Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 22: Sisterhood of the Traveling Jean Jacket (w/ special guests: Sam Cole & Carrie Carter)

Episode Date: August 25, 2017

With the boys out of town it's real mf'in socialist feminist hours here on the Trillbillies. In this all-femme episode we talk media representations of Appalachian women, book recommendations, doctor face-offs, and more.

🎵 The humming of the drivers was my lullaby Great train whistle taught me how to drive Well, Sam, what brings you to Whitesburg? Well, I'm working on a project right now. I'm working on this Her Appalachia project. It's about a media representation of Appalachian women. So talking to people about that and uh trying to I mean just having people talk about it really that's my main focus on that thing and then having people hopefully outside of the region who haven't heard this like I don't know about y'all but like I have heard this stereotype shit like i have heard that beat to death

that has been done done done i'm tired of that so now we are tired yeah so now i just won't you know like i just would like for since people who are inside you know doing the kind of work inside and around or work they even deals with the region i'd like for people who are outside of that kind of circle to look at this stuff and to say oh you know what yeah that shit shows up all the time and i just don't ever think about it like as a matter of fact i go to watch movies that have that crap in them and i can tell from the trailer they got that crap in it but i'm gonna go watch it so that's my main goal with that so in them and I can tell from the trailer they got that crap in it, but I'm going to go watch it. So that's my main goal with that. So taking pictures and talking to people from the region about just their feelings on that.

That's about it. That's my project. Cool. Well, we're glad to have you in the Berg. Oh, yeah. And then we have Carrie here who is already a Trillbilly. Tom told me the other day I was part of the clan. We're treating it like the Wu-Tang Clan.

Oh, good. Yeah, we're an ensemble. He said that, yeah. He's like, well, we may need to make sure that everybody's on board with that, but it just needs to have a role. He's like, y'all are in it. Y'all just need to be permanent fixtures. Yeah. The clan.

Referring to me. But not that. As soon as I heard it, as soon as I heard it the first time, I was like, I just kind of cringed a little bit. Yeah. But I hear clan. I think Wu-Tang. I don't think. Right.

That's fair. Let's focus on. Anyway. Yeah. So I'm here. I'm happy to be here yeah happy to have some extra time yeah we're so glad that you're uh not mama in right now i escaped my baby and my husband he showed up i only ran out of the house love y'all bye boy bye have fun cool no i think that's cool i'm thinking of having like you were just saying having

you know depictions of us as a regional group you know and media and movies and things like i feel like you're i'm always like drawn to that like i want to see like oh they're trying to make something about like that movie big stone gap i didn't watch i haven't watched it but part of me you're i'm always like drawn to that like i want to see like oh they're trying to make something about like that movie big stone gap i didn't watch i haven't watched it but part of me was like oh that's i want to watch that it's gonna be cute it's gonna have scenes of big stone gap it's gonna have a little quirk and then i was like it's probably gonna be pretty terrible i don't you know i just like i loved it you did you love it i loved it i mean it was real cheesy sure like so cheesy but that was also like the story the story and the chosen cast and everything.

So, I don't know. But it's like I'm drawn between those things. It's like I want to see what I'm, like, what I'm drawn to. But on the other hand, it's like I don't. I worry they're going to do it wrong and I'm going to get mad. Yeah. That's always. Like you said, that's what everybody.

I stay mad. So, I don't worry about getting mad no more. I just stay that way. I think I need to accept said, that's what everybody says. I stay mad, so I don't worry about getting mad no more. I just stay that way. I think I need to accept that I am more than I do. Just a constant line of high blood pressure here. A bag of cholesterol on two feet. Oh, yeah. And they wonder why we have such health problems here.

Yeah. It's not our lifestyles. It's because we're mad all the time. No, it's definitely not the whiskeyles it's it's because we're mad all the time no it's definitely not the whiskey no definitely not the whiskey that's medicine yeah herbal relief um so what did you learn these past two days you've been here talking to women the past two days sam yeah uh what you've been hearing so the dispatches from the field all right from the field on the scene so i feel like that one of the things that i have

heard over and over again is that there's all these uh strong woman that oftentimes get passed over. And I'm not talking strong women like the one strong woman that we see all the time is like this. You know, she's the mountain mamaw. She's old. She's kind of a matriarch of her family. Shotgun wielding. Yeah, she's hardcore, buddy. She ain't got no man, though.

And she don't want no man. She don't need no man. And men don't want her. She's un, buddy. She ain't got no man, though. And she don't want no man. She don't need no man. And men don't want her. She's unlovable. Exactly. Men don't want her. They're intimidated by her. And she oftentimes carries around this kind of traditional knowledge or whatever.

But, I mean, I think that what I hear a lot of is that there are strong women in this region, like strong women who carry this huge weight, who do all this important work, who support their families and their communities and do important work for their communities, whether that's through church or, you know, other different community venues, whatever, you know, provide services to the community. And they just don't get their dues. And by God, I think it's time. Like, I know that makes me sound terrible.

Yeah, but I think it's time that we go ahead and buck up and we say, you know, women in this area are important. And they're not just important in the ways that the media wants to tell us that they're important. They're providers. They're, you know, helpmates to their men. They, you know, like that's the kind of shit that you get fed. But, like, they're important in different ways that aren't acknowledged. So I think that that's one of my big takeaways. And then I think that the second big takeaway is that so many people in the region never see themselves.

I didn't have one person who said, yeah, you know what? Like I really do see see they might have said like there's parts of me that I feel like can relate to some of these things or like people in my family can relate can relate to some of these archetypes but that's never the full picture um and there wasn't one person who said you know like yeah I see myself in a person in modern representations of women of the region I am that person yeah or like i know like my there wasn't wasn't even anybody who said like yeah my sister or my cousin or my aunt or whatever you know yeah they're that person yeah i see them so that just tells me that whoever the

hell's out there making the media first of all they don't know um and second of all they don't care to tell it right so then it's just a case of thinking about well how do we do that how do we remedy that um and i think it has to do with women doing their thing and making their own way making their own media making their own say so yeah um and media, making their own say-so. Yeah. And they're already doing that in a lot of ways. It's just not as popular as a big stone gap, you know? Yeah.

