Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 89: Getting Queer About Rural America (w/ special guest Rachel Garringer)

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

This week we're joined by special guest Rachel Garringer, who tells us all about her oral history project Country Queers (@countryqueers) which, as you can guess by the title, is pretty self-explanatory. We also get Kruged by Paul Krugman's latest bad article, "Getting Real About Rural America." Not gonna link to it because it sucks. Support Country Queers here: www.patreon.com/CountryQueers Support Trillbillies here: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Try it out. That apple was a nice little treat. That's got me. That's given me an energy boost. Spring has sprung, hasn't it? You can tell because I smashed two dipped cones today. It's free cone day at DQ, people. Is it really?

It's free cone day. No goddamn wonder I couldn't get my triple berry smoothie. That was out to the road just a minute ago. Oh, yeah. It's free cone day, baby. I saw people walking on Main Street with cones. You ain't got to buy nothing. Our guest last week

was here for the Nazi rally in Pikeville covering it. I had no idea there was a Nazi rally in Pikeville. No, you know, the OG one. The one that broke all our brains. I thought you meant like a week ago. I was like, what?

How'd I miss that? I mean, I'm really unplugged now. No new Nazis. You mean the one that ruined all our lives. Yeah, the one that ruined our lives. And she remarked that before she left that she had to go for a hike, go for a swim, and go get DQ because she lives in New York. Oh, yeah.

They don't have DQ in New York? It's probably just not the same. If they do have it, it's just not the same. I would venture to say there's no DQ in New York. I still can't hear myself through these headphones. I don't know why. I bet it's the headphones themselves.

You think it is? Maybe so. Swap me out. I don't need to hear myself. I can hear you all. Okay. Also, I'm so not just a chatterer in this fashion so we're just gonna i'll just this is great i'm like totally an introvert who doesn't talk a lot we're gonna throw you right into the fire yes we're gonna let you read uh speak your piece we're We're going to pull you out in here. Perfect.

The easiest way to tell that it's springtime in Appalachia is the influx of white vans, like white passenger vans, carting all of the spring breakers and missionaries down from Pennsylvania and New York, and also the FBI. Also the FBI and kidnappers. I thought you were going to say because your ducks start laying eggs again and the colt's foot is blooming and you can hear the spring peepers.

The cats get horny. Ducks do too. My ducks have been having a lot of queer sex, I have to say. There's not a Drake to be seen and they are like, they're all about it. Is that a reference to the artist Drake? It should be

I wonder if Drake The artist knows that male ducks Are called Drake's Which I'm assuming predates Drake the artist Well it sounds like he is himself A male duck? You think he has a corkscrew dick? Yeah I've heard his dick a corkscrew dick? Yeah.

I've heard his dick is corkscrewed, for sure. You heard it here, folks. I'm a true baby. But also, he's weird with young women. He is definitely... So he's teetering on being canceled. Well, no. Like I said earlier this week, he won't be until he's... 20 years after his career. 20 years after

the career is actually over. Rachel, were you at the Moth when it came to apple shop yeah okay you remember uh dame was that her name dame wilburn i think yeah she told the lesbian chicken sex story yes so she said you know if you don't have any roosters one of your chickens will butch up on you yeah i was gonna say do you have one particular butch of the crew? They take turns. They're all switches, I guess. That's great. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Interesting. I mean, yeah. Cute. Maybe not all of them. I don't know. There's 13 ducks. I can't really keep track of what's happening. And part of what happened is that I don't have a big enough like pond, pool thing for

them right now. And so they were kind of fighting over like the water thing but in the water they really do some i don't even know what to fucking call it but yeah so if you have three you see if you have 10 hens i have you'll have one that will um ostensibly it was more than one there were like multiple oh were they like fight and vie for alpha leadership? I don't know. I can't quite figure out who's in charge of the whole block. Well, as a country queer expert, I think- Paddle of ducks.

I looked this up. You can call it a paddle or a raft. Cute. Yeah, paddle is the venery name, right? And then a raft is when there's a drake involved. Oh, really? How do you know this? Yeah, how do you know this? I'm so excited.

I know all the venery names of all the animals. Quiz me. Venery? Yeah, what is a venery? Yeah, venery name is what, like, those old, like, aristocratic English hunters would, like, name groups of animals something. So what are some others? So, like, Like a murder of crows.

A murder of crows, a kettle of hawks, an alliance of dolphins, but when the ladies show up, it's a team. No, it's a party. It's a party. It's a party. Oh, that's true for humans. That's true generally speaking. And a rape of bros, as we would call.

Right. Is that real? Yes. Well, I that real? Yes. Well, I mean, like, if there's any kind of, like, for example, like, you know, a murder of crows. Like, where did that come from? I was wondering if maybe they had applied that word to another. No, that was a Brandy joke, remember, from Brandy did stand up at Apple Shop. Oh, yeah.

Anyway, I think you should just coin a term for lesbian duck sex since you're a country queer expert anyway. See, I did not sign up for any on-the-spot invention of terms when I agreed to this interview. I'll get back to you in like three weeks after I've thought about it for a long time, which is the pace at which I. We'll edit it again. It'll be.

Yeah, great. And then we'll just play the part you're saying. That goes in real time. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll make you look real good. The sound quality is like I'm recording you in a warehouse. It's very tinny. Yeah, just leave it on my voicemail and we'll just play.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. For sure. I saw bats fucking one time. Whoa. Oh, Tom. tom holds the esteemed um i'm in the literature tom is in the yeah tom is actually cited in scientific literature at syracuse university about bat sex i was playing tennis one night with jonathan hootman our buddy who's also a bat scientist and also in addition addition to you, is that what you were saying?

What's that now? In addition to being a basketball player, Hootman is a bat scientist. I thought you were saying he's also a bat scientist like I am. Oh. The foremost expert over here. Yeah.

Well, I'm in the literature, so. That's true. I mean, that's the funny thing. People have dedicated their lives to studying like bat reproduction. And Tom was just fucking around at a tennis court one time. I had I had I had him cutting cards for that fucking video. Yeah. This motherfucker was like auctioning it off.

