Discover the Story of ‘Seattle Samurai’: Kelly Goto’s Tribute to History

Meet Kelly Goto

Kelly Goto is a trailblazing American entrepreneur renowned for her user experience design and contextual research. Kelly began using ethnography, where she was among the first to delve into this innovative approach, reshaping how we understand and improve user interactions.

Introducing Seattle Samurai: A Book Project Honoring a Creative Legacy

The centerpiece of Kelly’s current endeavors is her book project, “Seattle Samurai,” which pays tribute to her father’s cartoon career. Kelly has meticulously curated and presented her father’s cartoons, aiming to create a comprehensive narrative despite the challenges. The beautifully designed book embodies honor and respect, core themes of the Bushido code, and is a testament to her father’s artistic contributions.

Trials and Triumphs: The Creative Process Behind “Seattle Samurai”

Creating “Seattle Samurai” was no small feat. Kelly spent countless hours refining the book, facing significant setbacks and sleepless nights. An epiphany about organizing the book around the character Samurai Shigeru and the Bushido code helped her overcome creative blocks. With support from Chin Music Press and dedicated editorial team members, Kelly ensured the book honored her father’s legacy while adhering to historical accuracy and thematic consistency.

Embracing Imperfection: Wabi-Sabi and the Goto Family Ethos

Kelly’s family’s approach to art and life embraces the beauty of imperfection, a philosophy known as Wabi-Sabi. This ethos is evident in their practical mindset and love for handcrafted solutions, whether a modified toilet paper holder or intricate engravings on teeth. The Goto family’s collaborative spirit and dedication to preserving history and art shine through in their creations and storytelling.

A Journey of Remembrance and Connection

Through her book, Kelly commemorates her father’s artistic contributions and celebrates her family’s shared creative journey. Her book tour offers an opportunity to connect with new audiences, bridging generations and communities. As Kelly navigates the excitement and nerves of sharing her father’s legacy, her dedication to preserving and honoring their story remains unwavering.

Kelly Goto Seattle Samurai Episode Transcript

Hello, friends, and welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. My name is Scott Cowan, and I’m the host of the show. Each episode, I have a conversation with an interesting guest who is living in or from Washington State. These are casual conversations with real and interesting people. I think you’re gonna like the show. So let’s jump right in with today’s guest. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for listening in.

Scott Cowan [00:00:27]:

I am with Kelly Go to, who is the daughter of Sam Go to, who is the artist behind the new book, Seattle Samurai. Kelly is the one that is the credited with the author. We’re gonna talk to her about the legacy of her father’s work. So, Kelly, thank you for sitting down with me today.

Kelly Goto [00:00:46]:

Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Scott Cowan [00:00:50]:

Long winded, you know, intro. You sent me a a preview copy of the book. You may this may set you up and make you go, oh, look at the time I have to go. There was something in it at the very beginning that caught my eye. Your dad would put art onto dental work? Yes. I’m sorry. I just I thought that was so odd, but so cool.

Kelly Goto [00:01:21]:

Yeah. I have my my dad had a a very subtle sense of humor, and I think he liked to crack himself up. So they didn’t necessarily need to be things that anyone else saw, but we have a copywriter friend named Paul, and he was getting his dental work done. And my dad says, well, do you want me to put something on that tooth? And Paul said, well, put my name on it. And so my dad etched very carefully with a microscope my name on his tooth.

Scott Cowan [00:01:55]:

Oh my gosh. That’s even better. That’s even better.

Kelly Goto [00:02:00]:

So and then there was something else that he did. I can’t remember, but it was just it was just to crack himself up. And as an artist who had all these tools and metals and, you know, wax carvings and the ability to etch with microscope, if you look with microscopes and a lot of the jewelry and things that he put together, you can read little things into it.

So he was always putting notes and just the essence of data is pretty much everywhere in this house. He modified everything. I mean, there’s just so many stories. So he just had his touch even if you couldn’t see it pretty much on everything that he worked on.

Scott Cowan [00:02:41]:

Alright. I mean, the the the the challenge for this is that your your father, had a long life. We could go back a long ways, you know, and all of that. But with regards to the book, where did you get the idea to put this book together?

Kelly Goto [00:03:00]:

I was always going to make some kind of family heirloom book that would just be for our family called Sam I Am. Later finding out I can’t even use that name, you know, for a real book for obvious reasons. And it was just because we have so many pieces of art and collections of cartoons and paintings and drawings, and I just wanted to memorialize it in some way.

So I always had in my head, even when I was young, this idea that for his 80th birthday, I would put something like this together. And so I was always going to put it together and present it to him as an actual book that he could feel proud of. I, of course, missed the opportunity to do it before he was 80 and he passed when he was almost 85, 2 weeks away from being 85.

So it was a natural progression to want to put something together after that, you know, after he passed. And so the book, although it was already in my mind, really became a reality of something that I wanted to put together to memorialize him and also offer some kind of legacy for what he and my mom were trying to do all these years.

Kelly Goto [00:04:10]:

And I realized at some point that it might be something that people could possibly be interested in if they weren’t in our family. So here we are.

Scott Cowan [00:04:21]:

That well, how I reached out to you. So let me let me explain to the audience. So I saw I was looking for books to add to our our explore Washington State bookstore that we have, And I saw this preorder for Seattle samurai, and I looked at it, and I’m like, oh, this is kinda cool. And, you know, it was it was kind of a neat, idea. The cartoons,

My quick reaction to the cartoons was they kinda gave me a a Calvin and Hobbes esque thing. I mean, there’s just something that was that’s the you know, and I oh, this is kinda it was Calvin and Hobbes was a a perennial favorite for me. And and so I thought, well, this would be great. Let’s get the author.

Scott Cowan [00:05:05]:

Let’s see if the author wants to come on the podcast. So I reached out to you. Didn’t do any really no research. And then after I reached out to you, but before you respond actually, I didn’t reach out to you. I reached out to your publisher, and I honestly expected nothing to happen because publishers are, in my experience, notoriously forgetful, slow, they don’t care, whatever. Almost immediately, your publisher got back to me and said, hey. We passed this on on on to Kelly. She’ll get she’ll reach out to you when she when she wants to.

Scott Cowan [00:05:33]:

Like, oh, that’s awesome. And then you reached out to me very quickly. And then I did a little research and realized that, well, you have your own Wikipedia page, which is kind of a a weird thing to me that, you know, people have Wikipedia pages. But you have this whole design career going on that we could talk for hours on that too, but I reached out to you about this book, which is this, you know what’s the word I’m looking for?

Acknowledgment of your father’s and your mother’s, work through the years. And when we talked on the phone, you went into some detail about how your dad got he he seemed like this is my interpretation. He seemed like he was a very reserved person, maybe not wasn’t looking for the the spotlight. And so did your mom almost, like, do I dare say trick him into agreeing to put these into the newspaper? So what I’d like to talk about for a second here is your mom, and I think the audio folks, you can’t see this, but she’s laughing. So but your mom, and how did she how did she because there’s a backstory here.

Scott Cowan [00:06:46]:

And so how did she get him to do these comic strips for the paper? And I’ll be quiet while you talk.

Kelly Goto [00:06:56]:

Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. So first of all, our bookshelves are filled 30 feet high with tons and tons of books. Alright. We have a book family, and a lot of them are Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson’s books, one of my dad’s favorite artists, of course, Charles Schulz, Peanuts, every collection you can possibly imagine.

So there is an essence, of course, of Schulz and Watterson and maybe even going back to the days of Lil Abner and, all of those cartoons that my dad grew up with that has pervaded our household for my entire life. So we we love cartoons. We love comics. Yes.

Kelly Goto [00:07:39]:

That I could talk about a lot, but illustrative work in a comic format and storytelling in that way has always been part of my life. So the backstory with my parents, besides the fact that they were partners and collaborators for 56 years, just on so many levels, they talked and discussed and, went through their lives looking at different themes that they wanted to approach.