How do we get that Ashley Judd money? Well, like Ashley Judd is one of those women who I would say, there is some distance between her and us, you know, or where we're at now or whatever. But at least she's somebody who's from the region. No, I agree. And has worked hard. There's not a lot. It's still, even if somebody is dedicated to some type of media project, be it the news or journalism or a movie or a book or whatever, who is really dedicated to trying to get it right, it's still going to be their interpretation of

what their research is yeah that's true there i don't think that there are enough people driven enough women driven to to to create it themselves yeah and i don't know why that is well also it's kind of a you know i feel like that from what i've seen it's a men run the show sort of thing. They always get the spotlight. So even if you are a woman who's like, I would really love to make something that speaks to this. There's this dose of reality in the back of your head that's like, I know I'm guilty of that. I mean, being like, well, what's the point? Yeah, it'd be great, but why bother?

Yeah, which is terrible. A woman I used to work with uh always said yeah the women do all the work around here but the men jump up on the fence post and crow about it so they get all the attention and she was right at the time i thought she was paranoid but uh she she was right on yeah well i think too this has been on my mind a lot from like personal experience direct personal experience but let's turn this into a therapy session oh we tell us about that's well that's well that's one thing there see any anything we go off on like that's a whole nother thing but really i think women you know women are just innately strong and like immediately you're born strong and immediately you have all this put on you.

And so women who might would love to create a write a book would create a movie, you know, do all these things we're talking about. Like, when are they going to have the time? Exactly. Yeah. You know, like you're supposed to have like it's this is across i think all areas is the idea of having it all or whatever and that's a bunch of bullshit like that's why is that even a concept have it all what does that mean like you you can raise your child really well or you can be really good at your job you can like be good at your job or you can take care of your ailing parents because you're

just naturally a caretaker that's what you have to do yeah i saw some stupid comment on instagram about some which again i'd catch myself getting into this but someone someone on the internet said yes but it really but it was but it's all when you see that stuff i know it's like trolls and but no there's really people that think like this and this guy hits it made some comment like well women are are naturally caretakers and men are naturally providers and that's just how it works and it's like that's just how it works what the hell like we actually are naturally all the goddamn things and you're naturally shit right you're naturally sitting here on instagram taking time to make a comment on a stranger's post. Well, granted, I'm sitting here reading it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm taking a mental break from all my child naps. So leave me alone. You know, I'm taking a five-minute break while this is literally all you do all day. Yeah. And stuff like that. Anyway, I don't know. That brings me up.

But yeah, like the idea that you're going to have the time eventually. Yeah. like that anyway i don't know that brings me up but yeah like the idea that you're gonna have the time eventually yeah or the idea that like well when i get done with this and it's like how do we work it into how do we work in making things and being creative and being these strong women and feeling like we're already strong without having to look up to other people all the time how do we fit that in with having it all yeah Yeah. I mean, I think there's also a whole element of women being held to a completely different standard. And so even when we when we are able to move ourselves to this creative artistic space and put our views on display in whatever way it is, whether it's writing or our visual art. I just I feel like women have a totally get a totally different level of feedback we'll say like the criticism leveled on women the criticism living on women is just

through the roof um and i mean we see it all the time uh it's like the old i'm gonna start refer last the last podcast we get we, we were interviewing a folklorist. And she said that the Library of Congress has started to archive memes. And so now I'm going to start referring to it when I want to say something I saw on a meme. I'm going to say that old meme, like that old lore, that old story from the mountains. The folk meme. Yeah, that old folk meme tells us that if only women had the confidence of a mediocre platform of mediocre white men. One of our favorites here on Trillbillies is J.D. Vance.

He's like one of our favorite mediocre white dudes doing literally nothing of importance and getting all the shine for it. Has he blocked y'all on twitter yet no clearly we haven't added him enough he ain't been added enough and it's not worth it at jd every day every day every day you're terrible you're terrible my favorite thing of all of the podcasts so far besides the first episode probably being my favorite anyway. But somebody asked you if you'd read the book and you said, no, I got better

things to do with my time. I still ain't done it. No, me neither. Oh, I have. I have read the book. Oh, well, good. It's terrible. You actually did have a really good take on the book last night. We were having a smoke on my back porch to which my throat still hasn't recovered. I smoked black and mild thursday night and today is monday and i

am not fully recovered this is 31 people you can't even enjoy a fucking black and mild anymore without a full five day recovery train what the fuck is this life it's too much i. I want it all. I want to be. If you want the tolerance, you got to keep smoking them. I got to keep it going. Yeah. You got to build it up. No, I don't. I can't do it.

Yeah. You shouldn't. I don't want to do it. Yeah. I literally have ate a whole bag of cough drops. Oh my God. I'm in a bad way. But yeah, when we were smoking on the porch last night you had a pretty good take about um

about hillbilly elegy since you've read it yeah thank god someone did yeah so i don't know yeah i don't know i don't know if i have i do think i have a brain i mean i'm like breathing and stuff you know so whatever for whatever i can talk and i sound halfway intelligent sometimes um but uh so yeah i mean like there's that i guess i was talking about the thing about the how people say that that's a memoir and then they're fine with that oh i'm okay with that because that's his own personal story and that's a memoir and blah blah blah and i was just like i mean that's fine if you want to say that that's his experience in the region. But also, he keeps using this stupid collective we all the time to refer to things. We don't read to our kids enough.

We need to invest more in education systems. We should join faith communities. We should blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, get that collective we out your mouth. And I'm also like, and who is we? Who the fuck we? Yeah, this is who is we? Who the fuck we? Yeah, this is my daily question. Who the fuck we?

