My next guest understands doing the radio thing first. Because Wendy Korea, she's a writer, a yogi. She's worked in film and television, multimedia and music and as a radio DJ in Aspen and now lives here in Denver. And she's written a memoir. I usually don't read memoirs. I don't know why, I just don't. But I got this and I got the pitch, and I said, ooh, a fellow radio traveler, I would love to talk about it and her new memoir, My Pretty Baby, is fantastic.
And Wendy Korea, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Mandy. It is awesome to be here. I'm so excited to talk with you today.
So I always like to ask a question like this, when what made you decide?
You know what? I got a story to tell. I'm to write a book.
Well, I realized that My Pretty Baby is an autopsy of my family. I peeled apart the layers of intergenerational and childhood trauma, family dysfunction, family secrets, alcoholism, addiction, and I found healing through Buddhism, meditation, yoga, sobriety, music, psychotherapy, and Native American spirituality. And along the way, I had incredible encounters with icons like Ringo Starr and Joni Mitchell
and Hunter S. Thompson. And My Pretty Baby is about resilience, recovery and creating your own chosen family when the one that you had is broken.
I love the part about Hunter S.
Thompson, and we all know he was a fixture in Aspen for many, many years. Tell me about that relationship. Tell the listeners about that relationship and how it came about.
Well, I had been in Los Angeles for many years, and I was in the music industry, as you said, I was in film and so on. And I left Los Angeles for a job as a DJ on KSPNFM Roaring Fork Radio, and my program manager asked me if I knew who Hunter S. Thompson was, and I said, oh, I've read articles of his Rolling Stone magazine and isn't he a character in the Doonesbury cartoons? But I didn't
know a whole lot more than that. And sure enough, the first week, you know, and of course, as a newbie DJ, I had the ungodly hour of two am to six am. Of course, so in my first week, at four in the morning, I, you know, answered the phone, good morning, Wendy Moore here on KSPNFM, Roaring Fork Radio, and here comes the voice. Yeah, can you play me
some warrens ivon Lawyers, Guns and Money? And I played Warren Zevon for a Hunter for many more times thereafter a few weeks later, I actually met Hunter and he asked me if I wanted to be his assistant. So I was his assistant as well as being a DJ on KSPNFM. And by that time, I'm oddly enough, I was sober. I had quit drinking, I had quit smoking, I had quit it all. And you know, my years in working for Geffen Records and A and M Records in Los Angeles finally caught up with me and it
was time to let it all go. And although it was just a professional relationship with Hunter, I was his assistant there. You know, he uh decidedly was not sober and he was doing it all and I was right in front of me, and in restaurants where we would go, he would you know, just unflinchingly snort lines of cocaine. And so it was an incredible experience because underneath that grufphic stereor underneath that facade of you know, his notorious habits.
There was really a vulnerable and very soft center to Hunter, and that was the part that I connected to. And he was such a unique human being despite his notorious reputation, he was kind to me, and he was generous with me, and he really appreciated my work ethic and he mirrored
back to me my self worth and my loveability. And that was why I in the book My Pretty Baby, I talk about that experience and why I talk about my experiences hanging out with Joni Mitchell and meeting Ringo Starrs because these larger than life celebrities were so kind and loving to me. And the message really is that you just never know how a simple act of kindness to another human being is going to unpack them for life.
Do you think that your tumultuous family dynamic perhaps made you better suited to deal with the tumult of Hunter s Thompson or even the music scene when you were there? You know, I think that if you come from a we'll call it a leave it to Beaver background, right, those those perfect nuclear families, I think that the excesses of that age may have seemed too much, but because you didn't have that cleaver kind of family growing up. Do you think maybe you were better equipped somehow.
You know, that's a really good question, and I never thought of it, but you're absolutely right. Of course, I also had a degree in psychology and a degree in theater, and I always thought that my degree in psychology helped me to deal with, you know, the likes of all the musicians that I met working for A and M Records and Keffen Records, and I was used to people's access excesses because my stepfather was an alcoholic, and so
I did have experience with that. And you know, it's very interesting as you read my book, you'll you'll learn that my mother always would ask me to look at my stepfather's good side, which of course he had, and he had a good side, and he could he could be kind, and he could be generous, but he was also an alcoholic, and he was mentally ill, and he was violent. So I had been trained, literally since growing up to always look at people's good sides, even though they were notoriously high or drunk.
The book is fantastic. It's an easy read. It is I think I read it. I know I read it in one sitting. It's just a really interesting story. And one of the things I said this to Wendy off the air. When you live in the public eye, even if you are a DJ in Aspen or you're working in movies and television, there's this perception that exists that you have led this charm life and you've never had
a challenge and you've never had difficulty. And it's memoirs like this that I think help other people who have had similar difficulties, because gosh, I hate to say it, Wendy, and I'm sure you've had people tell you this. Your story is probably a lot like other people's stories, right in the sense that you had those challenges growing up, and yet you went on to have this absolutely fantastic life, it seems, I mean, from the outside looking.
In, absolutely And that's why I one of the reasons why I wrote it, because I have friends that I've known for thirty years who are reading the book now and saying, oh my god, I had no idea that you had gone through this and gone through that. And originally I wrote My Pretty Baby because I realized that my family's dysfunction and secrets had written my biography and hince my biology, and I wanted to rewrite my story
and choose my own happy ending. But as I was writing it, as you said, I realized, more than just my story, this is about how millions of us carry wounds that science now shows rewires our biology and impacts our health and relationships for life. So as I was writing it, I realized, this is a call to action. I want us may to be able to have these conversations honestly and openly, without shame, without guilt, because I
believe this is how we're going to heal society. And fortunately for me, as I was reading writing my book, I was reading all of the latest research by the likes of doctor Gabor Mattey, who wrote The Myth of Normal, and doctor Bessel vander Kolk, who wrote The Body Keep Score, and realized, oh my gosh, all of this latest research is showing that about sixty one to sixty four percent
of adults have at least one adverse childhood experience. And the listeners can go online and google adverse childhood experiences quiz. It's ten questions. You can take the quiz to see what number you have. And now we know that so many people carry trauma from their childhood, and we know now that it can increase your risk for depression, for anxiety, for rage, for chronic diseases, and if you have a score of six or more without seeking some kind of
help and healing, your life expectancy can be affected. Now I have a score of seven out of ten. But the good news is that all of this research shows and is proving that the damage can be reversed with the very same modalities that I intuitively practice for the past forty five years. And so that is why my Pretty Baby is like a guidebook to other people who may not know how to begin or where to begin.
And I hope that it inspires them to look at all of the things that I did to heal myself and maybe they could just choose one and start there, because it turns out all the things that I tried, like meditation and spirituality and yoga of course sobriety when needed, and all the somatic modalities like massage, yoga, movement, hiking, dance, meditation, we know are very healing. And in psychotherapy, one of the most important modalities for processing trauma is called EMDR
I movement desensitation training. So I hope that the listeners if you're just beginning to heal. You know this is good information. This is a call to action for us to have these conversations and for us to heal, and perhaps for you to be the cycle breaker in your family.
Love that the book is My Pretty Baby. The author is Wendy Corea. Wendy, thank you so much for writing, Thank you so much for sharing your story, and thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate having this voice for my pretty Baby.
Thank you, Thanks Wendy.
You can find a link to Wendy's website and where you can buy her book.
It's a great book.