And I went with the person that was going to give me credit in the in the literature. So wait, but what happened? So we were playing tennis and like those bats like they'll just like swoop up to the lights and eat moths you know and they'll just fly around up there we were just playing then all of a sudden this red bat just speared this female pad out of the air and then they just went to the ground and jonathan said get your phone out. I was like, what? And I mean, it was crazy. I think I still got it.

I'll forward it to you after the show. He knew immediately what was happening. Yeah, he goes, this is rarer than gold. They're both flying. The male bat comes and like tackles her from the air down to the ground. Yeah. Basically. I think it's basically like rare gold because it's been so rarely documented.

Bat reproduction itself is very much a mystery. Wow. Yeah. They think that it might have, I mean, like this guy saw, this is a red bat, right? An eastern red bat. So it's a pretty common bat. Tree bat.

Right, right. But some of them, you know, they mate like around cave openings, portals, as they call them, and just hasn't been witnessed very often, which is hilarious, though, that Tom got cited on a... My God, I'm... So you got money for the video, too? No, I didn't get money for it, but I got...

Sold it to BuzzFeed? I got a credit in a journal at Syracuse. For the BuzzFeed bat channel? Which you could put on your CV. You should put on your CV. Under your bat work. Or under publications. Yeah, several publications.

You're like a co-author. Totally. Wow. So how long was the video? It was brief but intense. What it lacked in quantity. Well, and then the fucked up thing that you realize, and I don't want to be cavalier when discussing this in the human world,

but in the animal world, sex is rarely consensual with a lot of species. It appears to be the case with the red bat, too. Well, you know, the thing about that about that though is that a lot of i mean you know probably know more about this than i have a lot of the female um in the species will evolve certain ways to uh not make it the act itself consensual but make the act of selecting the sperm consensual. Like in ducks, they've got very elaborate vaginal cavities or whatever the fuck they're called. I can't say that I know more about this than you do. Shockingly.

Really? Yeah. No, they do. Female duck vaginas have dead ends and stuff. Wow. Because of the corkscrew. Yeah. Yeah.

So that they can basically like choose what sperm they want to be inseminated by. Unless you're in my paddle of raft which is it when there's a Drake? Whatever. And there's only one Drake

and then you don't get to choose. Right. Right. Right. But I don't have a Drake anymore. I ate. I ate my Drake. Oh nice.

Killed an invasion. Yes. Continuing on. It was either going to be you or them. That's awesome. But I don't have a drink anymore. I ate my drink. Continuing on. It was either going to be you or them. One on 12 is not good odds. Oh, shit. Michelle's dad has a chicken. So he, right now he's got like 25 chicks. He puts, he has fighting rooster never

mind edit that out he has regular roosters why very very docile kind nice rooster are you gonna get in trouble for saying that no i mean it's definitely not legal. Nobody cares. Anywho, he has regular peaceful chicken roosters and then chickens and he has them separated and when he wants to make chicks he'll stick a rooster in and he paints their heads and everything to keep track of

what type they are or whatever. I mean he's like a legit breed and he like are or whatever. Yeah. I mean, he's like a legit breed and whatever. And he like sells them whatever because of what breed they are. Right. Anywho. Let me ask you a question. Is he a hatch, kilt, or a roundhead man?

I have no idea what you're talking about. These are the peaceful breeds. Oh, I don't know. And you can do hybrids. Yeah. Anyway, I'm sure he can answer that But he has a chicken that he has put a rooster in with multiple times And then he set her eggs and they haven't been fertilized

Really? So he says that she can't, she's not, he can't top her She can't be topped, that's what he said I thought you made a tweet about that Yeah, but Chella went over there and he said Hey Chella, I got this chicken, can't be talked. That's what he said. I thought you made a tweet about that. Yeah, but Chella went over there and he said, Hey Chella, I got this chick and can't be talked. I thought you'd like it. Did he know he was referring

specifically to what? Did he know he was referring to a specific Like sort of parlance Like a specific kind of slang Queer sex No he wasn't that far into it

He just like I was just trying to be like is that not in everybody's sex That's just queer sex I mean just It is technically No technically it is but the language Itself around it is different. I'd say that's very, very outside of hetero.

He was just making a lesbian joke more than a sex joke, but we took it very differently. We really enjoyed it. We've mentioned it multiple times. I just like, he's like, thought you liked it. Thought she liked it. She came home and told me, and I was like, like call him up tell him we'll take her We're gonna put her over here we'll eat her eggs

She belongs here now She's our chicken That's funny shit I've been to more chicken fights Than I care to confess to Well Michelle says that he used When she was single he used to be like Michelle you ought to come to the fights with me now

There's more women there than men you will be surprised if your dad gets you fixed up at the chicken fighting derbies he would have been so proud i'm not i'm sure he's proud now too just i'm just not living up you're Wow. Oh, my God. Well, yeah, no. Yeah, no. Springtime in eastern Kentucky is pretty, it's beautiful, but it's also pretty hilarious. My allergies rare up this time of year, so I have a hard time enjoying it. Yeah, you don't like it. The other day I was walking out my house and there was one of those

big white vans, you know, with a bunch of people from New York or something. The FBI. That's what they're called. They had somehow... New Yorkers. Heavy Aircoats, New Yorkers. They've all got the New England accent.

Like, hello there. They're just all here for some Dairy Queen. Yeah, yeah. We've got real authentic people down here. They're just all here for some Dairy Queen. We've got real authentic people down here. They're here for free cone day. We got lost on a free cone day. I heard the blizzard won't fall out of that cup. Okay, sorry. We're trying to get to the story about the white van.

We keep sidetracking. There's really nothing to it. It was just really funny like they had somehow managed to wrap their van around a telephone pole oh my god not like in a wreck like they were they were probably really hung over and trying to pull off out of upper bottom right over here right by apple shop and their van was just stuck against this telephone pole and all like seven of them were standing out there just scratching their heads. Oh, my God. What do you do about that? I was like, how did this happen? Amazing.

Pretty crazy. Did you go over there and say, I'll help you, but first I got to know. Y'all cool? Are you feds? Are you cool? If I ask you, you got to tell me. Damn. What's your Wi-Fi signal?