And one of those themes fell into my mom’s lap when she was just a young mom with 2 little kids. My sister and I were probably 3 6 years old, and my mom got a call from the University of Washington’s archives asking if she would help curate and collect the stories of the issei, which is the first generation Japanese, before they pass on. So this is in 1970. And she said, no. She wasn’t interested, and that was it. And then she got off the phone, and my dad says, what was that? And she told him he says, no.

Kelly Goto [00:08:43]:

I I really think you should do it. Now maybe he thought she should get out of the house more or or do something besides being a being a a mom at home. I don’t know. She had a nursing degree, but she didn’t really like nursing. So she’s she called back and said, okay. I’ll do it. So my mom became the inadvertent archivist, and these are all on cassette tapes. And she spent the 19 seventies both interviewing and, transcribing using those foot pedals in the old days, with cassette tapes, all these stories of the issei and that first generation as they as they came into America.

Kelly Goto [00:09:21]:

Flash forward, my mom started a program called Amoide, which is living history at our dining room table right where I’m sitting right now. If you flip the camera, you’d see the table. And it’s 30 years ago. She started a writing group to collect stories, and my dad illustrated these books that were first handmade and printed at Kinko’s.

And then eventually, there were grants, and she’s now on her 7th grant or 7th edition of the book that will now be printed this year. And she spent the year collecting stories of those who helped the Japanese Americans. And all these stories are positive, filled with resilience, little snippets of life that have some essence of a message or a moral message or something that we should learn from. So that’s really my mom’s trajectory and how she’s put the last, you know, several decades into this preserving history move.

Kelly Goto [00:10:22]:

And my dad followed along and provided the illustrations for all the stories and and such. The third part of your question was how did she convince my dad to, do the comic books or the comic illustrations for the newspaper. And, I’ll pause for a minute. Do you wanna add anything right now?

Scott Cowan [00:10:41]:

I got a question, but we can come back to it because it’s about your mother. So I will.

Kelly Goto [00:10:46]:

Okay. So just to finish again because you asked me a few row.

Scott Cowan [00:10:49]:

I did. Sorry.

Kelly Goto [00:10:51]:

That’s okay. The newspaper, the North American Post, has its ups and downs and has you know, just as all newspapers have gone through, all these years, and they needed to infuse it with something a little more interesting, visually interesting. So my mom thought, you know, Sam’s always wanted to do cartoons, and he’s always done cartoons, but he would never suggest doing an actual comic strip.

And I think my dad had it in him for years years years, and all the ideas were in his head, but he was reserved and a little humble and very Japanese. You know, don’t go promoting yourself. So my mom convinced him that if he did the comic strip for the North American Post, that in lieu of payment, they would offer a slot for the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington, JCCCW, an advertising spot that was worth about 500 a month.

Scott Cowan [00:11:55]:

Yeah.

Kelly Goto [00:11:56]:

So in exchange for doing the cartoons, he was in fact donating to the cultural center, and that to him justified the creative process. So he started in 2012 with a weekly cartoon, and then that shifted to a biweekly cartoon, and he ran and, he ran that comic strip for 5 years.

Scott Cowan [00:12:17]:

Okay. So my question I had was you you mentioned your mother they approached your mother, to interview people. Why her? Why did they tell

Kelly Goto [00:12:28]:

you? We have no idea. We have no idea why they called her. And maybe there’s a backstory there, and I I feel like I’ve asked my mom a couple times, and she doesn’t she thinks maybe that someone got her name because okay. Now she didn’t grow up speaking Japanese, but she taught herself Japanese. So she’s Okay. One of the oldest of the 3rd generation Sansei. So both of her parents were born in the United States. Her dad, my grandfather, went to college in Minnesota, University of Minnesota.

Scott Cowan [00:12:59]:

Okay.

Kelly Goto [00:13:00]:

My grandmother, her mother was born here. So my mom is one of the sort of self taught sonses that had to go back to school to learn Japanese. It wasn’t spoken at home. So, I believe that she thinks that someone heard, oh, Dee might have time. Dee speaks Japanese. Really poor Japanese, if I might say. She’s gotten better over the years. But, yeah, I I I don’t know why she actually got the call, but she slotted herself into this role, and she has just carried it through, you know, to this day.

Kelly Goto [00:13:38]:

So this is what she does.

Scott Cowan [00:13:40]:

So when you and your sister were growing up as children, did did you learn Japanese at all? Did did your mom? And did did your dad speak Japanese?

Kelly Goto [00:13:50]:

And that means I don’t speak Japanese.

Scott Cowan [00:13:52]:

So Thank you for translating that.

Kelly Goto [00:13:54]:

That is the only thing I can say. I, we went to language school, my sister and I. We learned katakana and hiragana, which are the symbols. One is Ramanji, sounds like Japanese, sounds like English rather, but is in Japanese and the other one are the characters. I just couldn’t pick it up, and I have now realized this is, you know, different topic, but I’m very dyslexic.

And so I I don’t know. I just couldn’t once it went into the kanji characters, couldn’t I couldn’t figure it out. I also took it in college and tried to take it during the summers, when I came back from college immersive, and I just couldn’t pick it up.

Kelly Goto [00:14:33]:

I do not know why. Sad, sad, sad. My sister didn’t learn. My dad, we believe that he understood, but he never spoke, and then he just said he had a hearing problem as he got older.

Scott Cowan [00:14:47]:

Right.

Kelly Goto [00:14:47]:

And so, you know, he could he would just hear what he felt like hearing. So my mom you know, the the Japanese that she speaks used to be like, korewa, nan, this is a coffee cup this, and that. You know, like that. Like, we’d and we’d be like, gosh, mom. We understood you. You know? Because she would insert all these English words, but I’m finding now that she’s engaging in a lot of different conversations, with friends that are newly from Japan and other people that her Japanese is actually pretty good now.

Scott Cowan [00:15:20]:

That’s that’s very cool. I mean, I just think that well, I love the fact that your mom is took part in and is still working on recording history of of people because I think in today’s day and age where we’re, you know, glued to our short term it seems like everything’s very short term when we look at our phones.

And, yes, that’s my dog there somewhere on the wait a second. This is a new setup for me. Sorry. I digress. It’s just I I love when people are, like, archiving and taking and taking effort to record and save things because I do believe at some point in the future, somebody will find value there.

Kelly Goto [00:16:06]:

Yeah. We have a lot of cassette tapes. That’s for sure. And, well, 2 things. 1, she also was on the board and was was present and helped name, something that you may have heard of called Den Show.

Scott Cowan [00:16:18]:

I have

Kelly Goto [00:16:19]:

heard that. And that and and maybe I I got the name wrong before with Omoide. Densho, I think, means living history, actually. And that name was coined at our house with some newly they were students, but they were from Japan. They were older, and they were just talking about what a good name would be for something like this, and it’s the archiving of the history. And so they came up with the name Densho, and then she brought it to a board meeting. And Tomiquetta and other people that were there, Scott Oakey, thought, hey. This is a good name, so they picked it up.

Kelly Go To [00:16:52]:

And so my mom has kind of been in the background helping push a lot of these initiatives along, and she doesn’t always get credit, but she was there. And the same thing with the Japanese Cultural Center. She she’s been part of the growth and the starting of that all along, but she’s she kinda stays in the background a little bit. We’re we’re kind of background people actually. And, yeah, behind the scenes work.

Scott Cowan [00:17:16]:

Behind the scenes work. Yes. The the heavy lifting, if you will, without getting the you’re not the the front person. I’m looking on the Seattle samurai website right now, and I’m at the bottom of the page where it shows a photo of your mother. And I can’t help but look and it quit. And I as you can see, I’m swiveling my head, so I have my iPad’s off camera here. And I’m, like, looking, and when I quickly glance over, your mother reminds me of my grandmother, and I think it’s the facial structure. It’s the shape of her face.