Yeah, who the fuck we? Well, like, yeah, we, okay, sure. But what are you really doing in your daily life, JD? At JD, what are you doing to actually contribute to those things that you say we need to be doing? I know. And also, I mean, a memoir, sure. Your personal experience. I'm with you on that. Whatever. I've heard people say that too and i'm like well i guess but but why but you

know why it's taken off and why it's become so pop is because he's given everybody what they want to hear about the region yeah they want to hear that we don't that our education is shit we've chosen all this for our lives we've done all this and like that the problem is is that people see his personal experience as what everyone's personal experience is here and that's not the case this for our lives we've done all this and like that the problem is is that people see his personal experience as what everyone's personal experience is here and that's not the case and no one nothing is going to take off from here and and be far-reaching because no one wants to hear people like us and things about strong and you know nobody wants to hear that about the region they want to hear that it's doomed to fail that we've done it to ourselves we're fucking ourselves over because we're idiots

and we're stupid and like that's that's the thing over and over and over again yeah well i mean also one of the things that i have and i didn't really talk about this last night and and i have mixed feelings about this because i feel like that people i feel like that oftentimes in like different communities you know like a regional anything oftentimes in like different communities, you know, like regional anything, communities, regional like studies, communities, regional literary communities, regional music, whatever, that there's often like this kind of competition to be more real. You know, like I'm more real than you because I'm from, you know, so and so. So, but one of the problems that I had, too, when I first read that book is he's not living in, like, eastern Kentucky or West Virginia. He's on the funeral circuit. He's coming down for funerals and shit.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. He's living up there in Ohio. And, I mean, I feel like that I'm removed from the region just living in central Kentucky, you know. And I was like, you come down here like as a tourist, basically, for two weeks during the summer to stay with your like family members over in Jackson County. No, Breathitt County, sorry, in Jackson. And that's what you see in the region. And so and then people take him seriously. They take him seriously.

And I'm like, OK. So I was trying to explain this to somebody one day. And of course they thought I was talking to a man. So of course he was like, you're stupid. And like, shut me down immediately. But I was like, yeah, but I was like, let's, let's think about this for a minute. Okay. So my name is Sam Cole and I live in Bateville, Kentucky in Lee County. Uh, for two weeks a year, I go and visit my Uncle Tommy, who lives up in New York City. When I get older, I decide that after my 20-something years of going back every two weeks to New York City

that, by God, I'm going to write you a book about the mean-ass dirty streets of New York City. And it's going to be real and it's going to be legit. You're going to write about your hard times in the bronx exactly and then people if i was to pitch that and be like here you go publishers check it out they'd be like you're so full of shit get the fuck out of my office like you're not a you know

you're not actually a new yorker yeah so and you're gonna call it elegy? I knew you were going to call it elegy. So that it's like the last word in this conversation is going to be me. Because I've been here a collective 100 hours of my life. Yeah, that's just how I feel about it. And I was like, so I don't understand. But I think that one of the reasons why he's getting all this play time and stuff is because, you know, he's this white guy. Graduated from Harvard. La-dee-da. Good for him.

Marine. Decided to conform to, this is what kills me too, reading that book. Like, there was one point in reading that book, since y'all said you didn't read it where i physically felt not mad about it yeah no it's fine it was a hate read and also i marked up my copy like it was your granny's bible except with cuss words and the like margins like i underlined fuck this yeah exactly yeah who the fuck we that was exactly what i did um but there's this one point where i actually feel sorry for him he talks about going to the military and whatever i don't give a shit about that congratulations like i don't know 14 people on in my family who went to the military but he went to the military and uh he comes back home and he talks about how the military's made

him think about things differently and he talks in he talks specifically about the food that his granny served to him and how that like he gets served his food and um instead of being like what my reaction would be which is like oh hell yeah granny like you give me some fried chicken and some oh yeah i'm excited no he thinks about how that it's terrible how that the food is suddenly terrible and that you know it's bad for him as far as health wise and blah blah blah and all this other stuff and at that moment there was something that like just it just clicked in my brain and i thought jd i feel so sorry for you. You have been stripped of your culture. Like you have been stripped of whatever you had that was left in you. A minuscule amount to conform to this military viewpoint. You know, this military, which I think is probably

which I think is probably largely white, middle class, normalized American culture, that he had had that taken from him. And he was experiencing this sort of like, I don't, you know, like. That's a hot take. Empathy for J.D. Yeah, but I mean, it was only in that moment because then later I was like, but really, I mean, you're an asshole who's a huge mouthpiece and you ain't doing shit for the people. And you're not even going to compliment your granny's cooking.

Exactly. Yeah, that's what pissed me off. That's the hottest part of hell's reserved for you, buddy. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And the whole. I just. We keep talking about him now.

I feel like. Isn't that part of the. It is part of the problem. And one, I almost feel like at this point, because he just had another op-ed. Like, he's just, he's riding this train to glory. He's riding this straight to, he's going to be in Congress. He's going to be a congressman. I almost feel like this was a strategic. Oh, good, then maybe he can save our education.

Yeah, when he gets elected, we'll be like, who the fuck, we? Yeah. You said we, you said we you're gonna yeah hook us up with that yeah right yeah oh well um you know you're a writer sam right right yeah so i'd love to hear who are some authors that you love oh okay well this is easy no i'm actually gonna be taking that one so the first the first one i have a deep respect for people who i think are in the region who carry on this kind of i think that there's something to be said about about writers who are they're real first of all the trill billy writers yeah they're they are 110 percent like trill yeah Yeah. They're on it. And so like one of the authors who I really love and granted, you know, he is now past.

