, as NFT, to hang inside these digital rooms that they've purchased.

And the reason why any of it matters is, for artists like me, is because throughout time the history of art if you were an artist, like let's just take, like if Dalí were to paint a painting, Dalí would then have a painting in his hand and he could take it to an art buyer.

He could take it to a showroom or anywhere and he would be able to physically hand that art to somebody else, and they could quantify its worth by the market at that point.

They'd be like "this is the one painting that somebody, that Dalí painted, and now I have it.

And you pay me this much for it."

In the age of digital art, whenever there is no original art, if I were to take a digital piece of art, like say if I made a cat meme or took a photograph or something, I would put it on the internet and then it could be reproduced an infant, an infinite number of times.

And so it's really hard to know to attach the artwork to the artist and the way the blockchain works, from what I understand is, there's only one blockchain and it's verifiable across all these computers across the entire world.

And if somebody ever tries to go in and tamper with the blockchain or, like, counterfeit it in any sort of way, there's all these alarm systems set up and all these computers will be like, "no, that's wrong."

This is the blockchain here.

It's all sort of a self-correcting system.

And what that's done is just like Dalí made that one painting on a canvas, we can now, as artists, upload our own digital art to the blockchain.

It's called minting.

And when you mint a piece of art to the blockchain, it creates a chunk of code that essentially is irrefutable proof that you were the first person in the world to own and create this piece of art.

So what that does is it opens an entire flood gate to artists around the world.

Nah, hey, I'm a verifiable artist.

I made this piece of digital art that was untraceable before.

Now you can see that I am the one person that made this and this is the original copy.

Yeah.

There's copies out there.

Just like there's millions of copies of the Mona Lisa online, but they're not worth anything.

But the Mona Lisa is worth something 'cause it's the piece of art.

So now digital art can do that too.

Music can do that too.

And enter Lotawana.

Now, Lotawana is one is the first film of all time to ever do that.

And people can actually go onto these NFT marketplaces, buy one of our NFTs, and in addition to owning the NFT, you actually can become an owner in the film itself.

We're actually selling the copyrights to the film via these NFTs as well.

And we're also selling a million other things, but it's, it's exciting.

It's all new.

We're not entirely sure where it's going to go, but we're hanging onto the bridles.

- Are you happy here?

(somber music) - [Man] I am.

(guitar strumming) - I never noticed anything.

I don't know if it was denial or happiness that I had my baby that I wanted.

He was just this chubby, beautiful little boy.

At the age of two, we took him to the doctor and 30 minutes later they told me he was diagnosed with autism.

That he would never talk, be able to really function, to go to school.

He wouldn't be able to function, you know, in life as a normal thriving human being.

(guitar strumming) I love being in the kitchen.

We love baking and cooking and, you know, whatever we're doing we've just always tagged him along with us.

Okay.

Yousef are you ready to cook?

- Cook.

- All right.

We are making chicken and veggie sheet pans with some of Yousef's spices.

What do you want to cut next?

- That.

- Let's cut that.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Would you like to cut orange peppers or orange?

Say orange.

Orange.

Okay, go ahead.

Wonderful job, Yousef.

You're making chicken.

- Chia.

- Chia, chicken, right.

Okay.

There you go.

Bring your bowl right here.

Right?

Cause we're all done cutting.

Do you want to do carrots or onions?

Onions.

Okay.

Dump those in, all of them.

Okay.

Carrots.

You're excited, aren't you?

Carrots and what's next?

Say "broccoli."

Yes.

Over the summer, all of our resources were kind of shut down.

So we had to come up with something that Yousef and I could do to stay busy during this time.

No school, no therapy.

So we were like, you know what?

Let's just try the spice thing.

Him and I have been mixing spices for many years.

Just one in particular, the chicken spice.

We've given it to family and friends, and everybody loves it.

I sent a text to all my siblings.

I was like, "we need help."

"We got to figure out what to call this."

I can't remember what I wanted to call it.

It was something cheesy, you know?

And she texts me back, "Yousef Speaks Spices."

I go, "that's it."

We put it on Facebook, just really thinking family and friends would just reach out.

He fills his spice bottles.

He cleans up.

He, you know, does everything, you know, he's supposed to do.

Labeling, you know, helping to package.

It's never too early to teach them life skills.

And that was the purpose of this.

I wasn't going to accept that Yousef has a diagnosis that's going to keep him from living a productive life.

So tell everybody this is chicken and veggies.

Can you say that?

- Chia.

- Chicken and veggies!

Say "thank you."

- Thank you.

- It's not about spices.

It's not about a business.

I am thankful Yousef is working for his own future, but it's, it's the, these connections that are just so rewarding, to be honest with you.

I can't believe we are where we are.

- A lot of people have poor health outcomes, not because they're not eating, but because the food that they have access to actually is contributing to those negative social determinants of health.

- [Leigh] When we're talking about nutrition and health, just in my observation and even listening to other doctors speak on the topic, you know, we, like, forget that our brain is connected to the rest of our body.

(introspective music) - [Man] So Reconciliation Service is, the core of what we do is not just handing things out, it's really not just about giving away food.

That is a means of building relationship, where we then have the privilege to be able to walk with somebody who's going through a mental health crisis.

(introspective music) We also use the food to address the social determinants of health that actually can prevent or reduced mental health symptoms.

- A Western diet or standard American diet, which we know is a more highly refined, highly processed or ultra processed, would be more highly associated with depression.

Whereas a Mediterranean diet, which I think is a proxy for just, like, a whole foods diet, there's lots of research to suggest that there's lower rates of depression in people who would follow more of that type of a pattern.

- About 70% of the people that came in last year were food insecure.

And during the time of the COVID pandemic, we saw a real spike in need, not just a need for food, but actually in nutritional insecurity.