Scott Cowan [00:17:50]:

It is so funny to me. It was, like, almost kind of unnerving at first when I when I glance, off the off camera. I so what was her role in putting the book together? Obviously, she she got your father to do the the initial art, but what has your mom’s role been in getting this project to well, the book’s not released yet, so we can’t say completion because it’s not out to the public. But we’re we’re we’re really close. It’s your work is your your heavy lifting is done in well, not really, but what what did your mom do here? How did she how did she help?

Kelly Goto [00:18:27]:

I list my mom as a collaborator. She was a partner. In the in the end of the book, I fully tout how she and I work together on this. So she I mean, this book is as much hers as it is mine as it is our family’s. Pretty much every 5 minutes, my mom has a bedroom over there, and she’s on the main floor. And she sits in there and listens to her podcast, and she’s very intellectual. She’s very in her head. And I’ll just yell, mom, what was the name of that guy with the giant tomato? And then she’ll not hear me pretty much, and then, like, I’ll have to walk.

Kelly Goto [00:19:04]:

And then she says, oh, well, actually, it was a giant onion, and it was. And I go, oh. And so every single story, every caption, initially, all the scans because I was forcing her to help me scan. It was a nightmare scanning these images. She just participated every single moment of every day, and I would just yell at her. And I can’t imagine not having that person where you can just quickly ask questions to verify history right at your fingertips. These are things that aren’t on Wikipedia. They’re not online.

Scott Cowan [00:19:39]:

Right.

Kelly Goto [00:19:39]:

I can’t verify everything. Funny story, though, actually, trying to verify one thing led to a completely crazy story. But, yeah. So my mom was a partner and a collaborator, and she would initially just write out all her thoughts and put them into a notepad and, you know, send it to me. And I would say, mom, how is this useful? This is not helpful to me at all.

So I would just say stuff like that to her. Like, I need to write the actual book mom. And then she would find things in books and and show them to me and say, oh, this is when, you know, grandpa and because she was there when my dad was drawing all these cartoons, and she knew where the story came from, you know, because it was all in my dad’s head.

Kelly Goto [00:20:24]:

It’s not like I can look at a cartoon and say, wait. Is that a true story or not? So she would reference and show me where each of these stories came from and how they were relevant to either our family or another family that story was being told.

Scott Cowan [00:20:35]:

Really? As I as I’m scanning the book, there’s a photograph of your of your dad drawing with magnifying those magnifying goggles that you can wear on your head that make me kind of just get nauseous just looking at the photograph. So I can’t imagine how on earth I don’t know how to make drawings like that. I mean, that’s just the bottom line.

And you said he was using a microscope to to to etch on teeth, if you will. I’m just looking at this going, I the attention to detail, the effort, the people that carve carve art on grains of rice, that just always escapes me, the the technique. But I’m looking at these photos of your dad and and and this one, I hadn’t caught this before. So you obviously know because it’s in the book, but it’s there’s a photo of your dad and he’s, he’s bent over at a table. Is he was he left handed?

Kelly Goto [00:21:31]:

No. He was right handed.

Scott Cowan [00:21:32]:

So this image is flipped then?

Kelly Goto [00:21:34]:

It’s probably flipped. Thank you for noticing.

Scott Cowan [00:21:37]:

Sorry. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking it was cool he was left handed because I’m left handed. I’m like, alright.

Kelly Goto [00:21:41]:

It’s the black and white one. Right?

Scott Cowan [00:21:43]:

No. It’s a color photo.

Kelly Goto [00:21:44]:

Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:21:46]:

It’s a color photo.

Kelly Goto [00:21:47]:

Maybe it is flipped.

Scott Cowan [00:21:48]:

But there’s the, there’s a post note you superimposed over the picture, and don’t wait to be perfect or you’ll never begin. And you men you may mention that your your house has a lot of things, Post it notes from your dad and things like that, and you

Kelly Goto [00:22:09]:

It’s everywhere. He so you said a couple of things, attention to detail and meticulous, and that was true. However, there was an extreme wabi sabi nature to our household. And wabi sabi, if you know what that means, is that it’s sort of the art of imperfection in a way.

Scott Cowan [00:22:28]:

Okay.

Kelly Goto [00:22:28]:

And that things don’t have to be perfect. It’s it’s nature. Nature well, nature has its perfection also, but it was just get things done. Don’t try and be perfect. Yeah. It was okay to just get stuff out. So he he was pretty loose with his sketches, and sometimes, as you can see, his handwriting is very hard to read. I mean, I wanted to actually superimpose more of his handwriting, and he has notebooks and filled with everything.

Kelly Goto [00:22:55]:

Cannot read any of it. I’m just thanks, dad. You know? And, I did clean up some of the stickies because some of the writing was really hard to read. Like, I would attach a k, you know, so that it looked like a k. But there’s kind of a funny story. I don’t know if this tells you what our house is like, but there’s these Japanese toilet paper holders that my parents got in Japan probably 20, 30 years ago.

And they’re extraordinary because they just have these 2 little flip flip flip things, and then you put the toilet paper holder in and that’s it. You don’t have to take the stupid thing out and the spring falls out, and you have these 2 pieces and you’re trying to stick it in.

Kelly Goto [00:23:37]:

And you just flip it, and it’s done.

Scott Cowan [00:23:40]:

Okay.

Kelly Goto [00:23:40]:

And so they brought these back. And I thought, I’m gonna install 1 upstairs because it’s still in the box. And so I put it upstairs and found out that today’s toilet paper rolls are shorter than probably what was 20 years ago. So it didn’t it would just fall out. So these little levers, you flip it up, it falls out. So I thought, so I go online and I find the 2 part putty, and I get it. And then I putty it, make these little things, and I think, how perfect should I make these little lever extensions that I’m trying to do so that it holds the toilet paper? And in the end, I just go, you know what? Screw it. No one’s ever gonna see it.

Kelly Goto [00:24:17]:

I’m just gonna fingerprint it. My fingerprints are all over it, and I just make these little lever extensions so the toilet paper will stay in. And, and it works. And I let it dry, and all of a sudden, we have this really nifty Japanese toilet paper holder that I don’t know why we don’t have it in America. It’s ridiculous.

So I go downstairs into my parents’ bathroom, and I noticed that my dad had done the exact same thing with the toilet paper holder in my parents’ room. My parents. And it and his fingerprints are all over it, and the putty is, like, from the dental lab, not the one I bought, 2 part putty.

Kelly Goto [00:24:58]:

And his fingerprints are all over it. So we had done the exact same thing without knowing it. I I just thought that was, you know I I can’t explain that story except for to tell you all that detail. No. And you kind of get kind of the woah a little bit because it’s it’s just kind of half ass done, but at the same time, we were both thinking the same thing. Who cares? Toilet paper. You know? Right. So it was kinda cool to see that.

Scott Cowan [00:25:24]:

I don’t know how to follow that up.

Kelly Goto [00:25:28]:

Two part epoxy and fingerprints. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:25:30]:

Drop the mic.

Kelly Goto [00:25:31]:

It’s just all over our house. Like, right there, there’s a sandbox that he took a sandbox, that we had, my my sister had growing up before we moved here on Mercer Island. And he carved he drew these ducks in a a whole thing and then cast it with, plaster and then pulled the plaster out. And it’s about 4 feet by almost 2 feet.

Scott Cowan [00:25:58]:

Mhmm.

Kelly Goto [00:25:58]:

Maybe it’s 5 foot by 2 feet. And it’s this huge plaque that is on my wall that is embedded into my brain because I dream about it all the time. And it’s very cartoony and it’s just this beautiful essence of these 2 duck characters and an egg.

And my sister apparently helped print some of the flowers, and we just have it on our wall and it’s, it’s, it’s kind of this amazing thing. And then just next to it, and I can show you this, there’s a plant that has decided to grow in the exact shape of the duck alongside the duck, and and we don’t understand that. My mom wonders if my dad is somehow manifesting this. Can I show you?

Scott Cowan [00:26:45]:

Yeah. Please. I

Kelly Goto[00:26:46]:

no one else will

Scott Cowan [00:26:47]:

see this, but I I will. So okay.