Is it FBI banned? Can you be trusted? Yep, yep. Well, it's also, I do love spring because the Easter lilies are out, a.k.a. the daffodils. Those are beautiful. You have a few out in your yard, I see. I do.

I already have ants in here as well. Oh, yeah, that's spring for sure. Is that what you're looking at? Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I was distracted by ants. Yeah, I was just trying to look at my notes to see if there was any pressing issues that we should talk about.

Oh, you have notes. Yeah, he said notes. I thought he said nuts for sure. And I was like, all right. Oh, my nuts. Yeah, I was looking at my nuts. Pressing issues over there. Let us know.

We'll take a break. What's going on over there in the real world, cowboy? Well, I'm not trying to, like, steal anybody's, you know, spotlight or anything. I just, like, you know, just had a few things of note that had happened in the last week or so that I thought was pretty funny. Whose spotlight would you steal? Well, I don't know. We a guest oh right i was like what happened so please steal the spotlight i don't really like it no well we've already started the episode so i might as well you know introduce our guest for the week oh yes please um great you want me to introduce myself great maybe tanya

should since she's sitting right now i can introduce myself allow me yes please do um my name's rachel wait shit i'm really bad you gotta tell me what do you want me to say uh this is rachel yeah thanks hi nice to meet you uh social security number blood type yeah just the regular it's the huge credit card number if you could if you got it rachel has actually been a star of a few different Trillbilly segments. A few? Yeah. Oh, really?

Stories I've told about her. Yeah. Uncredited. She's stealing your material, Rachel. Yeah. Okay, great. Passing it off as her own. Well, I did tell her

that I shared her story on our new segment, Rich People Are Deeply Diseased. Oh, right. Above which one? In West Virginia? Oh, yeah. The wine. For some reason, I heard you say this. I shared her story on Arsenio Hall.

I don't know. Carry on. Four headphones is not working as well as three headphones. Turns out we all have a short. Well, day for shit. This is DIY podcasting, Kanyeanya yeah anyway she is the glamorous owner was the glamorous owner of the uh outhouse oh from renter i was renting that house she was

renting the outhouse where i got to play fetch while i was shitting remember that right right i was so proud on that trip because um i had like cleaned that outhouse really well I like swept it out and like made it cozy and I put a little twinkly lights just in advance of people coming so that it would feel like welcoming for people who were not that excited about the outhouse but nobody commented on the fucking lights I kept mentioning I literally did okay great and then I told it on the all true billies listeners now know about the twinkle lights In your outhouse They're no longer in the outhouse they're now in my house Is this in Pocahontas County

It's right on the border yeah so I grew up on the border of Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties And so this outhouse is in Greenbrier County That's right To the listeners The best Virginia Yeah absolutely Yeah no I agree Rachel's face says

Yeah everybody says that no i believe it i'm just like do we even have to say what we're talking about why doesn't everybody know we're talking about the best state in the damn country right and when i described the outhouse fetch situation into the like butterfly garden essentially and the rolling hills. I described this on Normie Clown Posse. Oh, this is by the Gesundheit Institute. Yes. Not right by. Not right by.

I would just have you know. Not bordering. Same county. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I was describing this, and Terrence said, it sounds like you were in heaven.

And I missed the chance to say almost because it's almost heaven I would say it's actually heaven I think you were actually right we are not being paid by the tourism department in West Virginia that's right we are not disclaimer

open for business no me and Tom the other day were talking about that we and tom the other day we're talking about that um we were talking the other day about that um west virginia china deal where china bought up all this like we're like you know in the next 100 years or so that may not actually be that bad of a deal it might not might actually also i feel like that story just disappeared. Yeah, just immediately. It was this huge, weird story. And then, like, I care a lot about West Virginia and this region and its relationship to the world. And I don't even know what the current, like, I don't, it just kind of was like, this weird, bizarre, China bought half the state of West Virginia.

Has that happened to any other state ever? Probably not. And then there was, like, no news about it ever again. I thought that we would twist it into, oh, you let China buy West Virginia because they were like jobs, jobs, jobs. It was a jobs announcement. And then everyone was like, wait, what? You sold West Virginia?

After we already forced them to change the logo back from open to business to wild and wonderful, which clearly didn't mean shit. I thought I think it could work out because, you know, let's keep an open mind about more chemical plants along West Virginia's rivers. Well, you know, like China doesn't have that whole like death cult thing that this country seems to have been have gone into in the last 10 or 15 years. Like they actually have long term plans and self-interest. It's bad. Probably involves us not surviving. interest it's bad probably involves not us not surviving but you know i don't think that they really uh you know i don't think that they they're not like nihilistic death cult like we are with

you know which is what the republicans are that's a bit it's basically a death cult and so are the democrats as well so it could work out i mean they could they could you know they actually invest in the infrastructure maybe and given the choice between between Joe Manchin and Xi Jinping, I'm taking Xi nine times out of ten. That's what I'm getting at. I'm taking Xi nine times out of ten. Oh, man. Wow.

Yeah. No, it is bad. I'm just... Totally. Silver lining. Yeah. Maybe. Who knows?

We're trying to do that lately. On the trailbillies? Yeah. Silver lining. It's a new thing we're trying out. Just me. You can see how it's going. Seems like it's going great. Well, I'm sorry to derail everything.

We were just talking about outhouses. I feel like it's a fine shift to chemical plants along the Kanawha River. The natural progression. Progression, that's right. Yeah, but I was introducing you. Oh, right to just reminding the trailbilly audience that you're an old pro here on the show you've been here many times in spirit and we are so grateful to have you here uh in the flesh today yeah well thanks i'll have to say i've

been a little bit nervous because this is like the most like let's just be witty and funny and good at talking podcast that i listen to and those are like not i'm like yeah about to launch a podcast that will be so the opposite of this podcast because i'm so not into just like talking off the cuff and recording it like is not my style so i was a little bit worried tony was like just come on and just be funny and i was like now i feel stressed out so i rolled it back in i was like never mind forget the funny there's no fun we won't have any fun it'll be fine don't worry about it at all well none of us are funny um it's just that uh i disagree with that well you know some funniness that happens here.

