By|Bryan Donoghue
Sandwiched between school and life, Albert Bernales makes time to record podcast’s on his talk show called “Bread Talk”. Topics range anywhere from food to money, encompassing the word “bread”. Before the interview, Bernales, the host of Bread Talk, sat me down and made me a grilled cheese sandwich with my favorite type of bread, sweet Hawaiian rolls. Bernales made “Bread Talk” because he wanted to create a show of his own. Using it as a creative outlet, his voice now goes out to the Humboldt community.
Q: To start us off, what’s your name and major?
A: My name is Albert Bernales, my alias for Bread Talks is “Sandwich Kid”. I’m a business major with an economics minor.
Q: What’s your favorite type of bread and why?
A: It would probably be sourdough, because as you dip it in soups, it tastes really good. Not all things are going to be sweet, there will be some sour things that will happen. I think sourdough represents life.
Q: So you could be the “Sourdough Sandwich Kid”. Why did you decide to make a podcast and call it “Bread Talk”?
A: I decided to make a podcast just for fun. I was listening to people like Jimmy Fallon and all those late night talk shows. They kind of inspired me, because they’re just talking to somebody, but it’s still really fun and interesting. That’s one reason why, and as soon as I started listening to podcasts, I realized “this is pretty easy, I can do this”. I called it Bread Talks because it grabs your attention. I’m pretty interested in business, but it lets me talk about other things. I can just pull up some articles I’m interested in and talk about them.
Q: What is Bread Talk? Do you talk about bread, money, or everything in between?
A: Definitely about all things bread, like the physical bread we have here, this sweet Hawaiian bread. It also goes into money, that’s where the business aspect of this podcast comes in. A lot of rappers inspired me, like E-40. He said, “I choose to get money, I’m stuck to this bread,” in his song “Choices”. Definitely talk about the rap culture and community, since they tend to rap about money, and stuff, like bread. But there’s definitely another meaning, such as bread as in food, because I love food and cooking as well.
Q: Food and money seem to be two universally appreciated topics. Everyone wants to talk about, and listen into both of these subjects. In your fifth podcast, one topic you were talking about was the change in iPhone headphones from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 7, and how that’s affecting people today. Which subject does that fall under?
A: That’s pretty business related. They took a risk in their products, and I think people need to take more bold risks. It’s really appreciated for when they take those risks. It takes a lot of guts to do that.
Q: Where do you record?
A: First time we recorded in an actual studio in Gist Hall, but for the second and third time we got a headphone microphone that comes with the iPhone and put it on top of an empty water bottle, and spoke into the bottle. We literally had no options for episode 2-4. You can hear the difference on Soundcloud, it’s either really loud and clear, or not.
Q: Is Soundcloud the main media outlet you use to put out your podcasts?
A: Yeah, definitely, it’s the first thing that popped up to me, and it’s a great way to get your voice out there.
Q: And Bread Talk is a continuing series. You have your own following of listeners.
A: Definitely always shout out to the listeners, we love them. We at Bread Talk definitely have come a long way, from a recording standpoint, from iPhone microphones, to studio microphones, and I now record on the library microphone. So, shout out to the digital media lab too. They have all the snowball microphones I use. I can just plug it into the computer and record a podcast whenever I need to.
Q: When does the new Bread Talk come out?
A: It was originally supposed to come out every single week, but we were really busy, so it eventually became every month. Then every month became every couple of months. But I have extra podcasts stored on my laptop, I just have to add the intro music and I’ll be able to upload it. For the show, I made the intro music Entertainment Tonight, but on a keyboard.
Q: You still have a few episodes in a storage vault, but they’re ready to come out?
A: We have number 2, but that’s a lost episode, since we don’t know where to find it. It was on my friends flash drive but I didn’t get the file. But since it’s a lost episode, let the idea of it marinate in your mind for how good it’s going to be. This is a comedy type of show, you know. It is super spontaneous, you don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the next Bread Talk.
Q: It’s really interesting that you decided to take that approach.
A: I have an article here to highlight the next Bread Talk actually. Here’s the teaser, it’s about a “master pickle tester.” Basically, there’s a person who eats pickles for a living to determine the quality. That’s the article that I chose to talk about in the next podcast.
Q: You have plenty of guests on your show, but in terms of subject matter, is it just being spontaneous? How do you prepare before for what questions you’d want to ask?
A: Definitely, in my head, I find an interesting topic. So I go on the internet, and find a couple of articles that are interesting. We’ll talk about it, and do an analysis on that article. For the questions that I ask, they’re typically solid but typically the same through every episode. And at the end, I have quick fire questions, where it’s like fill in the blank. I switch those up every single episode.
Q: I noticed you have your Bread Talks listed by number, but some are also categorized by words, how do you come up with these?
A: They are the focus, and central theme of each episode. Like the one that’s under “ninja—no income, no job”, that originated from a friend of mine who works on these with me. He had a finance class, and ninja was a term they discussed. So I asked if he just wanted to leave it as Bread Talk Number 5, and he said to add ninja.
Q: Ninjas and economics together, that’s an unusual combination. Do you know what ninja means?
A: Ninja pretty much means no job, or no assets. So pretty much if you don’t have any money, you won’t have a job or anything valuable. And vise versa.
Q: You have a sandwich, or just any meal that involves bread with your guests before or during an interview. For my last question, a spontaneous one on my part, why do you eat with your guests along with the bread talk?
A: Well I try to always have bread. This is Bread Talk after all. You’re going to want some bread, and eat it with your guests. That’s a true Bread Talk.