Kelly Goto [00:26:49]:

So can you

Scott Cowan [00:26:51]:

see? I can now. Okay. So I’m gonna try to describe that. So you’re right. There it’s long and narrow, so I’m gonna say, you know, 5 foot by 2 foot. I’ll I’ll work with you on that. And then 2 ducks are looking at an egg, and then there is this plant that is, like you said, it is growing, and it is following the back of the duck. I wonder if okay.

Scott Cowan [00:27:17]:

I’m wondering is as the plant grows, it’s resting on the the the, what’s the word I’m searching for here? The the duck is three-dimensional, if you will. It’s embossed. It’s, well, it’s not the opposite of but embossed. It’s, and I wonder if it’s just using the back of the duck as a resting place to grow on, and it’s it’s going that way. But it’s very

Kelly Goto [00:27:37]:

It’s about a foot away from the wall, that plant.

Scott Cowan [00:27:40]:

Yeah. It’s very interesting.

Kelly Goto [00:27:42]:

It can’t use it.

Scott Cowan [00:27:44]:

Yeah. Okay. Alright.

Kelly Goto [00:27:45]:

But isn’t that weird?

Scott Cowan [00:27:46]:

It is that is odd.

Kelly Goto [00:27:48]:

Like, why is that growing that way? So, anyway, those are just the strange things that we have at our house. There’s everywhere. I open a drawer and I find another note that says, you know, don’t lie about anything, you know, or something. And it just it’s like my dad’s spirit is everywhere.

And that’s really the beauty. I mean, I will tell you even last week, I started rescanning some art, and I found a cartoon that I had never seen before that is not in the book that should have been. It’s a samurai cartoon. And I’ll make a print of it for someone that wants it, but I also found a box of sayings that has a cartoon on front that I just pulled out of the back room.

Kelly Goto [00:28:29]:

My mom found it, and she showed it to me. And it’s just we’re just finding these things, and it’s just kind of like a a treasure hunt. And my dad actually did enjoy going on treasure hunts, and he, went on digs. And one of his best friend growing ups growing up in high school was Larry Agenbroad who who found, for National Geographic, the, pygmy mammoth.

So my dad actually went out to visit Larry, and went, you know, full on Indiana Jones with his vest with all his dental tools in it and started excavating. And so we have a basement, another layer of things, which are fossils and rocks. And I mean, you you just you can’t even imagine. Every rock has something written on it.

Kelly Goto [00:29:14]:

It’s either drawn or sketched that tells where that rock came from, and then it just goes on and on and on. And he was so interested in the history of the human world and where everything came from and the origins of mankind and all these things. So my dad was just curious. A little bit quirky too.

Scott Cowan [00:29:34]:

How has that impacted you?

Kelly Goto [00:29:38]:

Well, I, you know, I don’t know exactly how it’s impacted me, but I used to say growing up that I have the original Bohemian, hippie Japanese parents. And, without going into detail about how hippie they were, my dad was making no drugs. I’m not talking about anything like that. But they used to walk around and, you know, my dad would make, kombucha before kombucha was a thing. He believed in life enzymes.

They were making, you know, fermented sauerkraut and just really healthy. Just really thinking about health and nutrition before it was a thing. They had groups of people come to the house and speak.

Kelly Goto [00:30:22]:

So we would have guest speakers and, you know, learn how to, you know, self help and positive affirmations. And so my dad had these books when we were growing up. And I say my dad, but I think it was my mom and dad. But they were $10 books or $20 books, and, we would read them and we would get money.

And if we learned all the presidents in the United States, for example, maybe in 4th grade, we would get $10. So George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, j Madison, j Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Marvin Van Duren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Jay North Polk, and, you know, just go on. Like, we just had to learn and sort of memorize things that my parents thought would be helpful to us growing up. So I I believe that not every kid was doing those things.

Kelly Goto [00:31:07]:

I don’t know.

Scott Cowan [00:31:10]:

I certainly didn’t memorize the presidents.

Kelly Goto [00:31:13]:

Just for one one example, but it was it was a quirky household and, you know, having speakers here practicing all that stuff that they used to do with the house. One time, we had a group here and I accidentally spilled boiling hot water on my foot, and I was like the silent scream.

And I I think I was maybe 10. And I went to the bathroom and poured cold water on it, and I took my sock off and it was just about this big. You know? And I just sat there silently screaming because we had all these people over. And, another time I was in the kitchen again, and I choked on something, and I couldn’t breathe. And so I just Heimlich maneuvered myself using my fist against the counter and the whatever was in my chest popped out. And then, again, I didn’t wanna disturb my parents’ meeting.

Kelly Goto [00:32:06]:

So I just I just kinda handle these things on the side. So Oh my god. Very odd. I don’t know how to answer that question. I think I’m a little bit quirky, like my family, and I think we’re a little bit different than most Japanese Americans, for my generation, and, I don’t know. I I haven’t cross compared extensively.

Scott Cowan [00:32:26]:

Okay. So one one of the questions I had for later, but we’re gonna kinda bring it up because you mentioned the $10.20 books in 4th grade. Somewhere online, I found a a reference that you did your 1st freelance assignment in 5th grade.

Kelly Goto [00:32:42]:

Yes. Yes.

Scott Cowan [00:32:43]:

What what was the freelance assignment?

Kelly Goto [00:32:47]:

It was my first client for Lou Tice Institute. They were a Seattle based group that would have these big, sort of conventions. People would come in and hear Lou Tice speak.

Scott Cowan [00:33:00]:

Wasn’t he like a motivational speaker?

Kelly Gofo [00:33:02]:

Absolutely.

Scott Cowan [00:33:03]:

Okay. That’s yeah. Alright. Alright.

Kelly Goto [00:33:05]:

Yep. And years years later, someone came up to me as I was teaching up in Canada and said, hi. I work with so and so, and you used to work with her for Lou Tyson. She wanted me to say hi, and this was maybe 30 years later, and I just couldn’t believe it.

Can’t remember her name right now. But, basically, the story there is I decided to learn calligraphy, of which I still do a lot of calligraphy. And my uncle, my uncle Henry, had the thought, oh, so once I was looking for a calligrapher for these events, these blue tights events. So he would bring the list home with him because we didn’t have email or faxes, and he would actually sorry.

Kelly Goto [00:33:46]:

He would drop it off at my dad’s office. My dad would bring it home, and then I would pull my first all nighters. This is how I learned to pull all nighters doing, the calligraphy for all the names and the name tags, and I would get 50¢ for each of the name tags and a dollar for each of the place cards, and there were 100 of them.

So I was earning a couple $100, 3, $400 a month every other month or maybe every month starting in 5th grade. And that’s when I learned, you know, how to invest and how to save and, you know, how I wanted to think about putting money aside and and how much I wanted to have by the time I was 21 and all this because I was like, I’m gonna be an entrepreneur. And I kind of did that, but I don’t think I focused on the money as much as the as I was a little bit more into the creative. But, you know, I still have calligraphy. I’m just showing a notebook right now, where Yeah.

Kelly Goto [00:34:43]:

I have pens with me, and I just, I love pens and paper, and I love calligraphy. And so it it it really did start kind of a graphic design career. My daughters are both artists, and they’ve both taken after my dad in that way. One is more of an illustrator, cartoonist from birth just like my dad, But, they have picked up calligraphy. The older one can do it with her eyes closed, and no one can understand how she can let her that way. And so, yeah, I I guess it just goes generationally.

My dad used to do the windows for storefronts and paint signs, and he also drew during the his army days. And so he’s a sign painter, and I realized over the years that sign painting is truly an art, something I don’t know how to do, that I wished I could.

Kelly Goto [00:35:31]:

People have tried to get me to sign paint, and I I now realize I don’t have the skill set. But that is something that my dad did is he was a sign painter and painted windows for the holidays. And we’re even now finding photos of him, you know, with windows behind him, and that’s one of the ways he met my mom originally. She he painted the windows when, she was a nurse at the facility, and he was always doing creative things in the background.