He was fishing. Yeah, I was about to say. He pulled out his fishing pole there. That's why the fucker's the Bill Dance of fucking... That's true. Fishing for compliments. Yeah, I'm Bill Dance of fishing for compliments. I love Bill Dance.

That's a reference that might elude a lot of listeners, but go look up Bill Dance. No, Bill Dance videos are great. I don't know what the hell they're talking about he's got like a 80 percent of the time you remember bill dance he's got like a specific saying too doesn't he i don't remember man there's been many nights when me and tom and matt have just watched bill dance videos i want to tell you something i'm you know there's a lot of people that are bill dance truthers about what about him? Okay so Bill Dance is a pro fisherman

For those that may not know He's the guy that wears the orange Tennessee hat Like on the fishing shows on ESPN Like Saturday morning like 7am Yeah And so what I've learned is this From my sources Is that Bill Dance is not really out there all day

slaying fish after fish after fish. That sometimes they shoot for days and days and days at a time. Really? Yeah, but they make you think this is just one fishing trip and he's just fishing with dynamite out there. Does he wear the same outfit every day? Every time. Except for when he falls in the water.

He does a lot of buffoonish stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of like what this podcast is like well we will record for days and days and days and edit it down edit it down to an hour so this is like not really connected but i'm just gonna go there because it seems like the flow of conversation here is that we just follow there's no rules um so i grew up in the middle of nowhere greenbrier pocahontas county raised by like pretty hardcore back to lander hippies we didn't have tv um the neighboring land of the farm i grew up on had been a commune in the 70s um so when i was a kid they were like you know I'd walk I'd just wander around because we lived in like literally nobody would come over

ever I'd get so excited if there was a car like out on the driveway I'd like run to the window and watch and see if I could tell whose car it was

guests yeah totally but they wouldn't come to our house they'd just like drive on up the driveway just like little Rachel's eyes oh my god yeah

and I had older siblings who were like not that into hanging out you know I'd like hang out with the animals on the sheep farm and like wander around on all this like land and there were up in the barn lofts and in this old like school bus and whatever there were just remnants of people living in all these spaces so like old bed frames or like posters on the wall or just random shit from like hippies living in barns where they were archives yeah right things accumulate totally but they would like line

the walls of the barns with hay bales and then have a wood stove inside which like i'm surprised nobody died but so anyways the point of all this is that there's a connection my only connection to fishing shows is about growing up without tv and how little of it i've watched in my life but i was at a friend's house in high school and i was stoned out of my mind and the tv visuals and the audio were like not matched up and so somehow the audio was xena princess warrior but the video was a fishing show maybe with this oh my god build dance it was incredible build and i was so stoned and I mean, this has been like 20 years and I still think about it.

Set to Xena Warrior Princess. No, that definitely gives us the episode image for this episode now. Xena Warrior Princess fishing on a... Put a Tennessee hat on Xena Warrior Princess. And a fish. She'd be holding like a fish.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. I went over to, me and Alex went hiking yesterday at the Pinnacle Area State Nature Preserve in Virginia. And these guys pulled up in a big truck and they had a bunch of trout in the back and they were stocking the river. I was like, that'd be a pretty badass job. Yeah.

You know, just throw fish in the river all day. Right. And old guys just come and fish them right out immediately if you throw them in do they really yeah it was so they're probably they probably know when they're stuck that's exactly when they it was really funny it was like it was like feeding fish but it was feeding humans with fish he used to know all that he'd be like I gotta go fishing they start upon yesterday they would do that up at home all the time I remember that people would like

know the days that they were releasing the fish and just go right there stocking day stocking day hell yeah like Christmas

I would still fish in Valor I would I would just go on stocking actually if I was the guy that was doing the stocking I would just

step away and say, hey, take a picture of me just like with this trophy trout. Big shit eating grin. There is apparently, I am told, at Fish Pond Lake has been listed as a honey hole by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. What's a honey hole? Just like, there's a world, not a world record,

but like a state record largemouth bass up there. Like, you know, they shock them up and they do like the whatever. No shit. Yeah. Wow. And Derek, Kevin Derek Sexton's the one that. But, hey, to his credit, he does have the second largest bass ever caught in Kentucky.

Really? That is confirmed on the pages of the Mountain Eagle. His goofy ass is out there. And that's why it's a honey hole? Well, I mean, but that's the number two fish in there. It sounds like honey pie. Horny hole. Right.

Yeah. Wow. I mean, there's all kinds of myths and all kinds of tales about what's in Fishpond Lake, including... There's a house under there. Right. And, you know, supposedly there's like a carp the size of this cabin or some bullshit. Can't fish the size of a bovo.

Yeah, that's what it is. Well, they were doing scuba lessons out there for a little bit. Right. There's a video on YouTube that they're advertising. Cute. Yeah, they're really cute. People can pay to come and scuba in Fish Pond Lake.

I don't know if they still do it, but they were for a little bit. Why are we not picking this up as our new approach to the economy in the coalfields? Come on on the scuba tour. What if your home was that house under Fish Pond? And you put on a scuba suit and every day you go home to it.

You sit in your scuba suit for eight hours watching TV. Watching Netflix or whatever. Time to go to work, you go home to it. You go home to it. You sit in your scuba suit for eight hours watching TV. Watching Netflix or whatever. Time to go to work, you go up, take your wetsuit off, get in your car, go about your day. Trying your hair off in the car on the way. It's so funny they picked fish pond because fish pond's like, not that it's gross, but it's fishy.

You know what I mean? It's not even like a good place to swim much less like scuba no when i saw him baptizing somebody in there i was pretty grossed out they baptize up they do yeah yeah you remember i told you we walked up on a baptism and you oh that was fish pond i didn't know it was fish but i couldn't see what was happening we could only hear it and i and it sounded like at first it just sounded because you know how noise travels on water anyway it just sounded like angelic 400 car engines revving or something it was insane but they were singing it was like a i don't know 40 people out

there singing a hymnal that's that's awesome i love that When we got closer, it was cooler. But at first, it was like, we're walking into a... Sacrifice. A cult sacrifice. Yeah, like a cult sacrifice. I literally don't know what's happening over this hill. That's crazy. But it was... Yeah.

