We're sharing an episode of the Voice of San Diego podcast that we think The Finest listeners will love. The VOSD team discusses HBO's "Neighbors," including an episode featuring a San Diego man whose front-yard workouts have raised concerns among his neighbors. The show also looks at how human behavior may have played a role in the orphaning of two bear cubs in Monrovia, California. Plus, The Finest talks with Voice of San Diego reporter Jakob McWhinney about his favorite grimy dive bars and how these spaces help build community.

Voice of San Diego team:

• Matt Skraby, podcast producer
• Jakob McWhinney, education reporter
• Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña, managing editor
• Bella Ross, social media producer
• Mackenzie Elmer, environment and energy reporter
• Scott Lewis, editor in chief

Taylor Guitars is one of the world's best-known acoustic guitar makers, with roots in San Diego and a history of changing how guitars are designed and made. But founder Bob Taylor's work has taken him far beyond the factory floor. A trip to Cameroon to investigate an ebony sawmill exposed a problem with wood used in his guitars and sent Bob on a decadeslong journey involving forests, sustainability and some surprising research. We visit Taylor Guitars in El Cajon and talk with Bob about the company's evolution, his approach to guitar making and what happened when he started asking where the wood in his guitars actually came from. And that's where elephants come into the story.

Guests:

• Bob Taylor, co-founder and president of Taylor Guitars
• Craig Evans, director of marketing for Taylor Guitars
• Nick Kennedy, content writer and contributor for Taylor Guitars

Sources:

• Fifty Years of Feel (Jim Kirlin, Taylor Guitars)
• The Surprising Connection Between Elephants and Your Guitar (Scott Paul, Taylor Guitars, 2025)
• I traced my guitar company's supply chain upstream. It led to elephants. (Bob Taylor, The Washington Post via Taylor Guitars, 2026)
• Lacey Act Declaration Requirements (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2025)
• Rob Cavallo interview about "Excalibur" (Taylor Guitars via YouTube, 2012)
• Declines of ebony and ivory are inextricably linked in an African rainforest (Vincent Deblauwe, Matthew Scott Luskin, Serge Désiré Assola, Olivier J. Hardy, Simon Jansen, Céline Loubières, Gaston Guy Mempong, Jean Mathurin Ntsihe, Gilbert Oum Ndjock, Eric Rostand Onguene Kwecheu, Luke L. Powell, Bonaventure Sonké, and Thomas B. Smith, Science Advances, 2025)
• Scientists discover how elephant extinction threatens everything from rainforests to musical instruments (Alison Hewitt, UCLA Newsroom, 2025)
• Ebony Project (Congo Basin Institute)
• Taylor Transitions to 100% Employee Ownership Through an ESOP (Taylor Guitars, 2021)

Dianna Cowern, better known as Physics Girl, built a career explaining science to millions of people. But after a mild case of COVID, she developed debilitating symptoms that left her largely bedbound and unable to do many of the things she once took for granted, including sharing physics videos with her devoted fans. After struggling to find answers, she was diagnosed with ME/CFS and mast cell activation syndrome. Three years after she stopped making videos, Dianna recently returned to Physics Girl with a new science video. We talk with Dianna and Kyle about the illness that changed their lives, the treatments that have helped her regain some abilities, the challenges of caring for someone with a poorly understood condition and what researchers are still trying to figure out.

Guests:

• Dianna Cowern aka Physics Girl, science communicator and physicist
• Kyle Kitzmiller, Long Covid and ME/CFS advocate and Physics Girl’s husband

Sources:

• The Surprising World of Local Twitch and YouTube Streamers (Julia Dixon Evans, Voice of San Diego, 2019)
• Community-Developed Resource Guide for Infection-Associated Chronic Conditions (IACC, 2025)
• ME/CFS Prevalence in the Long COVID Era: A Corrected U.S. Burden Estimate Using Infection-Associated Chronic Condition Modeling (Cynthia Adinig, CYNAERA Institute via SSRN, 2026)