Scott Cowan [00:35:56]:

Did he have any formal training? No. So self taught and

Kelly Goto [00:36:02]:

He he native of birth almost.

Scott Cowan [00:36:03]:

And native of

Kelly Goto [00:36:04]:

I mean, he Okay. Literally was drawing from when he was little. Just like I mentioned, my older daughter started drawing cartoons when she was maybe 2, and I maybe even honestly one, I did not understand how I could look at a little sketch she did and see emotion and anger and frustration and joy and, like, these expressions coming from these little scribbles. And I realized that it wasn’t my imagination. She was drawing the expressions into her characters when she was 2 Wow. If not earlier than that. And so that’s my dad has that same ability.

Scott Cowan [00:36:39]:

Wow. As I’m scrolling through the book, and there’s a lot to unpack here, and we’re not even gonna well, I’m not gonna try to unpack the book other than to say, I think, you know, this is beautifully put together from what I can tell in the sense. Just I get a lot I I talk to a fair amount of authors, and I get a lot of PDFs of their books.

Sometimes they’re early early early editions with typos and, you know, markouts, so that’s fine. I’m just trying to read and get a general gist of it. This is laid out unlike any book I’ve received to this point from from an author, so as a PDF. And I’m looking at how you’re presenting it to the market in the, you know, you’ve got 2 options. You’ve got the book itself or you’ve got a boxed edition, and it’s beautiful.

Scott Cowan [00:37:29]:

It it kudos to you. I mean, you’ve you’ve created a beautiful piece of work. It’s, you know, it’s it’s art. So kudos to you. It’s I think it’s a wonderful tribute to your father’s life and his cartoon career, which might have only been 5 years, but this book certainly covers way more than that. It’s really honestly, it’s overwhelming in in a good way in a good way. You know, it’s like there’s so much here. I wanna talk to you about the specifics of the book project though, and this is I I like to ask, and you’re you’re an entrepreneur, so I think you’re gonna get this question.

Scott Cowan [00:38:09]:

If not, you know, you’ll we’ll just we also will have technical difficulties, and you’ll disconnect. But what didn’t go right? Like, what No project ever goes from inception to completion without something coming up that you didn’t foresee. And I gotta guess that something happened here with the book somewhere along the line. Good or temporarily not good?

Kelly Goto [00:38:42]:

Yeah. That’s a good question. First of all, I wanna say that I did have a partner in crime who is a designer named Baja, and he is a old soul, like minded artist like my dad who has fully participated in this process from day 1 and helped put the comps together and the initial concepts. And so he is the behind the scenes, you know, layout person and helped me finish the book and move it to production.

He has a a print background and also has done books before. So the the pure hell of production, he took on and helped me get the book to a finish. And, yeah, without him, this wouldn’t be a project. Now that said, I did inject all the design and layout in in my really controlling way, and I did lay the book out so many times.

Kelly Goto [00:39:37]:

And, I when you’re saying that it’s overwhelming in a good way, it was overwhelming in a bad way. And I think that was the hardest thing to do is because a friend of mine, when I first told her about the book project said, Kelly, I love you, but you’re trying to do too much. You’re trying to talk about Japanese American history. You’re trying to tell your dad’s story. You’re trying to introduce your dad’s philosophy and also his cartoons, and I think it’s too much.

I don’t think you should try and attack all that all at once. And I understood that and thought it would be a Charles Schulz Peanuts anthology where you would have an intro to a section. 1st, you’d have an intro to the book, then you’d have an intro to the section, like immigration.

Kelly Goto [00:40:25]:

And then you’d have all the cartoons with nothing on it, maybe a caption here or there. That’s it. And then you have another section called early settlers. And then you go on and then you have all these drawings, and then you have it. So, basically, I would just have to write one intro to each of these sections or Wendy Takuda, who was gonna help me write.

Maybe she could do this. So what ended up happening is because it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle of taking these few 100 cartoons in the end, and I will tell you that there are left and right panels that don’t match. My dad drew the right panels separately than left panels.

Kelly Goto [00:41:03]:

So we have 72 left panels and I wanna say 400, but I’m I think there was only 250 or something of the right panels. And I had to both figure out how those went together, and also try and figure out then how to card sort or organize them into themes that were translatable to book chapters.

Kelly Goto [00:41:32]:

And I could go into detail into why that was a nightmare and how each round of trying this would take me a 100 hours and a season and Christmas and New Year’s and no no sleep. And then to get to the end of that thought process and realize it didn’t work, that was really the hardest part. And it wasn’t until October of last year, I was supposed to go away with a group of friends, from high school. We had this weekend planned, and I just I didn’t feel good, but I also just couldn’t finish this book.

And I stayed back, and I didn’t go on this trip. And I had this epiphany of organization around this character, samurai Shigeru, and what he stood for. And I started looking at the philosophy behind it, the Bushido code, and understanding that this thread from Japan to who we are in this 4th 5th generation of Japanese Americans today is this honor and respect and this credo that maybe we’ve carried through all these generations starting from early Japan. There’s a whole history there.

Kelly Goto [00:42:49]:

And maybe this was a way to organize the book, and it wasn’t themed the way I thought it would be. And so I reorganized it. I did the timeline that’s in the book now. I actually did it that weekend. And I introduced these characters, these Shigeru characters starting with, the original Shigeru. That is the premise of the book. And then my dad’s birth name is Shigeru, and then we have Shigeru Tomo. That’s the protagonist, and then you have samurai Shigeru, which is his alter ego.

Kelly Goto [00:43:17]:

And I just put this all together, and all of a sudden, it sort of made more sense to me. And I know that’s a lot for this recording, and maybe it’s too much to explain. But putting the themes together in a way that resonated with all of what I was trying to do was the hardest part, and it was hell.

Scott Cowan [00:43:34]:

Okay. When authors work with publishers, they send it to the editor and sometimes the editing process is extremely painful. Sometimes what what was the editing When you handed this off to new eyes to look at it, how did that process go for you?

Kelly Goto [00:43:55]:

Well, one thing that I’ve learned, people say, oh, was this self published? And I say, well, actually, it’s through Chin Music Press. And I have had the fortune of having publishers in my life. My first book was a book by new writers, part of Pearson Publishing, and they’re a big publisher in sort of textbooks and things like that.

So I had the fortune of understanding what it meant to have a technical editor, a developmental editor, someone that was proofing, and, you know, just just sort of eyes on it at different levels.

And I already sort of knew that not one person was gonna catch everything. So Michael Nolan, who was my editor 20 years ago, 25 years ago when I wrote my first book, became my editor, not just the developmental editor, but kind of a copy editor for this book. Then I have a couple friends who just have an eye and a a knack for looking at things. And one of them, her name is Carol Hunter.

Kelly Goto [00:44:51]:

She’s an amazing writer. She was more of a developmental editor. Reading it, does this make sense? Is there a theme that you can carry through? And there were people that I trusted that actually read through the text that I had written or read through, like, certain chapters that I had written just just to tell me what does anyone care about this? Is this interesting at all? And then there’s sort of a tone and voice thing and all this stuff.

So looking at everything, the editorial process, by the time that I sent it out for proofing, I had gone through all of that other versions and tone and, you know, is it my dad? Is it Sam? Is it my father? Is it like, how do I say his name? Making sure that it’s not all about, well, my dad, and dad did this and dad did that, but my father said this, or is it in my voice?

And I remember growing up, and my sister and I would sit and you know? So I went through drafts and drafts and drafts all in different voices and tones and everything. And by the time it actually got proofed, it was pretty tight.

And, the the hard part there is going through what is called CMOS style, which is Chicago manual of style, where there’s just a ton of commas, which I don’t understand why there’s so many commas, but there’s a lot of commas in there. And there’s just a certain way of using numbers. For instance, you know, if it’s under, you know, 10, spell it out.

