CHIRP First Time

Lucia Whalen

Lucia’s clever, feminist perspective paired with a shameless storytelling style has made her a favorite comedian to audiences in Chicago and all over the country. She has opened for some of the biggest comics working today, including Dave Attell, Janeane Garofalo, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Langston Kerman among others. Lucia is a cast member of the Lincoln Lodge in Chicago, has contributed to The New Yorker, and is a cohost of the environmental history podcast What a Waste.
Deana Lewis

Deana [dee-nuh] Lewis is a queer, Black mixed race, cisgender woman who is pro-abortion, pro-immigrant, pro-trans rights, pro-liberation, and pro-receiving gifts/applause. She participates in the work of Love & Protect and Survived & Punished, two prison abolition collectives dedicated to supporting trans and cis women, trans men, and gender-expansive folks of color who are harmed by interpersonal violence and criminalized by state violence. Deana is also one of the founding members of Just Practice Collaborative (JPC), whose purpose is to build communities’ capacities to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual assault without relying on state-based systems. JPC with Creative Interventions just released a podcast (April 2025) that Deana hosts called Stories for Power.

Deana daylights as a Senior Associate Director at the Institute for Research on Race on Public Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago also known as IRRPP. We do rad work.
Meg MacDuff

Meg has been a fixture in the local Chicago art and music scene for the past 20 years, playing her first show at 16 years old at the iconic Fireside Bowl with her all-female punk band, The Groodies. After a failed attempt to make it "big" in Los Angeles after highschool graduation, she returned home band-less and heartbroken and decided to attend art school. After obtaining a BFA in graphic design, she began her career as a designer and is currently working as a Senior Art Director at an experiential ad agency. Outside of her "day job", she continues to play in the local rock/punk bands Bleach Party and Vang! In her spare time, she writes and illustrates short stories (nutmegsays.com), rough-houses with her cats Rick and Steve, and most recently has been dabbling with animation. You may also recognize her from the infamous "People of the CTA" website, where she was featured not once, but twice by strangers who posted candid photos of her on the internet. It's surely the hair, right? Right.
Liz Mason

Liz Mason publishes zines with names like Caboose and Cul-de-sac. Her work has been in places like Punk Planet, The Zine Yearbook and the back of the toilet at her friends’ houses. She has worked at Quimby’s Bookstore since 2001 and is currently in the Master of Science in Library & Information Science program at Chicago State University. She once made an appearance on a reality show on NBC where executives called zines "pamphlets" like they were Marxist propaganda. Catch her on CHIRP Radio Wednesday mornings 6-9AM CT and find her on the internet @caboosezine and at LizMasonIsAwesome.com.
Veronica I. Arreola

Veronica I. Arreola is a professional feminist, women’s sports evangelist, retired 16” softball player, former soccer mom, and writer. She serves as the chair of the 24th district council, Chicago’s effort to bring community voices to public safety policy and police accountability. Veronica is also a children’s book author, her book “J is for Justice: An Activism Alphabet” was published in 2023. You can keep up on what she’s doing by subscribing to her newsletter Peace, Love, and.... Or find her on Bluesky and Instagram @veronicaeye.
Dacey Arashiba

DACEY ARASHIBA spent a dozen years in the Asian American comedy troupe Stir Friday Night; hosted a family of Peregrine Falcons took over his apartment balcony for four years which resulted in a BBC Nature nature documentary called “World’s Fastest Animal”; and somehow has a song 17 minutes into “D2: Mighty Ducks Two”; These days, he is an IT Manager who sings in a punk rock choir called The Blue Ribbon Glee Club.

Next Show

First Watch

Lucia Whalen

Deana Lewis

Meg MacDuff

Liz Mason

Veronica I. Arreola

Dacey Arashiba