And so some of his works kind of dated would be Dawn West. I think 110% if you ain't read Dawn West, you got to get Dawn West book. Like you got to do it. Claws of Southern Earth. It was like, I mean, that volume of poetry at one time had sold when it came out it sold almost as many copies as walt whitman's leaves of grass but nobody knows him nobody knows him you know yeah so um he's one for sure for sure and he helped found the highlander center yes he did yeah he's a real radical um also his fbi file is online which i

have checked out it's pretty badass um so so legit yeah so if you want to go find him there's also like some oral histories with him and stuff which is pretty pretty badass but um he's great he's from uh north georgia and then moved kind of all around the region to do organizing work and different things. I'm trying to think who else would be legit. Frank X. Walker, I think. I think he's pretty legit. I love Frank X. Like, he's from, you know, there's some people, I've heard some people who are like, but he's from Danville. And I'm like, what the fuck?

Like, who cares? He created the Afro-Latino poets. Exactly. I went to Governor's School for the Arts in high school. And, you know, Frank X helped, you know, started that. And one of my teachers in the tract I took was part of the poets. Oh, that's so cool. And it was one of those things that was, like, eye-opening.

Like, oh, wow oh wow yeah this is great because you know we all went to or i did anyway the widest hell schools and yeah you know luckily i don't know that was i think all of their work is great just as a collective is amazing yeah i agree oh and then a two another person is Crystal Wilkinson. Yes. Oh, my God. You've got to get a hold of that Crystal Wilkinson. Yeah, and she's a poet, right? She's a poet, and she also, well, she writes like, so some of her first books were kind of like these prose kind of stories or whatever, like these prose narratives or whatever. And she recently put out a novel that has won all this acclaim this this book called birds of opulence um and so like yeah novelist writer i think she has

wrote some poetry too down through the years but i think she's fantastic um i don't know yeah one of my favorites is Bell Hooks I think I've talked about this before And even last night we were chatting about A book that I love Called All About Love And I highly recommend it But that's more of a

Just in general, a general read To get your mind right And I highly recommend it to men To think about how How love of community and uh all kinds of different love like manifestations of love especially throughout the lives of women yeah um influences our daily experiences um it talks a lot about self-love too which i think is a really important and lacking area of uh movement how we how we keep ourselves up and going but she also bell writes a ton about the region and her experience uh being a queer black woman

in rural america and now she lives in berea and i'm if i'm not mistaken she's the first black woman living in in the country to have a a academic center named for her oh really i didn't know because she has she does have the institute yeah they just started which is pretty new right yeah it's like maybe a year or two old, I think. Long term goal is to get Belle on Trillbillies. Oh. I think we can work it out. Oh, yeah. She really loves Apple Shop. Gonna have to get the whole clan together for that episode.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be a gathering. I couldn't help it. The Wu-Tang. Yeah, get the Wu-Tang in here. The Trill... Trill... Trill...ill Trill Gang Trill Tang Trill Tang sounds like Beltane Beltane yeah I'm trying to figure out the right way to

tie all that together it's real hard we'll figure some difficult syllables I mean I think we have to be like a biker gang oh yeah like I'm missing like a leather jacket but I need one everybody else probably has one I have a pleather. It's good enough. Well, yeah. I mean. Why not just an old denim jacket? I do that.

I got a lot of good pins. I got a lot of good pins on there. We definitely all have a denim jacket. Yeah. Because sometimes we all show up to a party in the fall and we should have found first. Compare buttons on it. Yeah. We have to compare buttons.

I don't have a patch on mine. I'm just all buttons. Yeah. I have one. I have a patch on mine. I'm just all buttons. Yeah. I have one. I have a patch for my more punk appearances. I don't even pretend to be. And then I have my regular that I can wear to the grocery. Yeah.

You're going out. I got my winter one now with the shirling collar, you know, keep me warm. Oh, yeah. That's good. The versions of denim. Let's write that book a book of poem owed to my jacket yeah yeah so sam you have been a fan of the show since day one oh yeah hell yeah you've been messaging me about the show hell yeah that's right i've been trying to get you on this is my dream come true to have you on Trillbillies.

We're so glad that you're finally here and that you've been repping us. And I recently learned that you've been a socialist since way back. You've been 10 years card carrying, huh? Card carrying, by God. Yeah. I don't have it on me. I wish I would have brought it, but I didn't think about it. Card carrying socialist. You pay your dues you you get your card in the mail and your sticker

says you paid your dues next year you pay your dues and they send you the sticker so you can affix it to your card oh my god just like your car tags exactly yeah you get a new sticker every year that's awesome yeah so it just gets real thick you just keep yeah well no you there's different squares and then after so many times they send you a new they send you a new a fresh car so amazing yeah it's pretty cool and so how did you come to know you were a socialist tell us your journey okay well uh i think i mentioned this kind of last night but um upton sinclair's the jungle um which a lot of people would say is a dated book and a lot of people also know that book for fda regulations of the meatpacking industry

as opposed to it being um any kind of socialist um work but i mean to be fair upton sinclair wants i mean like when they asked him about that book he made some comment about like um he wanted to like he wanted to punch america in the wallet but instead he missed and hit their stomach or something like that you know because of the fda regulations he was like yeah no it was original you know because like people in government read that book but instead of being like oh my god this is like dude socialism is the way or whatever they were just like oh my god yeah they were just like there's there's possible rats in our sausages we gotta fix that so you know it just like they kind of missed the point do you really think they missed the point or do you think they rerouted the point

yeah they were like this is potentially dangerous so i love to err on the side of conspiracy theory yeah for sure that's the official position of trailbillies too i say twp we err on the side of conspiracy oh my god but how'd you get a hold of this book as a teenager yeah so uh I went to the library at my high school and where'd you go Lee County High School go Bobcats um so um yeah I went to the library in my high school and I had picked up a copy of we had there in the library and I brought it to the front desk and the the person who was the librarian I think she might still be the librarian there um was married to my U.S. history teacher my U.S. studies teacher and my U.S. studies teacher

was all the time like we would trade stuff back and forth, like, you know, CDs and, like, bootleg concerts and all this other stuff. Like, we would trade back and forth. And his wife, who is a librarian, would oftentimes bring me books that weren't in the library for whatever reason. Like, you know, or band books. Like I told you last night, I read The Handmaid's Tale because she brought it in um i also read uh as a teenager as a teenager yes i just read that it messed me up oh yeah uh-huh and then i read uh also the electric kool-aid acid test that book changed my life and i read it because she brought it in she had all beat up copy and she was like go for it and so they were just radicalizing this teenager they were like okay that's all sparking yeah yeah so they were like getting they were just