Kelly Goto [00:46:12]:

If it’s over so there’s just all this nuance of consistency that I do remember from my first book. Oh my god. But that process of going through it and through it, and every time I looked at it, I would find another thing. And I’m quite sure that if I open the book to another page now, I’ll probably find something even though it’s printed. We went through over and over and over, and I sent it out over and over and over, and I would still find stuff. And then this is the last thing that happened. We sent, review copies out, which is just a paperback version or digital print.

Scott Cowan [00:46:47]:

Mhmm.

Kelly Goto [00:46:47]:

So it’s printed. And someone who is, a trusted friend, Lori Matsukawa, who also had written her own books and she’s kind of a known entity here in the in the, Seattle area, she took it home. And my mom apparently told her if she has any thoughts, you know, let us know.

And Laurie drives over with the book, and this is as I’m sending it to the printer, full of I I I kid you not, no less than 50 stickies in there, where she had gone through and copy edited the whole book, found all these errors, things that you can’t find from a grammar perspective, the things that are incorrect from a Japanese history perspective, and flagged everything.

So I actually was didn’t know she was doing that, didn’t know my mom. And she says that mom asked her to do that, and mom said, I didn’t ask her. But she took it upon herself to copy edit the whole book, and I thank her so much for it. And I was able to get all those changes in and then delay the submission to the printer by 2 days and, and and get those edits in the last second.

Kelly Goto [00:47:53]:

So for sure there’s more edit there’s more errors in

Scott Cowan [00:47:56]:

the book. My gosh.

Kelly Goto [00:47:57]:

But that was amazing that she took the time to do that. And, yeah, it was it was a process for sure.

Scott Cowan [00:48:06]:

Wow. Yeah. I okay. I think you I think you win the the editing hell award of of guests on the show so far. Yikes. Are you excited about the book being released? Are you excited about going and doing the pre like, so for example, I saw your schedule, I think, in November at Village Books. And are you looking forward to a book tour?

Kelly Goto [00:48:41]:

Well, you asked me 2 questions. The first is, am I excited that the book’s out?

Scott Cowan [00:48:45]:

Yes.

Kelly Goto [00:48:45]:

And, yes, I’m very excited, and I can’t believe it’s done. And thank god. And there’s kind of a, you know, just this massive relief that it’s printed. There’s a few things that I changed last minute that I wish I hadn’t, and there are some things that people won’t know about that I hit myself in the head and lose sleep over that are in the book, this current version. No huge mistakes, but just layout things that I I can’t believe I didn’t catch or something like that. So those things exist. But overall, it turned out the way that I envisioned. And that was hard also just picking the paper.

Kelly Goto[00:49:21]:

The printers and the the brokers and the people that I worked with and even my layout and design partner all told me to go on glossy paper, and I chose to stick with my guns and go on a flat matte paper. And, no one believed me, but I did it. And I’m really glad I stuck to my gun because I think it it adds to the elegance of the book.

But just that printing process, and and kind of following through an analog way with the way that you touch and feel the thickness of the paper, the color of the binding, the lay flat pages, the way I did the cover, you know, all that kind of stuff.

So it’s done, and it’s as I expected, and I can’t believe it. So that part is just huge sigh of relief. And just the fact that we have an artifact that commemorates all this history and art makes me very happy. Am I looking forward to the book tour? Well, I speak and teach a lot for my business.

Kelly Goto [00:50:19]:

Mhmm. And I don’t know that I always look forward to it. I’m not like I don’t love I love connecting with people, and, I I love educating people, and I love teaching. I love I I don’t love huge groups, talking to huge groups, but I do it. So I’m looking forward to connecting with people and introducing people to these stories, and I’m really interested if people connect to it the way that I’m hoping they will. And if they do, it’ll be something that I wasn’t expecting and something really joyful and maybe prideful.

Like, I’ll be so happy that it does connect, but I don’t know yet. Mhmm.

Kelly Goto [00:51:08]:

So I am very nervous about going mainstream, which means outside of my family. My family loves it. Of course, they do. Outside even the Japanese community, Village Books is in Bellingham, and it’s not a typical Japanese American place. You know? And I’m so and just the fact that you contacted me. And and Bruce, by the way, my publisher, doesn’t always get back to people right away. He doesn’t. He is a typical publisher.

Kelly Goto [00:51:35]:

He’s on the move. He’s in Japan. The fact that he got your message and sent sent it to me almost the same day was kind of a miracle. That means everything to me. If it could connect outside the Japanese community and outside my family, I’ll be so happy. I don’t expect it, but I’m hopeful that it it will happen.

Scott Cowan [00:51:59]:

Besides Village Books, do you have any other are you doing something at, say, 3rd place books in Seattle? Where else have you or do you have anything set up at this point?

Kelly Goto [00:52:10]:

I love 3rd Place Books. I forgot. I think you mentioned it. Elliott Bay Bookstore, I’m doing a book reading, on Thursday 24th. Island Books, which is Thursday. Oh, October.

Scott Cowan [00:52:21]:

Okay.

Kelly Goto [00:52:21]:

October 24th, 7 o’clock, Elliot Bay Bookstore.

Scott Cowan [00:52:25]:

There we go.

Kelly Goto [00:52:26]:

There’s no registration page, so I just I have no idea how many people might come. Okay. But I’m excited for that because I think, you know, I grew up sitting on the floor going through books at Elliot Bay Bookstore and also, yeah, just all through Seattle. I mean, I just comic books and everything. I just grew up walking through the streets of Seattle and reading books pretty much one a day. I’m also doing an kind of an opening event at Island Books on Mercer Island on Wednesday 23rd, and that’s gonna be drinks and appetizers and

Scott Cowan [00:53:00]:

Oh, wow.

Kelly Goto [00:53:01]:

A little book reading. I just met with the, owner today to start that promotion process. I’m doing it’s not a private event, but we can’t have too many people. I I accidentally did an Eventbrite and put it up for 30 seconds, and 2 people registered. I was like, woah. I I didn’t expect that. We’re doing kind of a non private event, but I have to first send it out to friends, you know, and family, people that I wanna thank at the Wing Luke Museum

Kelly Goto [00:53:31]:

On Saturday, November 2nd. That’s gonna be a fully catered event, and that is kind of limited audience. So and so I’ll I’ll put that out soon. Yeah. And there’s other book place there’s also bookstores, some on the east side. And then I I did wanna get to Portland, but I haven’t heard back from Powell’s or anything. And I don’t expect to, but I it’s always, like I said, thrilling when it’s outside the main you know, my my community more mainstream. If if if the book can hit a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of mainstream, that makes me happy.

Kelly Goto [00:54:01]:

And then I have a series of events at cultural centers through the West Coast that take me through the end of the year. And so as a book tour, I think it’s kinda cool because I didn’t do a book tour for my first book. It literally the day that we were gonna have the book opening and the party and my mom was flying down for that book was September 11, 2001.

So we canceled it that day, and I never did end up having an event for my first book. And, I don’t know that it helps me sell, like, a ton of books, but I am excited to connect with potential readers and talk about the book. And even this conversation is just really special. So, yeah, thank you.

Scott Cowan [00:54:49]:

The the idea to me this is just the way I’m thinking. I’m not saying I’m correct, but this is the way I’m thinking. But the West Coast from, you know, Vancouver down to to Los Angeles has a fairly large Japanese population still. And, you know, because my interpretation is many landed on the the west side of the United States.

They migrated east on, but a lot of people stayed on the, you know, west side of the coast. Are you gonna be doing anything like in the Bay Area or LA? I mean, even though it’s Seattle samurai, I still think is the is the cultural centers I mean, how am I just completely wrong?

Kelly Goto [00:55:34]:

Well, I do have an event scheduled in San Francisco on October 19th. That was before the due date of the book came out. So, hopefully, we’ll have books in hand. They’re they’re supposed to they’re literally shipped by boat, and they’re literally on their way, and they’re supposed to arrive in the next 2 weeks. And so I’m just I was just reaching out to my, printer broker today to say, hey. Can I get an update on where the boat is?