It had been a lot cooler to walk into. When I grew up in New Mexico, we didn't have water. So they would baptize you in hot tubs and jacuzzis Every lot of the churches there we have like a hot tub in the altar The baptismal now That ain't strictly you pal We got them too. I do that all the time with everything hipp Hippies don't do that, so I got nothing for you. They don't get baptized,

or they don't exceptionalize their experience. They definitely do that. I see. Oh, Lord. Well, you mentioned that you have a new podcast coming out. It feels like a, yeah. That is one of the reasons we asked you to come on today. Tell us about it.

But you have, unlike us, you have an abundance of content already prepared for this new piece of media. Because you've been doing this really cool Country Queers project for the last, like, six years. I was going to say eight. Feels like eight. Eighteen years of country queer folklore i love it yeah the podcast feels a little bit far off at the moment just because the time is always tricky to figure out as you all know but um right but yeah uh that the plan is this year maybe later in the summer to launch that and country careers is

um i can't believe it's been six years but yeah uh kind of multimedia oral history project i feel like the title is really self-explanatory um so you people always ask me like tell us about the project i'm like well it's about country queers. You know, and oral history is like, what do you need me to say? That's that's it. Just listen to them. That's good. It's good to have it self-explanatory because when you tell people the name of this podcast, you're like, what the fuck?

What's that? But maybe that's part of the draw. People are like, oh, that's those are. That's a weird combination of words. That's true. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.

A new word. Yeah. Yeah. Well, That's true. Maybe. I don't know. Create a new word. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. So, you know, throughout all your years of, you know, gathering interviews and stuff, can you draw any, like, universal deductions about that? This is my least favorite question. Ooh, first one.

Smite him down, Rachel. I'm sorry. No, but people ask me that all the time and i feel like partially it's me just being really stubborn about like i don't i don't think of it as this academic project where i'm like drawing a thesis conclusion out of the whole thing it's just like about the fact that like i grew up in the middle of nowhere in west virginia i didn't know a single out queer person except for the department of natural resources officer dosha webb who that's a story we should come back to she was amazing but i thought you meant the entire agency that's pretty progressive

for west virginia it might be true i don't know um dosha was amazing but anyways and and so like i left for 10 years and after coming out outside the region you know people i just thought there was like no way i could move home and when i did i was like wait a minute there's like the queer nod at walmart there's like people around you know yeah but why is it so hard to find people there it was really hard to even like meet people in the same damn county you'd see people occasionally but but also like there were just weren't stories that I could find other than stories about Brandon Tina and Matthew Shepard and like these violent murders which are important parts of queer history rural history but also like that's not the only kind of real queer experience that's not the outcome of every

real queer story and so I was just really frustrated so i think part of the reason i don't like that question is that to me the like my main goal has always just been that these stories should be preserved and should be accessible to other rural queer folks so that we can feel like we exist and have existed right in places that kind of tell us that we don't and haven't existed there so partially i think i'm just like feisty about that question because in grad school that's what they wanted me to do and i was like no i don't want to do that because i feel like the individual stories are just really like interesting and i also think just as a human i'm not really good at drawing like overall generalizations i'm like oh but this person had this like amazing rainbow strap for their shotgun on their wall in mississippi and that person like

had this really beautiful dog with weird colored eyes you know it's just like the things that stick with me are not yeah that except for that i feel like everybody says it's really fucking hard to date and nobody knows how to give advice about that and i don't know why it's come up so much in so many conversations, but a lot of people, when they talk about moving to cities are like, I just couldn't deal with the traffic. Like all of the country careers are like,

fuck city traffic. I know. Can't do it. Like the thought of it makes you want to apocalyptic. Yeah. Oh yeah. Wow. That's all I got.

For generalization. Oh yeah. What were some of your favorite interviews oh i think i've done like 65 now so it's hard to pick a favorite i've had so many favorites one was a 78 year old former nun in massachusetts who she was feisty as hell and she um was really nervous about the project she hated the word queer which has been true of like many people i've interviewed who are over the age of 60 they like i have to talk to them about the word like why i use the word and how i you know yeah because

i think it used to be derogatory totally and there's a very not only generational but often generational divide i think in people who that was a word that like was used violently towards them in their younger years and they're not into like using it um i had i interviewed some folks in colorado who didn't want to be a part of the project i ended up having dinner with them because i was staying with some friends of theirs who i'd also interviewed and part of it was that they thought that I like didn't understand at all what it would be like to, um,

to like face bullshit for being queer. I think they thought, and I think it's true for like a lot of younger queer people that like, it's just, it's such a different landscape, right. Than even if you were 60. But at the time I was working in rural public schools in West Virginia and I

wasn't out at work although I think like queer kids found me and came out to me but like teachers never asked me you cool yeah totally no it was more like I'm bi and I'd be like cool but the teachers like wouldn't talk about it with me so anyways I think after talking to them about that and they finally agreed to do an interview, which like I had given up on it. But they just were so they found that word so abrasive that they didn't even want to be a part of the project until they sort of like learned a little bit more about me and my reasons. But so this person who is in Massachusetts wanted to not use her real name because she was really nervous about the project. So the name that I chose to talk about her is francis um and she'd grown up just in rural western mass um and

had been with her partner for like 30 years she was like giving me relationship advice unsolicited that was amazing um and asking me about my you know i love when people flip it around and they're like well what about you well how's your garden and, you know, I love when people flip it around and they're like, well, what about you? Well, how's your garden? And what, you know, because I think that's fair for interviews. But she told this, she just had this line about

being in the convent and trying to teach and she didn't like teaching and she fell in love with another nun and not with God. And she said that being gay in the convent was like being a kid in a candy shop and she had to leave. And I was like, this is in a candy shop and she had to leave and i was like this is amazing yes she was she was pretty rad this is what i'm here for yeah yeah