going ahead and pushing me pushing me you know farther and farther so yeah i brought that book up to the counter and i said uh she looked at me and she said do you really want to read this and i was like yeah and she goes uh okay, well, I tell you what. I have a better version of this at home, so I'm going to bring it in to you. And I was like, okay. So I guess the version that was in the library was slightly different than the version she brought in. In that the version that she brought in, like, there was some extra chapter on the end that oftentimes got left out of the other volumes because it was a book about the terrible meatpacking industry you know it wasn't this piece of like um socialist propaganda

is what they wanted to call it you know like in the whatever she brought in the penguin edition whatever you know um but that's what she had given it to me specifically because it did have that last chapter in it um and that was the difference between the two versions and so that's why i read that book and i was just like all these things started falling into place about um where i lived at and our economic situation and um you know my dad is a factory worker has been a factory worker his whole life and i just was like oh this shit makes sense now it just all makes sense to me so then you know from there once you get it's like a it was a gateway drug you know babyville courthouse to register as a socialist yeah i guess they won't let you do that in the

state of kentucky so no i went to the courthouse and i registered to vote uh as a democrat because you don't really have much of a choice in the state um unless you want to get like put on that weirdo what i thought was and i don't know if they're still doing it this way but i assume because i ain't seen them voter registration cards change like no yeah three options three options and then if you have uh if you want a fourth option you you go to frankfurt and you have to present all this paperwork and uh you know give them your id and give you that and i was like that's just that's just a fucking government blacklist bitch it's like i'm not buying into this shit saw that coming from a mile away yeah oh sure i'll just bring all this paperwork exactly so you can see me carrying it

in yeah exactly exactly um what about your family like your parents how did how oh lord yeah so which part though i mean because that's an interesting story well i just wonder like um you know your dad being a factory worker is that something that like registered with him do you talk about this with them did you then do you now like are y'all on the um isall on the level? Is it difficult? I wish I could say that, you know, I wish I could be like, yeah, my parents are totally on board with this. But, I mean, I do remember that my dad, there was sort of this, I told him, I told him eventually that I, what my political leanings were. And my parents are both extremely conservative. In the last election, I was riding the Trump train. They were all bored.

And so, yeah, which is sad. But the weird thing about my dad is he's a factory worker. He worked in factories in Ohio for several years after he graduated high school. And because of that, like, I can't talk to my dad about political shit worth a damn most of the time. Like, I try, I try, you know, and we get into some conversations here and there and mostly tiffs. But, you know, so I try to talk to him about it. But there is one thing that I can get my dad on and he will talk about it all day. And that's unionization of the worker and i know even though my dad is conservative i feel like that there has to be more people like that out there yeah yeah absolutely yeah so who have

like experienced this firsthand you know what the what that kind of power collective power can do for people um so yeah i mean i could talk to him about that i could talk to him about that from now till kingdom come you know like do you ever like bring it up and then you're like just inching in some a little bit more a little bit more wait what was that dad did you say you're a socialist starting to get like well yeah well you know if unionization makes sense to you what about this you know yeah yeah use it as a bridge i i haven't done that i haven't tried that so i just wonder because i think like you know no wonder it's hard to come out as it with a different sexual

orientation it's hard enough for people to come out to their parents as the damn socialist or democrat like yeah around here it's a lot of i noticed a lot of families i am super spoiled and super lucky and even privileged in a way that i grew up with like an atheist and a bunch of liberal parents so like i i don't have like i see a lot of my peers and friends who like you know going home for the holidays is stressful and that's something I think about. Like, that's got, I mean, I think that that impacts a whole lot of people's ability to speak out on issues. Oh, I agree.

But you're right. There's so many inroads. Unionization certainly around here is a stronghold. Most people still have a lot of commitment to the union, even though the union has gotten so weak and in many ways, fuck people over locally. The union kind of gave up on people years ago here. And but people haven't given up on the union. And so I think that's really an important inroad that we have here. And then also with, you know, family members and just acquaintances that i know who voted for trump almost across the board it's really anti-establishment vote it's like they have been analyzing their situation

just fucking fine and seeing that politicians are fucking them over that's a pretty clear and we can we can agree on a lot of these things. And so, I don't know. I think the, we, we know that the national narrative of rural people is fucked up. And I mean, clearly you were radicalized in your own fucking high school library. You didn't have to go visit New York city to get a goddamn clue.

We can't read down here. Yeah. I don't know yeah see my dad would have been that teacher radicalizing other students yeah so like yeah your dad's a teacher yeah we got it we got it at home we got plenty radicalized at home oh my favorite is that wasn't your mom your dad's student oh yeah no sort of no like she she wasn't like in his class or anything i and i know that that's super like i've grappled with this for a long time no it's wonderful which maybe we shouldn't air out their laundry they might listen we love them your parents are right well and i and i'm talking about a lot because it's kind of honestly like yeah it's a pretty fun story to twist

it was his first year teaching though and she was a senior it was and they're 11 years apart or whatever but they've also in January they're going to be married 40 years so it's one of those things like anyway don't yeah it's a success story

not that I would ever condone that kind of shit nowadays they're super lucky that they didn't It's a success story. Not that I would ever condone that kind of shit. Nowadays. Get it in, mom. They're super lucky that it wasn't a thing. My mom, though, when she was five years old, I'm pretty sure my mom acted like a 30-year-old. So, like, shit. I went to stay with my parents. I'm unemployed briefly right now.

And I went to see my parents for a couple of days and just kind of chill out, let mom cook for me. It was wonderful. You appreciate it. But I must have used the phrase, we don't have time for the male ego about 15 times. Oh. Like, I'm just, it's just gotten in my head. And, like, that's one of them. Like, I don't have time to not to excuse my behavior because of your male ego.