Scott Cowan [00:55:57]:

Oh my gosh.

Kelly Goto [00:55:58]:

So I am gonna be in San Francisco on 19th for an event. It is through a cultural center, though. And then I am going to be in LA at the Japanese American National Museum on December 1st. And and that’s gonna be a really great event because people are gonna be starting their holiday shopping.

It’s gonna be kind of my mom and I are both going down, and we’re gonna be speaking. And the Japanese American National Museum has just a really great curated bookstore and a catalog that is national. And so we’ll get some really great reach that way. Because I have a day job, which is running my company and also I’m a solo mom, very happy doing it, but my time is somewhat limited.

Kelly Goto [00:56:46]:

So I have not booked a lot of East Coast or I mean, I’ve been asked, oh, are you gonna go to Chicago or New York or even Arizona where friends of mine live? And the answer is, I mean, maybe, but and even Hawaii, I’ve reached out there. But it’s a lot of it’s for fun. It’s it’s somewhat promotional. It is, I guess, promotional. But I don’t know that we I don’t know that I have to do all those.

You know? Okay. It it is kind of a lot for a book tour. I don’t know when a book tour makes sense financially if you’re, you know, paying your way and flying all over the place versus promotionally.

Kelly Goto [00:57:27]:

So, I’ll be writing some numbers, and I’ll see what makes sense, but I’m pretty happy with the lineup that we have so far.

Scott Cowan [00:57:33]:

Okay. I’m looking for the the, I’ll say quote. This is something I’ve seen you how you describe yourself on multiple things, and I’m not finding all of it right now. But, it says and I’m reading off of your website. Now a sandwich mom living in Seattle with her mom, 2 daughters, and a new Bernadoodle puppy, who I met earlier. I think the phrase was something like a sandwich mom living in a sushi world or something like that. What’s

Kelly Goto [00:58:03]:

Right.

Scott Cowan [00:58:04]:

How did you come up with that?

Kelly Goto [00:58:06]:

I was asked to write a article for a design magazine, Design Management Institute, and I had this idea. Yeah. I just came up with that title, and I thought, shoot. This needs to be an article because I said so you know what a sandwich mom is. Right? It’s when you have kids that are younger kids, usually, preteens, and then you also are living in the same household as an older parent.

Scott Cowan [00:58:33]:

I mean, it makes sense. I mean okay. Got it. Alright.

Kelly Goto [00:58:35]:

Right? And so they call us sandwich moms, and a lot of these are also, you know, women or or parents that have decided to have kids later in life or or are lucky enough to have kids later in life. And so, you know, we’re tired, and we’re we’re trying to balance a lot. We don’t have a lot of energy. We’re just barely making it through the day.

But, you know, the sushi world aspect was just throwing it in because, obviously, I’m Japanese. And so came up with that title and then wrote the article, and there is an article online. It was in a it was in the public randomly, it wasn’t really even supposed to be in this journal, but they decided to run it in a journal, which means it’s behind a paid wall, which was stupid. So I asked them if we could publish it because it’s just a silly article.

Kelly Goto[00:59:20]:

And so now it’s actually available. You know, you can read about it. But it just talks about how day in the life during COVID and balancing all these things, trying to work and losing my glasses.

My dog was chewing my glasses. That’s where I found them. I couldn’t see what I was doing, and then the the rice cooker goes off in the background as I’m trying to present to couple hundred people live. And, I don’t know if you know the Zirashi, rice cookers, but they play this huge melody that goes on for forever. And it’s it’s it’s playing in the background, and I just think, oh my god.

Kelly Goto [00:59:57]:

You know, this is what is happening right now. This is my life, and that’s what the article is about. So it’s pretty funny. That’s very day in the life.

Scott Cowan [01:00:06]:

That’s awesome. You mentioned energy, which I’m going to use as a segue to questions I always ask my guests. Number 1, coffee. Where is a great place for coffee in your area? Well, you’re drinking coffee right now, but

Kelly Goto [01:00:19]:

I am. It’s bad. It’s yeah. Oh, it’s it’s not quite. It’s noon. I’m okay. I I usually allow myself coffee until 2.

Scott Cowan [01:00:26]:

Okay. So when you’re out when you’re out and about, not drinking coffee at home because yeah. I don’t oh, well, actually, let me ask you this. What type of coffee are you drinking today?

Kelly Goto [01:00:39]:

Well, sadly, this is a k cup, Keurig k cup. Gotta keep it simple. But I have gone through coffee searches and grinding beans, and I have a hand grinder, and I have a electronic grinder, and I have a gold filter, and I have a custom drip filter, and I have different types of beans. And I go through phases, and I almost did it yesterday where I just go through the grocery store and try and smell it through that hole and think, oh, this is going to be the perfect smooth cup that I’ve always been waiting for. And I buy that $20 bag, and I bring it home, and I grind it, and I don’t like the cup of coffee that comes out.

So it’s been it’s been a trial and error process. And I remember when my dad was going through hospice, and it was he had an interview. Actually, my publisher interviewed him for the North American Post.

Kelly Goto [01:01:37]:

It was a special edition of the paper, and they came to the house right before, it was the day after Thanksgiving, 2017. They took pictures, interviewed him. A lot of the pictures that of the workplace, that are in the book are by Kimmy Rutledge, who’s Bruce Rutledge is who’s my publisher. His daughter was here taking pictures. Anyway, my dad then went into the hospital that next day, and then he passed 3 weeks later.

So it went very quickly, and it was actually quite beautiful and peaceful in the end because it was Christmas and New Year’s and and our whole family was here. And there couldn’t have been a better timing for everything too in terms of spending the time and and kind of that peacefulness that happens when the snow falls Christmas day. And just that beauty of having kids around for Christmas and decorating the tree, and it was sad, But it was kind of this heartfelt thing.

Kelly Goto [01:02:29]:

And my dad actually my mom had their anniversary, and so they had their last anniversary together also that week. But, every single day, one of my friends, Tara, would text me and she’d say, how are you doing today? And I would say, I can’t get my cup of coffee right. I just can’t get my cup of coffee right. I am trying to get my coffee right.

Every single day, She would text me, and I would complain about my coffee not being right and not being able to grind it. And she says, you know,

I think we’re talking about something else here. I think this is coffee is a metaphor for something else. So I don’t know if it is life or what, but are we all searching for a perfect cup of coffee and the perfect way to make it and the perfect temperature to brew it and the grind? And are we not quite finding it? I don’t know.

Kelly Goto [01:03:24]:

But Phil’s Coffee with a z in San Francisco, that used to be my favorite place, and they would custom grind it and they would make it so that it dripped. And they would you know, you’d sit there and wait, and they have 4 baristas across. And I would just add a touch of chocolate. And of course they would just put whipping cream in it. Duh, it’s going to be delicious.

So Phil’s coffee with a z is my absolute go to ambrosia. And then I think I mentioned this to you, but I took a business class flight to to South Korea and 14 hour flight, utter bliss, just had kids, thought I was on vacation. It was fantastic for a client.

Kelly Goto [01:04:05]:

And they literally come out, and they have a Bose headset, and you have your lay flat bed and your big screen TV. And they bring out all these different coffees, probably 3, and you smell them, and you pick 1, and they grind it. And I was like, oh my god. I’m never gonna get coffee like this. I I never have. But was it the moment and everything else that was part of that experience?

I don’t know. And so recently, I go to Woods Coffee whenever I’m in Bellevue, Bellevue Square. I go to Woods, and my daughters know that I that’s my preferred place.

Kelly Goto [01:04:38]:

I don’t know if it’s anything but not Starbucks. And, you know, I don’t know if it’s better. I just go there because I think it’s gonna be a little bit different. And, yeah, I am still in my search for the perfect cup of coffee.

Scott Cowan [01:04:53]:

When you go to Woods, what’s your what’s your typical order?

Kelly Goto [01:04:58]:

A double wet cappuccino 12 ounce, I think. I’m not sure because they do ounces differently.