and then i mean so many there were these people i stayed with in mississippi um southern mississippi who um they kept telling me like their road was so bad they'd have to pick me up at the end and i was like you haven't seen the road i grew up on in West Virginia like I am sure I can get there it's flat like whatever got a good old Les Baru like I will be fine um and then Mason this like really butch dyke from Florida picked me up in her truck and the reason the road was so bad is that it's in this like kind of swampy part of the state that when it rains a lot at all like they have to take a boat to their house like it's just so the road is not just like yeah it was a bad road yeah but i also like didn't know these

people when i get picked up by this person i'm like driving miles out this terrible road in this truck to like stay with them with a flip phone um and that is literally that's the 21st century version of up a creek without a paddle exactly exactly but they were amazing mason was like had been a part of this like lesbian um land project in mississippi in the 90s called camp sister song that they got all this um they just got harassed super hardcore by folks in the community. Like, people would, like, kill dogs and leave bloody tampons in their mailbox and, like, dead dogs on their property. They, like, lit a car on fire and rolled it down into their land to try to burn them out. Like, there was just a lot of shit.

So they ended up on Oprah and Jerry Springer and, like, there was this whole thing. So Mason, like, that was her kind of younger mid-life years but she um was partnered with this woman spencer who who was born in um oh i'm gonna forget maybe tahiti and her mom was white and french and her father was like a traveling diplomat from west africa and she'd grown up in france and then lived in wisconsin and ended up they like met each other in um new orleans and now they lived in this like beautiful hand-built half-finished cabin out in the swamps of mississippi and so like spencer was cooking this like incredible french food and mason had the rainbow shotgun strap and like it was was just this working class southern butch. Anyways, it's just like,

end up out in the middle of nowhere being like, I don't know where I'm going and then it's this weird, magical, bizarre place. So how do you typically find these people? So that's the only time I've done a big... Gaydar, right? It's gaydar. I just have it on top of my car

and it sends out signals. It comes standard in the all new 2019 Lesborough. This was actually a 2003 Lesborough. So you have to go old school with the car for it to work. No, but I did. So in 2014, I did like a Kickstarter and to do this month long trip because I was working in the school. So I had summers off and I did a lot, like, I just reached out to basically everyone that I knew anywhere and said, like,

do you have any contacts in rural places? And so there was a lot of, like, friends of friends of friends. But then also the Kickstarter got picked up by Upworthy. I don't even know if that website still exists. Oh, I forgot about Upworthy. I didn't even know what it was. So the background to this, like like multimedia project is that i was living without internet with a landline phone and like refused to get a fucking cell phone and like then

decided to launch this project which has led me into all sorts of relying on the internet but like i didn't even my dad was like yeah if upworthy wants to do a post about it you should probably do that like that would be good for your project and i was like but what are they i just never heard of them so they did a post and then people just started contacting me from like call they were calling your flip phone they'd email okay an email address which i would check at the library wow so but people wrote somebody wrote from italy somebody wrote from england people are from like nebraska and montana and wyoming and whatever most of those people i've never met but um yeah i think i think mason just contacted me on facebook because she'd seen it somehow

but those are i mean there's so many good stories so many people but those are the first two, I guess. Damn. Yeah. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was curious about, and feel free not to divulge this if it's something you want to keep under wraps, but I was interested in what the podcast was going to be about. So it's going to partially be a way to feature some of the audio. So I didn't. Oh, okay.

Yeah, of the interviews. Okay. Yeah. I didn't set out to do an audio like i didn't know what i was doing i had never i'd like not done any audio media work i didn't have any experience like i've saved up and got this zoom recorder with no external mics and like i just i have a lot of terrible audio is what i'm trying to tell you um and i thought i wanted to write this like book with stories from every state and then I was like this is crazy expensive and like just getting a few stories in Texas could have been like a month's long project you know um so a lot of the audio isn't gonna be podcastable but some of it is bearable and um thank you to be surprised yeah i mean but no

it's like i was outside in texas with like the wind roaring so it's just like and then like a train going by i mean it's like bad it's not just like yeah it's not just me doing unpassable no this is bad joke this is incredible it's not like we have a zoom recorder right there on the table and then also like the cat is knocking it over. You know. Oh, do they all have cats? Not all of them, but a lot of dogs. A lot of lesbians grilled for me because it was a summer trip. They all like grilled in their backyard for me, which is very cute. But so, yeah, I think it'll be it'll be sections of some of the interviews um and i'm not exactly

sure but i think that i might try and um have a at the end like another rural queer person whether someone who's interviewed or not like talking about the interview so that there's some more um just like conversation and connection to the stories. That's what I'm thinking at the moment and have been doing a lot of like talking with different people who are friends who do podcast stuff, who I, you know, wanted to pick their brains and other people doing rural queer organizing stuff in different parts of the country

and just people that have been sort of informal, like support people through the project, thinking about getting their feedback and ideas as i'm putting it together yeah and patreon helps patreon helps you want to plug that yeah so i started a patreon because i was like well damn the trillbillies are making money what the fuck you were my inspiration for real i was like well shit i should just try to get if they can do it that is true no but also like patreon didn't exist for the first many years of the project like it's pretty newish it feels like right or else i'm just still out in trash well yeah but it's also a lot easier than what i've done which is like very small big fundraising pushes by

myself which take a ton of time and energy so So I did create a Patreon earlier this year, just this winter, and did a little push in February that if people signed up, they could get a sticker because there are these cute little stickers. So yeah, have like 50 something people right now, supporters.

Oh yeah. But always looking for more. It helps. It's a very expensive project to travel rurally i'm also was just in ohio this weekend with my dad trying to print um images because there's going to be a gallery exhibit that'll go up this june in athens ohio and then can go to some different places different small towns after that with some photos of people and also um some like printed excerpts of interviews and also like a listening station

where people can hear some of the audio. So trying to just like, it feels like I've been like gathering this stuff for years and not having any way to get it out. And so this year my plan is to try to get some out to the world, you know? Yeah. And there's a website with many of them.

