YUCK!

WRITTEN BY

JACKIE DEBLASE

ILLUSTRATION BY

LEYNA NGUYEN

“Originally, YUCK! was me and Sammie,” Kat Nunez begins, looking over to her co-host, Sammie Cortes.

“We’ve known each other since high school, and I’ve always wanted to do radio. When Sammie transferred, I was like, ‘OK, we finally have to do this’ because I didn’t wanna do it alone, and Sammie has good music taste.”

Kat has called Cal State Long Beach home since their freshman year, waiting for the moment when all the pieces would fall into place. So, when Sammie officially became a shark after transferring from Long Beach Community College, dreams of starting their own radio show, once tossed around during girls’ night, started to take root.

“Yeah, so I transferred in, and I was at orientation and we were just in a big lecture hall,” Sammie Cortes said.

“At COB,” Janice Diaz adds excitedly, like she knows where this story is going.

“Yeah, at the College of Business,” Sammie continues, “I was talking to the guy next to me and it was kind of like a snooze fest,” Janice laughs at this, supporting Sammie in her conclusion that this guy was in fact snooze central, “I was getting a little bored.” through 22 West Media Radio.

Now, V.I.P passes for YUCK! are on sale, and luckily, we’re first in line.

“So, I turned to the person next to me who looked a lot cooler,” Sammie trails off, looking towards Janice.

“And it was me!” Janice says, a smile pasted on her face, while they all giggle in reminiscence. “I didn’t know anyone there, so I was just like I’m just gonna follow [her], she looks like a cool person.”

“And from then, it was just kind of natural to add Janice because we were all like best friends,” Sammie said looking over to her co-hosts.

“So, our second semester, Janice came on, and I think since then YUCK! has been at its peak.”

They were brought together by fate, forging their own path of artistic expression and musical remedies. Now, whether it be fate or determination, Sammie Cortes, Kat Nunez, and Janice Diaz have found their own version of Nirvana in the joyous birth of their radio show, YUCK!

In the studio, YUCK! invites emerging bands or solo artists to chat about their sound, what inspires them, and epic performance stories. From 2-3 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, they offer a backstage pass into the minds of their talented guests

A ‘Fitting’ Trinity, Fangirls with a Dream Mondays, we students all know it as the most dreaded weekday.

We start hitting refresh on our school checklists, sluggishly make our way to campus or stop for an espresso loaded pick-me-up to make it through the day. Meanwhile, YUCK! has already begun preparing for a day full of uploading, soundchecks, interviews, and much needed debriefs.

And of course, a Caesar salad from The Nugget for lunch is a must have for these girls.

Even with proper equipment right at their fingertips, there is no doubt YUCK! wouldn’t have the same vibrant, retro elegance without the brain and hearts of Kat, Janice, and Sammie.

Always looking to expand YUCK!’s creativity is Kat Nunez, 21. A 4th year marketing major and a public relations minor, and as creative director, Kat builds posts for the show’s Instagram — and might I say, they did a fantastic job on the posts for season 3!

A 4th year communications major and public relations minor, Janice Diaz, 21, fills the role as YUCK!’s dedicated research ‘girlie.’

“Janice has been known to dig up information that we didn’t even know was on the internet,” Sammie said with pure astonishment while Kat and Janice laughed.

Lastly, but most definitely not least, is Sammie Cortes, 21. She is a 4th year journalism major with a marketing minor who maintains the operations of YUCK!. When contacting prospective artists or managers, Sammie takes the lead as the quill of YUCK!.

Three lively characters, each with a different vision board, and yet they all share magnetic traits tying them together. It was clear from the beginning, that to earnestly pursue their own radio show, becoming one collective brain cell was key to perfecting their digital platform.

Though, knowing these spirited individuals, that part came easy.

“We’re always on FaceTime,” Janice told me.

“Or just together,” Kat added.

“We’ll just be in a little circle, just on our laptops,” said Janice.

“Block[ing] everybody out, [it’s] just us three,” Kat said, smiling.

Personalized quips, inside jokes, seasoned laughter, and darling memories bounce between them as they remember the lifetime of YUCK!.

Their unnoticeable moments move like white-water rapids, from functional chit-chat to comic babbling, like one of those inflatable crowd spheres — you know, those giant orbs tossed out to the audience at music festivals or concerts — bouncing across a sea of people, sparks of joy electrifying you as the orb grazes your fingertips.

YUCK! holds an atmosphere of vulnerability for each other, leaving no one to tackle a problem alone, even if it’s just proper wording for an email.

“I think that nothing in YUCK! is fully independent,” Sammie said. “Everything needs a cosign, that’s what we’ve always called it. Decisions aren’t made by just one person because that’s just not how we work.” and two blew by, pushing them to realize perfect timing and a fleeting opportunity was falling into their laps.

“Very early on we were just not serious at all, Kat said. “We would just post memes on our page and call it a day.”

“I was a fan, I was a fan,” Janice said, trying to revitalize some season one appreciation.

It was clear from the start, and from Kat’s eye-catching designs, that interviewing bands and musicians gave them true creative flow.