Like, that is a bunch of shit. And, like, the thing is, is I don't think people realize that's the origin of a lot of response to women. Fragility. A lot of, even if you think about things that you teach children to do, like, encourage them to be polite, encourage them to have manners. them to have manners a lot of that is when you really like think about it it's to seem like you're a well-behaved person by man's standards yeah yeah like you need to sit and be quiet at the dinner table and be still at the dinner table so it's probably not to annoy your father that's probably where all that comes from yeah and like or i don't know you could run run the gamut and i think a lot of it has to do with

that yeah I mean I think if we were teaching consent in particular early on to five six year olds which we easily could we could easily be saying yeah this is your body and if you want to hug someone you can ask for a hug but you can also say no thank you I don't want to hug you uncle Joe I mean how many times do you see little girls be forced to like hug a family member or whatever and I just cannot get it out of my head since doing these sex ed workshops where we talk about consent quite a bit is that if we were teaching consent at such a young age to all people we would be in a very difficult very different political climate because we would have a whole different relationship to our bodies our communities like our our quality of life and i just think that there would be a little bit of a different

situation of what we let politicians get away with because we are not even we don't we there's never a point in our education system where we discuss consent no and at no point you're that you're actually the person who's like introduced that to my brain lately and it and i have a daughter now she's six i have a six month old and it's something i've become super aware of like i i don't i want to raise her in a way that she realizes like these things are in our systematic and are in our society but not necessarily for the right reasons and and then i think about that with relatives i've been guilty of that myself to you know to my nieces and my nephew me like oh you know please give me a hug i'm not gonna see you know when we're leaving or

when we see each other and i most of them are like yeah of course love and carry that's great and then but my my youngest niece she has never been into that it's not just me it's nobody and it's she's she's set that up herself like it's not like my sister's like you don't have to hug anyone you know i mean i'm sure she does preach that but like that's something i've actually witnessed her naturally do that and it's made me rethink things especially after you were talking about that yeah i mean we just hyper we we normalize the fucked up things that happen to us so that we can admit, so that we can feel some level of normalcy in the world. You know what I mean? So that you don't have to think about how fucked up stuff is.

Yeah, and that starts with our bodies and it is just like a microcosm of our entire communities when our water is completely fucking poisoned and we literally have a no touch advisory we have really no other choice but to sort of hyper normalize it and be like well and in this community it's pretty hard not to normalize it because it happens every two years like goddamn clockwork yeah there's an oil spill from the local oil tycoon into the drinking water and there's a no touch zone and we're literally running all over town the last time this happened i ran into the laundromat and had to say there's a no touch advisory there's no y'all got to shut down and they were like well nobody's called us well of course they haven't no they don't who would if people are in there washing their baby's clothes well and i feel and i feel horrible about all of this like in flint and all these other places in charleston when they

had the problem and stuff and i feel it's one of those things like but i want to be like i get it but i i don't know what to do what are any of you all gonna do we've not been able to do anything about it exactly and i have friends in other cities who are like i remember a friend of mine like posted this thing about how this article about oh it's so wasteful to buy water and plastic bottles and like just drink your tap on i'm like guess what can't do it yeah and i have to have these stress stressful freak out moments about there being bpa and other horrible chem endocrine disruptors for it like i have an endocrine disorder so i have to drink water from these plastic bottles it's probably fucking up my disease worse it's so yeah well gosh boy we really well we went now well i mean

it's true but it affects us but that's endocrine disorders affect women more than they do affect men and and we're the ones who have you know we're staying home cooking for our families and washing our clothes yeah i mean it's just all yeah right and this is like you know on the left right now it's it's there it it's kind of agreed upon that a lot of people feel like universal health care is the issue that the most people can unite around and we can gain a lot of ground on water has to be an issue that issue too yeah i don't understand why that's not a bigger so yeah there's so many unifying factors around the fucked up water systems across this country that

people literally the most basic element of life i'm a cancer i'm a water sign so i'll just say that the most critical element to human life is water as an authority here as an astrologer highly skilled astrologer let me tell you there's so much but it is it affects literally everything and that's something that has been i think i really i mean i seriously could just start if i actually start talking about it too much i'll probably go home and have a major anxiety attack but no i the health problem is so real and like speaking of said endocrine disorder i had to go all over this damn state to find a doctor who would actually listen to me.

There's so much deep, like the water leads to the food production, leads to literally everything. And then with the healthcare problems, it's not just insurance. It's a decent system where people can actually, like I had, I don't know how many people I had in this town. decent system where people can actually like i had i don't know how many people i had in this i had three doctors in this town when i tried to tell them that i had this problem they were like well i don't think you do i think you need to take an antidepressant i had three different doctors tell me that i finally found someone who would do the proper blood test would listen to me and guess what i had it because i'm not an idiot it's genetic i'm not a moron every woman in my family has this problem yeah i think i have a clue and because i was able to go and pursue this and have someone an awesome female doctor

not that only female doctors are great you know but still just that helped a little bit helped me get better helped me get pregnant i was trying forever to get pregnant that's a huge issue too i think our the state of women's health is not even just the like abortion debate choice issue there's so much else like if we can't take care of ourselves if we can't trust our trust our health care practitioners to take care of us do you know how many people have some sort of um problem hormonal issue or physical ailment that keeps them from having children or having a healthy reproductive system and how much having a healthy reproductive system whether you want children or not how important that is if your hormones are out of whack your

whole body just is fucked yeah and and the the thought that we wouldn't prioritize women's health is so bizarre we are birthing every motherfucking human if all of us we are we are birthing the whole we are bringing out the whole population all of them yeah but all you want but all everybody wants to talk about is whether or not the government's plan for abortion they're not but let's go on yeah we only want to talk about this tiny piece and then defund places like Planned Parenthood that are one of the only places that are prioritizing women's health and guess what Texas eliminated them and they have they have as a state a state within our country the highest mater not infant mortality rate maternal mortality rate of developed countries