There's a website, which is just countryqueers.com. It doesn't actually have that many of the interviews and i'm my sister-in-law is helping me try to like rebuild a website that's a little fancier and easier to use um at the moment so that'll be exciting but still maybe a couple months off but yeah there are some of the stories just in transcript form up on the website, like 15 of them. So you can visit countryqueers.com. You can find Country Queers on Patreon. Smash that motherfucking Patreon button. Ba-ring.

We need a little noise maker in here. We need like a bell. I want a dance hall air horn. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. That's what I want. Hell yeah. And you can find Country Queers on Instagram and Twitter.

That's right. And Facebook, if people still use that. Really? Yeah. Instagram and Twitter. That's right. And Facebook, if people still use that. Really? Yeah, news to me. It's been there. Going the way of the flip phone, but still there. I've upgraded to the smartphone only a couple years ago. Reluctantly.

Still, I actually saw someone like, I used to be one of those people who was like, oh, you people on your phones. And now I feel a lot of guilt when those people do it because I'm like, I used to be one of those people who was like, oh, you people on your phones. And now I feel a lot of guilt when those people do it because I'm like, I sold out. And so someone posted a picture of their flip phone and I was like, I should just go back. My phone's dead.

I should just go back. But you can never go back. Yeah, you really can't. You can't. You cannot. Totally. Well, so yeah, do you all want to? You had something we wanted to talk about

To bring to the peanut gallery here So why don't you bring forth that Which actually ties into the rural thing Well, that's kind of why I wanted to bring it up But before we do it Do y'all mind if we take a break So I can pee You actually need to pee too

How'd this happen? I'm going to be honest with you I could pee Double ice cream cones I don't need to pee So. How'd this happen? I'm going to be honest with you. I could pee. Double ice cream cones. I don't need to pee, so I should probably drink more water. Just do a line. I definitely have to pee. I was just thinking.

Oh, good. He's got a flat body. He needs the facilities. Oh, gentlemen. And we're doing 15. And we're doing 16. And he's got a flat age, so. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, the thing that I wanted to talk about, the article that I wanted to talk about, was the thing, was the, I'm sure you all saw it, but if you didn't see it on Twitter or in your Google Alerts feed,

I'm sure somebody that you work with probably shared it with you. What would we have our Google Alerts set on to get to receive this? I'm curious. New York Times, Rural, Rural America, Paul Krugman. Economic anxiety. Economic anxiety. Turns out, do not have any of those set up on my Google Alerts. Well, the reason I asked you the question about, like,

are there any sort of universal generalizations or larger theories you can sort of deduce from this is because a lot of people are doing that. It's true. So is the right answer. Maybe that's why I hate it so much. There's a damn cottage industry. It literally is.

Well, and so um like the big thing right now is uh you know you've seen some version of this since trump got elected but you know krugman is as ever as you know i'm just i'm sure you know he's a liberal commentator at the new york times he's just standard you'd say he's liberal right tom he was the economic advisor for bill clinton okay that's when he rose to fame he was the economic advisor for Bill Clinton. Okay. That's when he rose to fame. He was the one that, I don't know if he wrote the speech,

but his work was the subject of Clinton's famous We Have Created a New Economy speech. Are you kidding? Okay. Because he's very easily confused with Robert Reich. They're very similar. Two different, but they both worked in the Clinton administration. They look almost identical. But Robert Reich's They're very similar. Two different, but they both worked in the Clinton administration. They look almost identical. Yeah, but Robert Reich's

four foot six, and that's how you can tell them apart. Krugman is four foot 11. Yeah, and Paul Krugman's four foot nine, yeah. Well, Krugman first came to my attention

during the 2008 financial crisis. He was basically the one saying, like, you know, you've spinned through a deficit. So it's like I thought he was a pretty liberal, progressive guy, but over the years I've realized that he's well he's just your sort of standard centrist liberal um and he's got an article called getting real about rural america

he wants to get all right baby let's get real you want to get real paul but imagine the difference in this article article if he had wrote getting trill. It would have been an episode title. Getting queer. Getting queer about rolling in. Yeah, there you go. There's a title for whatever spinoff you want to have.

I feel like anytime anybody says getting, we gotta get real. They're holding back. They want to say something, but they're like, they want to say something but they're like they're trying to like uh what is the word i'm looking for they're like trying to like prep you for what they're going to say you know what i'm saying yeah we're just gonna get real we gotta get like these are hard truths we're facing like this is some hard stuff like so what he's getting real with everybody about is nobody knows how to reverse the heartlands decline

i think this is going to be a very big issue in 2020 right like you got people like klobuchar running on their sort of like heartland credentials what is the heartland what's the heartland the heartland is like i think everything that's not new york and san francisco yeah everything you never listen to Bruce Springsteen. Nothing in the Northeast, nothing on the West Coast. Yeah, not- Everything else. Exactly.

Everything not the coasts, pretty much. All right. It's where the real beating heart of America lies, Tanya. It's the real America. Oh, I see. Right, right. Which clearly I'm already annoyed because you can't say that East Kentucky is the same as damn Indiana or even Montana or Texas.

These people don't know what they're talking about. Well, he. She knows. She's interviewed queer people in all of them. That's what I'm saying. Well, that's the thing. Like, he basically conflates, like, farmers with rural America. I mean, look, anybody can define it however they want.

They're sort of telling on themselves in many ways, though, like how they define it. Some people will define it as coal miners. Some people will define it as coal miners. Some people will define it as farmers, you know? Yeah. Some people will define it as, I don't know. Well, that's the tricky thing, too. Working 40-hour week for a living. Just to sit it on.

Yeah. Hello, West Virginia coal miner. I think I like everybody and they talk about That song except for the policeman on patrol Fuck that guy Yeah yeah All the other people in that Wanna thank you for your time

Well so the problem with The problem with liberals right now The problem that they're Trying to address The problem that really keeps them up at night, is what do you do with rural America? You know what I'm saying? Like, they don't have any real sort of use for it. They think that, like, in Krugman's argument in this essay is that, well, I could just read here from you right here. There's nothing wrong with discussing these issues.