For Kat, radio was always their end goal, but for Sammie and Janice, they never imagined enjoying the entertainment industry as much as they do now. They never imagined YUCK! would light a roaring fire underneath them.

“We kept hearing people and radio tell us that they saw potential in what we had going on, and for a while we kind of just shrugged it off,” Sammie began to tell me.

“I guess there was some shift,” Kat added, “when we were like, ‘Okay, we actually could do something with this and be a little bit more serious,’ and I think that started out with our first artist, right?”

Pleasure Pill, a San Diego based band with a static rock sound, was their first band interview of season 2, and, to quote Sammie, the band that “started it all”, allowing them to unleash their visionary ideas.

That first interview changed the DNA coursing through YUCK!’s veins, revealing the path towards

Ian Cobiella, followed Pleasure Pill in season 2.

“I think we were all fangirls growing up,” Sammie said about the concept of YUCK!, “[and] the signs were kind of there, like we just were fangirls of bands. So, I think this is just kind of perfect.”

So, of course, YUCK! kept setting up interviews. One of their favorite solo artists and human beings,

‘Walking’ on Yuck!’s Wavelength

Each member of YUCK! holds a unique reservoir of potential, but when they come together, their abilities converge, forming a galaxy of stars.

Hints of purple beam through the darkness from Sammie.

Green streaks flow across the cosmos, brushstrokes from Kat and her gentle, creative hand.

Pops of magenta burst to life because of Janice, the missing puzzle piece completing their novel concept.

Together, these three fangirls continuously discover their potential through the universe of YUCK!

So, with nothing more than a fully-fledged idea, a digital camera, and a mic, Kat made their way down to 22 West Media — a student publication at CSULB — in hopes their YUCK!iest dreams would come true.

“I met the ex-general manager,” Kat began, “He was like you guys came at such a perfect time because him and his boss were talking about [how] we just need entertainment music people, and he was like you fell right into our laps.”

As avid radio-listeners may know, radio offers this unique feeling of nostalgia, especially for YUCK!’s generational audience. It can best be described as lying in the backseat of your mom’s BMW with manual windows and scalding hot leather seats, as she turns the radio up loud. It is here where YUCK! feels right at home.

“I think radio is a lot more intimate than a podcast,” Sammie added, “You can only listen to it once and there’s something special about having people tune in to listen to you.”

“[It’s] authentic,” Janice chimed in behind her.

“Anyone can do what we do,” Sammie began, “We have something special, but we started off with nothing basically. We didn’t really know anyone; we didn’t have any strong connections. We had a digital camera and a mic.”

Thinking back to the beginning brought the softest laughter out of them. Sammie begins again, “A film camera, a mic —”

“— And a dream,” Kat added, finishing the thought with her.

“And a dream,” Sammie said contently.

‘Disorganized’ Perfection: A backstage Pass to YUCK!

With season four broaching the horizon, one project in particular has them very eager for what’s to come. Excitement radiated from Janice and Sammie’s smiles, with pure bliss covering Kat from head to toe, it was enough to even get me excited.

“Aw, it’s so good!” Kat began to say.

“I guess since we all love live shows,” Kat said, “we were like, ‘Okay, what if we got something deeper out of this?’ I was like, ‘Okay, what if we just do Backstage Diaries?’

To get the ball rolling, aforementioned favorite interviewee, Ian Cobiella, was the first to say yes.

“We recorded it, [and] we loved it,” Kat said, “Basically, we just take the artist, record them at sound check, interview them, we get to interview his managers, his opener as well, and just basically get a closer look into setting up for a concert.”

“His [Ian’s] was super fun and he was really open to letting us go, basically, follow him around with a camera,” Janice added. “And he had his at a church, which was also super cool.”

Though the labor and preparation of it all is grueling, it gave them something more.

“It’s so fulfilling,” Sammie began. “After our last Backstage Diaries, I remember leaving the venue and thinking, ‘I could do this forever.’”

“Yeah!” Erupted from both Janice and Kat, their mind’s wavelengths finding perfect synchronicity.

And if having Ian Cobiella wasn’t momentous enough, Pleasure Pill, the very first band they interviewed on YUCK!, couldn’t resist the insider offer either.

“It was so cool to revisit the artist that basically started it all for us,” Sammie said.

With or without YUCK! — though I think we’d all prefer with — what they have seems to be written in the stars. An exciting journey with Backstage Diaries, fantasies of press passes, flights to New York City, and a plethora of YUCK!ffirmations — if you imagined the flame of a candle and a computer screen illuminating their faces as they manifest their biggest wishes onto a google sheet, then you nailed it on the head — are little fires leading them down the path everyone chases: enduring love for what you create.

“My mom literally tells me all the time,” Janice began, “‘I’m so proud of you,’ because I used to be so shy. YUCK! really helped me expand a lot more and talk to people and also just meeting them two has been awesome.”

If you ask me, this friendship seems sewn together by an invisible string.

“I think being in YUCK! has given me more confidence,” Sammie said, “because I know the two of these people believe in me and what I can do and I believe in them full-heartedly,”

“Cosign to what they said, for sure,” Sammie added.

“Cosign!” Kat and Janice say in unison.