that it has shot and because to a lot of like Hispanic women coming across the border are coming to Texas they land in Texas and they don't have shit care because they probably didn't have shit care in mexico not that i don't want to mean to put that on mexico i'm just that probably sounded a little can't be that good anyway they're coming over here and then we're giving them texas here you go yeah and i mean if you think about hierarchy of needs too i mean if people aren't having their health care needs met yeah how are they supposed to successfully raise children to be like contributing members of society how are they supposed to go out and work and have it all

like they can't if you have a disorder like um like thyroid disorders hormone disorders things like endometriosis polycystic ovarian syndrome anything like that that literally make it makes you exponentially more likely to have depression and anxiety yeah and and you can't i mean you just can't function and then you and then you see people then you see men say like well maybe you're on your period yeah and like oh your hormones can't be that serious it's just your hormone take them take some take some headache medicine and like yeah they don't they don't understand at all they don't want to listen and an actual licensed doctor's telling

you it's on your head yes yes it's on your head which i think is not unremoved from the fact that there are no there are like one or two but closer to zero legitimate therapists in this town so they're telling you that something's wrong that you can't go to someone else for because there's not someone else to go to exactly that that was actually that was what really pissed me off is like the two doctors that told me to just that i'm that i just needed to take an antidepressant that my problems were fine and it was just my head i'm like you're well one of you is a nurse practitioner and the other is a physician assistant so i'm gonna rely on you to prescribe me antidepressants yeah yeah this actually reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of golden girls

did y'all see this episode so this is my question for you carrie have you circled back to any of these fucked up doctors and been like, hey, guess what, bitch? I've wanted to. I really haven't. I actually saw one of them. I'm not going to name any names. Because I've actually, one of the problems with this one doctor, too, was that it was somebody, somebody I knew went to this doctor. This was a female doctor who was not very nice.

But a friend of mine went to her for the same problem that I have. It's like, she's great. Oh, she'll listen to you she's so great and i granted like oh well i know i'm going off on this but i was upset i i've actively tried to get pregnant for a long time and it wasn't happening and so i was like i know this is part of the problem why and i was upset in the doctor's trying to talk to her about it and she was like well listen i think you need to seriously consider taking an antidepressant god forbid anyone have an emotional experience in a doctor's office exactly and like oh i'm crying so i must just be depressed are you kidding me fuck that shit yeah yeah so she said you know like i think well and she's like well because if you are having depression, it's a really, and if you're going to take an antidepressant, you shouldn't be pregnant anyway.

Oh, my God. This bitch. Oh, my God. This bitch. So she's like, so maybe you need to take a year off from trying and take an antidepressant. And I'm like, but you're also, again, you're just a practitioner. You're not a psychiatrist. You're not going to work with me on whether or not this medication potentially is working or not.

You're not going to address the original issue. it just doesn't make any sense anyway so down the road i i didn't take it by the way i got i realized that and arguing with her was not going to go anywhere so i just took the prescription i went home and i ripped it up i didn't take it yeah i just kept i just kept pursuing another doctor not that not that people shouldn't rip up all their prescriptions no no no no but i just was like people need that stuff yeah that's true get it in i will say i have in the past taken stuff for anxiety and it helped a lot of the time that's a good thing but like do it correctly yeah and don't be dismissed if you need to address something but i did see her out eating dinner.

And I'm pretty sure. This could have. You could have totally replayed this episode of the Golden Girls. Because this is what happened. Dorothy had the same experience. This doctor told her she was crazy. She finally found a doctor that said. Oh yeah.

Actually this is a really rare. La la la la. This is what's going on with you. And she just like wept tears of joy. That she like had a legitimate. Wait she cried though. That's not really a good reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Then he put her on an anamnesis. He put her on mood stabilizer. But then she saw the motherfucker, the old doctor in a restaurant. And she went up and like cussed him out in front of his young wife, who's a very old guy, like cussed him out in front of his young wife. And he tried to like leave and his wife said sit and she made him listen to Dorothy it was so good I'm gonna like I'm gonna find this clip online and put it into the audio oh my god I love golden girls all the way that's

gonna be our please our artwork for this I really because I thought about it and I can't remember if I knew I for sure had already been on the medication I needed, but I don't remember if I was pregnant or not. But it was close to the time, you know, and I saw her and I wanted to be like. Dr. Budd, I came to you sick, sick and scared and you dismissed me. You didn't have the answer. And instead of saying, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with you. You made me feel crazy, like like I had made it all up. You have the answer, and instead of saying, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with you, you made me feel crazy, like I had made it all up. You dismissed me.

You made me feel like a child, a fool, a neurotic who was wasting your precious time. Is that your caring profession? Is that healing? No one deserves that kind of treatment, Dr. Budd. No one. I suspect had I been a man, I might have been taken a little bit more seriously and not

told to go to a hairdresser. Look, I am not going to sit here anymore. Shut up, Lois. Anybody. All the bodies. All the bodies. All bodies. Listen to your body. We talked about this in bodies all bodies listen to your body we talk about this and listen to your body and chances are if you feel like something's not right it's not and if you think like well nobody's gonna help me which i did several times this is what would happen i'd have this pattern i'd go see a doctor they'd tell me you know i was fine or normal or to take an

antidepressant i'd go home i'd be really sad for like a month and then my symptoms were just so out of control that i couldn't not keep pursuing it yeah and so luckily i did i mean i went through that pattern for several for several years and finally it worked out but like i just think you have to take care of yourself there's a lot of emphasis right now on self-care yeah and it seems kind of silly and it also seems like something that you're privileged to be able to do. But at the same time. It's survival. It is survival.