(introspective music) - When people have food insecurity, they have more stress.

They're going to have less wellbeing.

- Look, food is medicine.

It's a part of our mental health.

It's a part of our bodily health.

And if you don't have access to the food that you need, you're not going to have the kind of healthy life that you can have.

So at Thelma's Kitchen, we decided that we wanted to have vegetarian and vegan and even specialty options available for people.

You can't do that while you're eating at a food pantry very easily.

(introspective music) - All their food is awesome.

I had their chef salad; it's huge.

- So we're a "donate what you can" model.

You can come to the window and donate a minimum of $3 or you can donate the full suggested price for a box lunch, which is $11.

You can even buy tokens that pay it forward for somebody else who doesn't have any money that day.

We want to not just be "Midwestern nice," but we actually want to go beyond that and take care of one another.

And Thelma's Kitchen and all of the operations here at Reconciliation Services are open to people in the community not only to come and to eat, but also to come and volunteer.

(ax smacking the ground) - [Man] Probably the most important is really addressing all of the roots.

- [Woman] Do not be afraid to hack away.

People are always like, you know, it's not a Barbie, it's not a dog.

You can hit it.

(laughing) - [Sarah] Our goals, again, is to create that advocacy, to educate people about the importance of trees, but our vision is stronger communities for healthy trees.

- You ready?

- Yeah.

- [Kate] So we are in Fairlane.

We're planting about 15 trees today.

It's a very important factor in combating climate change is to get new trees, but also these trees are native.

So they are going to help our native pollinators.

They're going to help our native birds.

There's just so many benefits of planting native.

- [Sarah] Between social and environmental, economic, there's a number of benefits.

Trees pull carbon out of the air and they help store it in their woody mass.

They stored it in their, their trunks, their leaves, their stems.

Helps pull and keep that carbon out of our atmosphere.

They're one of the best benefits to combat the Heat Island effect.

The Heat Island effect can be seen on most days when you watch the weather.

Downtown Kansas City is, you know, 78 and out in Olathe, it may only be 65.

And that has to do with reflective services that we have in our built environment.

Again, it's our roofs.

It's our parking lots.

It's impervious surface.

Impervious means where moisture or water doesn't flow through, right?

Trees, however, because of their shading effect, they can decrease the temperature.

They respire, it's called evapotranspiration, where they actually release moisture.

The tree leaves do.

And that moisture is actually what cools the air.

So by planting trees in these hot built urban environments we can reduce that Heat Island effect.

(guitar strumming) 32% of the whole city is covered with canopy.

Think about looking down in the shade that it's providing.

So actually we fared much better than expected, but we do want to see that increase.

We want to see that get to at least 35 and maybe even 38 or 40 over time.

- [Joe] There's only so much space that we can be planting in.

Public spaces like the Right of Way.

The biggest thing that we can be doing in Kansas City is getting more trees on private property.

And so that's going to take lots of engaged, what we call Tree Champions, planting on their own, own yard and in their own neighborhoods.

- [Sarah] What we're combating is tree canopy loss at the same time.

We're also dealing with booming development, new housing and apartment and commercial going into wooded spaces and removing trees.

So we're trying to increase the tree canopy but we're also evaluating the loss of tree canopy.

Larger trees are providing more benefits.

So we would like to see more trees saved versus more trees planted, right?

If we can find the happy medium between both, then we have that upward curve of canopy growth.

The trees we plant today are not for me.

They're going to be for my children and my grandchildren.

We talk about the legacy that they're leaving behind and the community that they're helping build.

- [Sirenna] My blood pressure was really, really, really high.

I tried to pick up and start working out again.

It wasn't working.

Blood pressure still high.

I went to the doctor and he said to me "you need to change your lifestyle."

And the doctor, because my lab work was so messed up, he had made me come back in 60 days.

After the original appointment, he did lab work again, and he came in back into the room with me and said "you've got the cholesterol of an athlete.

What have you been doing?"

And I said, "I've been hula hooping."

(jazzy music) I'm here to spread the word of hoop in Kansas City.

(jazzy music) The greatest amount of joy comes from when you have flow.

And you are one with that hoop.

You are moving to the beat of that hoop.

When you are just in that world, focused only on that.

Not thinking about stress, not thinking about work.

It's you and the hoop.

I just love it.

It just, I feed on it.

It's the energy, the sharing of the joy.

I don't do it because it's a workout.

It was because I discovered it was a workout that created this passion to share it.

(jazzy music) The hoop is a big circle and it's all inclusive.

So everybody is welcome to come find the joy and see what it does for their body, their soul, their life.

- One, two, one, two three... (intro to Freedom) - If I let go.

If I let go.

- Arise, wake up.

Welcome to the moment.

Now who is to thank when it opens?

Alive, a cry, at one with the giver.

As you and the rain enter the river.

Oh, freedom, can you take me?

Oh yeah freedom, overtake me.

- The clouds, the smoke, with your touch it all breaks apart.

And I see the life I've been missing.

Alone, with you, we breathe into each other and you, like a gift, begin to open, yeah.

- Oh freedom.

- If I let go.

- Can you take me?

- Now I can see.

- I said freedom.

- Through the window.

- Overtake me.

- Who I can be.

- I had nothin' left, no dreams or happiness, couldn't catch my breath, everything was meaningless.

And then I saw your light, I saw it fill the night, felt it deep inside.

I close my eyes and I swear I found freedom.

If I let go.

- Can you take me?

- I saw the man that I can be.

- Oh yeah, freedom.

- Through the window.

- Overtake me.

- I can't believe I couldn't see.

- I said freedom.

- If I let go.

- Can you take me?

- Now I can see.

- I said freedom.

- Through the window.

- Overtake me.

- Who I can be.

(outro) (music fades)