Scott Cowan [01:05:07]:

Right. And I

Kelly Goto [01:05:07]:

always get the ounces size wrong. I’m like, medium. The medium one. They’re like, oh, you need a 22 ounce or whatever. So whatever the medium is. And I say, basically, a foamy latte. And I and because I have to kinda get it right. Like, if I’m in New Zealand and they have flat white and, you know, you get all confused.

Kelly Goto [01:05:23]:

But, basically, I want it to be rich with a little bit of half and half or something in there to make it creamy. Okay. So I found that a wet cap is as close to what I can request that gets me there.

Scott Cowan [01:05:40]:

K. I always ask the question of lunch in the area. So in the Bellevue area, Mercer Island area, where’s where’s a great place for lunch?

Kelly Goto [01:05:51]:

Well, my go to, couple things. One is I try and eat healthy, and I also love sushi. And so there’s Sushi Gioia that’s on the island, and I have a salmon salad, which is totally simple salad with salmon sashimi on top and a very light dressing that I put on the side, and it is fresh and healthy and delicious and probably $22, which is kinda pricey, but it’s perfect. It’s a perfect lunch.

Scott Cowan [01:06:24]:

I will say $22 is kinda pricey, but have you priced anything else lately? It’s not that pricey nowadays.

Kelly Goto[01:06:31]:

Yeah. Like, you end up getting there no matter what, and then I always tip higher if it’s just me. And so so that’s definitely a treat. And then there is a place called Sano Cafe where, again, I try and eat healthy, but there’s Buddha bowls and all that typical organic healthy stuff, very expensive, but delicious. And my favorite is when they have soup.

Every time I go, I say, what is your soup? And they’re usually like, we’re out today. It makes me sad. But my favorite would be, like, a really simple organic delicious salad with some really healthy soup.

Kelly Goto[01:07:02]:

But there are a couple places that have just opened. 1 is Alastair’s, and I’ve been there now recently twice. And I will say that if you want traditional fair food, very expensive, but I do not fault restaurants for their food prices because as we all know, food prices are very expensive, especially all the organic and good quality stuff. Yes. Really great selection there. Alastair’s just opened 2 weeks ago, I think, or maybe 3 weeks ago now.

Scott Cowan [01:07:28]:

And you’ve been there twice already?

Kelly Goto [01:07:29]:

I have, and I had to sit at the counter both times because I couldn’t get in make reservations, and that was okay. And it was just yeah. I mean, it was just it was great experience. I had the best and I and I don’t drink very often, but I had the best whiskey sour that I’ve ever had in my whole life there. They make it with, black tea syrup, a touch.

Just a touch of black tea syrup with a very light whiskey sour. I asked for it not to be too sweet, and he said, I just have to put a little bit of this black tea syrup, and I said, okay. And, it was I’ll go back.

Kelly Goto [01:08:07]:

It was the best. If I’m gonna have a drink, I will go back there.

Scott Cowan [01:08:11]:

Alright. So as we wrap this up, respectful of your time, number 1, I have 2 questions left for you. The numb the catchall question is, what didn’t I bring up that we should have talked about? That’s the

Kelly Goto [01:08:27]:

You know the

Scott Cowan [01:08:27]:

Interviewers cheat. You know? Just pat put it on the guest.

Kelly Goto [01:08:31]:

You know, the only thing that I have noticed as I’ve kind of been both asking myself these questions, and I’ve gone through a couple interviews now, I have realized that the the gist of the cartoons and the focus of my parents’ storytelling efforts and collection of history is on the everyday experience and living our values through our everyday interactions with people and places and how we handle ourselves in situations on the bus, or it’s not just dealing with the incarceration or how we dealt in in a very resilient way, which is huge.

But it’s not just that moment in time that makes us. And when I say us, it could be any culture, any any ethnic group that has gone through the process of becoming American.

So it’s it’s any story that you have really is an important thing to somehow write down and understand why certain stories get passed through the generations. And these are simple experiences of everyday living, and that’s, I believe, what my dad was trying to do and why it is very Calvin and Hobbes and peanuts oriented because these are everyday experiences and how we carry our values and maybe our morality and maybe our humility and questioning, like, are we doing the right thing?

These are what we deal with every single day, and I believe that’s what my dad was trying to convey in these cartoons.

Scott Cowan [01:10:07]:

K. Alright. Last question. I prepped you for this by warning you that I wouldn’t tell you what the question was. Right? And it does and that you have to answer it. That’s that’s not negotiable, and you, you have to give us your reason why. K? You ready?

Kelly Goto [01:10:23]:

K.

Scott Cowan [01:10:24]:

Cake or pie?

Kelly Goto [01:10:27]:

Definitely pie.

Scott Cowan [01:10:29]:

Why?

Kelly Goto [01:10:30]:

I love crust. I love crumbly crust. I love the fact that pie, you can make it delicious without it being too sweet. I do not like sweet, sweet, sweet things. I am not a sugar fiend. I’m a salt fiend. And so pie, you can almost always get and not always, but you know those sticky sweet ones that is too syrupy and all that? Do not like those. I love fresh.

Kelly Go To [01:11:00]:

My aunt makes my auntie Beryl makes this most amazing strawberry rhubarb pie

Scott Cowan [01:11:04]:

K.

Kelly Goto [01:11:05]:

That my daughter and I love, and my daughter asked for for her birthday. Like, we are we are pie people. There’s blackberries all over our house. Some of there’s finally the season is passing in this in in this week almost, but we usually pick blackberries and make blackberry pie. Not too sweet. You know, little bit of whipping cream maybe. So fresh fruit is delicious.

Scott Cowan [01:11:29]:

Okay. See, that wasn’t so bad. Some people though would be like asking, okay, which one which which of your children do you prefer? You know, I mean, it’s like, you know, it’s like

Kelly Goto[01:11:38]:

I can’t answer that.

Scott Cowan [01:11:39]:

Yeah. I can’t. Some people, it’s so funny because some people just get so just really, like, I’ve I’ve asked them the impossible. And I I stole this question from somebody. It was a it was a an episode I recorded that the audio didn’t work out for, and so I can’t give the person really great credit. But I thought, what a cool question. You know, this is just you know, it’s like, there’s no wrong answer. There is no wrong answer, but you have to answer.

Scott Cowan [01:12:07]:

And I’ve had some people, why come both? No. No. You gotta pick. You know? And then I always like to find out what the in your case, strawberry rhubarb and the backstory. What why? What’s the thing? It’s all always about family. My grandmother made this, or my my mother made this, or my father did this, you know, whatever. It’s what it’s family.

Kelly Goto [01:12:27]:

Yep. It’s true. And with the cake question, it just goes on and on and on because I’ve tried to make cakes, and I made a heffalope cake for my one daughter that turned out great. But it was so sweet. We couldn’t even eat it, but it looked great. So if you’re gonna decorate cakes, then cakes are great because you can decorate them and be all artsy and tons. You can put, like, graphics on top of it, and that’s all nice. But if you’re gonna eat a cake, the ones that I like are the really super light ones with fruit in it, which brings me back to pie.

Kelly Go To [01:12:56]:

So

Scott Cowan [01:12:57]:

yeah. Alright. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Or, actually, we’re not together, but, you know, we’re both sitting down. And, thank you. And I appreciate your time, and I’m really excited to see the book, hit the local well, Wenatchee, you’re probably not gonna be in the only bookstore in Wenatchee because it’s just this little tiny little phone booth sized little store, so probably not gonna be there.

But when I get to Seattle, I’ll definitely be looking forward to 3rd place or at Elliot Bay, which is 3rd place anyway. You know, they’re all owned by the same people now.

Scott Cowan [01:13:30]:

So I’m really looking forward to seeing it in in in the wild, if you will. So thank you.

Kelly Goto [01:13:35]:

Thank you so much for having me. And I am going to ask for your address because I will send you I have the actual printed books now, since I spoke to you last, and I will send you a copy.