Bell Hooks teaches us in All About Love that this is literal fucking survival. And we cannot contribute. Like we cannot be our full selves if we don't love ourselves. And also self-care does not mean you have to pay a ton and go to a spa and get a blah, blah, blah. It just means taking 10 minutes out of the day to do whatever makes you happy or or or work a little bit towards something that's going to make you feel better yeah today a co-worker of mine came back from a trip to massachusetts she'd been in massachusetts for a week and she said that she met a guy who was about to go on a three-week meditation

and she said that he she just looked at it why do you have to go somewhere for that yeah i don't i don't understand that either three they have apps now for your iPhone just like plug in your headphones and just i couldn't believe it oh my god i was like what three week meditation who has three weeks to to give up out of their lives the most luxurious thing i've ever done is do a two-day yoga retreat at pine mountain me too oh my god jesus who are these people again i'd like to go back i know i really did love it i need to go back to they've done it a few times they usually do it at the the first weekend of the year so it's like a new year's i set a lot of

new year's resolutions like some intentions good intentions and it did a lot how are you doing on that are you keeping up with them well this was four years ago three years ago yeah i'm getting there working your way down the list you know now i set intentions every new moon because i'm like trying to be my most witchy self these days i like that and so every new moon now I set intentions every new moon because I'm like trying to be my most witchy self these days. I like that. And so every new moon I'll set intentions. I'm also fairly certain that the witchy stuff y'all did is what helped me get pregnant. Oh, yeah.

We had a fertility ceremony for you, baby. And when that baby's old enough, I'm going to tell her all about the fertility ceremony that brought her into our lives. We're going to see if you're going to do that. I know. Oh, my gosh. Baby's first altar can we talk about for just a second because this was i mean some of this came up when i was doing interviews with people but can we talk for a second about like can we talk about some granny magic yeah can we talk about some witchy shit because i want to get real into it i'm i love

i'm blessed to have a mother-in-law that's a super appalachian wedgie woman i love that shit i try to ask her all the time like tell me more yeah yeah it's almost too spooky to get into it too much like my mom on on numerous occasions people have come to my mother in her sleep this is her this is how she says it wilkie come to me in my sleep last night and I know something wasn't right. And I got up this morning and called. Sure enough, he passed on last night, Tanya. Wilkie's gone. And I'm like, okay, okay.

It's just like, this happens all the time to my mother. Yeah, I do too. I have stuff like that. It's happened in my family too. You got to decide. Yeah. Get more in touch. Well, every solstice and equinox, there's a crew of us that get together on top of

pine mountain and try to do a little ceremony of sorts we're mostly drunk and shit talk but we often do have a fire and we sometimes we'll write some things on paper and burn it to try to put some stuff behind us and set some intentions and start having a platform and just keep going yeah i'm excited for your project i can't wait to see what comes i hope it's good i hope it's good i think it will be yeah sam tells again how we how people can look this up and find it well eventually it's going to be a part of the um it's going to be a web page eventually it's going to be her appalachia um and it's going to be a part of the, it's going to be a webpage eventually. It's going to be Her Appalachia.

And it's going to be linked from the main page of a documentary that I've been working on called Hillbilly. And that's about hillbilly stereotypes. Yes. Yes. In media representations of all Appalachians. Yes. Yeah. And that project was started way before the election.

Oh, Lord. So it's probably taken way before the election. Oh, Lord. It's probably taken a different turn now. Oh, it totally has. It's totally taken a different turn now. Especially after, I mean, I won't get too much into it. But, yeah, since we're in Trump country, yeah, it's way, it's way taken a different turn. Yeah. So, and since we got J.D. Vance to tell everybody about Trump country and its secrets.

So. Thanks, Aunt J.D. Yeah. Oh, man. You're doing the Lord's work, Sam. Oh, yeah. So, Sam, you are a Patreon giver, right? Yes, I am a Patreon giver.

Tell us about that bonus content. Oh, so if you donate to the trailbillies patreon page then you get access to really cool bonus content um and i love to listen to that stuff because it's stuff that you can't hear on the regular podcast it's a lot of people people doing this thing here just rapping about real cool stuff and i love that a lot of post radio a lot of sitting around you're done recording yeah a lot of uh hot takes yeah it's a lot of hot takes um yeah so check out our patreon page uh it's at patreon.com slash trill billy workers party trill billy workers party twp okay what uh what music do y'all want me to outro Any ideas

Do some local honeys Have y'all done that I'll play Montana Oh here's a good question Do you know Frida The Babyville Bomber No So one of the songs on their album a little girl's acting like

men is called the babyville bomber and it's about a woman named frida that grew up next to near montana i think it might have been her next door neighbor and she was a lady of the night oh she may i wonder if she changed the name that's possible Oh yeah it could be a different name Well no because she said at the same time They looked at me in the crowd and they were like Hey what do you want to hear and I was like Frida And she told the story about it And she said yeah I'm expecting one day

For Frida to show up and be like where's my royalties Bitch She's really going to want them after you play them That's funny She'll be wanting to wrinkle me in So what is Frida like what's that song about She's really going to want them after you play them on this. That's funny. Yeah. She'll be wanting to wrinkle me in. So what is Frida, like, what's that song about? She's just a hardworking girl, and she works at night a lot because she didn't like the other shit she was doing.

And I think she's married to an asshole. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. And so she just got it in while she could and made a living out of it yeah i don't know i don't know freda personally but more parachutes yeah go free to go yeah thanks y'all now freda she knew what the people would say But the people she knew didn't live with her pain

So she worked as a lady with her own free rice Just keeping the company of a man by night Oh, Frida, don't you worry, a time will come When you don't hang your head at the deed you've done Oh, Frida, hang on, just you wait forever They'll call the house when the money hits So she hit the door at the start of the car That old wreck wouldn't take her too far Just a piece of the way she would surely find

A lonely man with an absent wife When she found the park that cooped her view She found herself in Beattyville She told herself to black home While the love she made would go off like a bomb Oh, Frida, don't you worry, time will come When you don't hang your head up the neat you've done. Oh, free to hang on, just you wait for it. They'll call the house when the money hits.