Rural lives matter we're all americans and deserve to share in the nation's wealth fucking with me it's rural votes rural votes matter even more like it or not our political system gives hugely disproportionate weight to less populous states which are also generally states with relatively rural populations that is that's a fair point if you're talking about the Senate, for example. Like, Wyoming has fewer people than Lexington, Kentucky, but they have the same amount of senators as Kentucky. Right, right.

Well, the point, I think the reason why is because there's very precious lucrative minerals in the ground there. There's gold in our hills. They need to be able to exert their political influence to make sure that that continues. But it's also important to get real. There are powerful forces behind the relative, in some cases, absolute economic decline of rural America.

And the truth is that nobody knows how to reverse those forces. I'm so ready to go on this article i'm sorry i keep reading but i'm like i'm just i read it oh this afternoon oh you already read it we'll jump in anytime no no keep going uh put it this way many of the problems facing america have easy technical solutions all we lack is the political will every other advanced country provides universal health care so and again this is a good point. I agree with this point. Like, yeah, we should be providing. There are some good points.

Yeah. Affordable health care is within easy reach, blah, blah, blah. Rebuilding or fraying infrastructure would be expensive, but we can afford it. You know, again, that's tough. But reviving declining regions is really hard. Many countries have tried, but it's difficult to find any convincing success stories. He talks about southern italy east germany after the fall of the berlin wall um what's the matter with rural america

major urban centers have always been magnets for economic growth they offer large markets ready availability of specialized suppliers large pools of workers with specialized skills and they just have people have more skills in the cities they just have more skills and that's why they made all the fucking money off of everywhere else in the world forever exactly it's all that's that's the uh that that's economics 101 right if you have more skills you make more money you have more skills you have more money. You have more skills. You have more money. The capitalist dream. As in rap, so in life and work. Exactly.

But the gravitational pull of big cities used to be counteracted by the need to locate farming where the good land was. In 1950, U.S. agriculture directly employed more than 6 million people. These farmers supported a network of small towns providing local services. And some of these small towns served as seeds around which various specialized industries grew. Pause. Okay. Everybody here is from a rural area. Hands up if you could tell where the nearest like like, well,

Rachel's different, obviously, that part of West Virginia. But like here, like in eastern Kentucky, and especially in the desert, there's no goddamn farming around here. Well, I would say that I did grow up in a farming farming place and there's not big farms and people can't make a living doing it anymore and that's whatever he's making some large arguments about like economic shifts that are outside of people's control but also i feel like he's not talking about the people who've benefited from those shifts right which are like giant corporations

like shifting things so that the only people who can make a living as farmers are like these giant farms in the midwest and in places where you can have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres right and so like this is the thing that pisses me off about this article i know you're not done reading no no but is that he's like he's talking about all these issues that like i don't i don't think he's most of what he's saying is like there's some truth to it, but there's no like nuance to like why or any like acknowledgement of the fact that people in rural areas know a hell of a lot more about this than he does. Yeah. And have been living it for decades. Right.

Yeah. Anyways, I hope you read that beginning of that last paragraph. Well, so it pisses me off. Well, so we're I think I think I know what you're referencing. We're building towards what he – we're building towards his thesis. We're getting ready to get Krugged. We're getting ready to get Krugged. When he says that he doesn't know what to do with rural areas,

he's not talking about what they produce uh the resources that come out of them the people there he is purely talking about their political ideology that's all he's talking about again we'll get to that uh nor was farming the only activity giving people a reason to live far from major metropolitan areas there were for example almost half a million coal miners so you know he's hit those that's good okay good um even the only two rural industries and careers that exist in this country farmer and coal miners nobody else lives here well it's funny how both of those professions or whatever those industries are declining and so those are the only two that anybody can talk about even then rural areas and small towns weren't the real america somehow morally superior to the rest of us but they were

a major part of the demographic social and cultural landscape since then however while america's population has doubled the number of farmers has fallen by two-thirds there are only 50 000 coal miners now the incentives for business to locate... That's generous. The incentives for business to locate far from the metropolitan action have greatly diminished. And the people still living in rural areas increasingly feel left behind. Again,

he's, you know, he's pretty much been able to document and sort of identify all the structural issues and stuff. I wish he had put a little like footnote number by that and then down below been like refer to my interview with so and so you know like he just like such grandiose that we all feel left behind i just wish he had used the phrase economic anxiety by now play the You got about two paragraphs behind there, cowboy.

Play the hits. And then, you know, and then he talks about social consequences, addiction, joblessness, all that stuff. Mountain Dew mouth. But this is...

Mountain Dew mouth, right. But this is... Now we get to the crux. Now we get to the part that really... Now we get to the Krug. Not the crux. We get to the Krug.

Buckle up, everybody. We get to the part that... The point he's really trying to make. Sorry, I'm sighing dramatically into the microphone over and over again. I'm just sick of these articles. I'm so over it. Politically, rural America is increasingly

a world apart. For example, overall U.S. public opinion is increasingly positive towards immigrants, but rural Americans, many of whom rarely encounter immigrants in their daily lives have a vastly more negative view is that true there's no fucking way wait what part what part that rural americans don't encounter immigrants or that were more xenophobic that were more

xenophobic this is the thing you can't make gross generalizations about any region that's as large as rural america i mean this is insane this is literally insane and it's what everybody i feel like is doing at a national level i shouldn't say everybody blah blah blah but like i just feel like some communities are like full some rural communities are full of immigrants who are there for all sorts of reasons right and some aren't and like that varies who works on farms right and also like all sorts of other industries in different places like and and people's interactions with and like relationships to different communities are not like one county to another can be a drastically different landscape

politically or like environmentally or in terms of immigration and much less like a huge section of the country yeah is his evidence the 2016 election that's probably probably is but also also uh well let me show me somebody that believes rural has a monopoly on racism i'll show you somebody that's uh never been to a place called new jersey well he uh or he does cite an article he does cite an article uh to back that claim up but i can't read it because it's behind a paywall it's in the washington post that's why you gotta go incognito exercise is that how you do it that's how that's the workaround all right all right well i got into an argument with somebody on twitter today who basically said that well there is

evidence to show that rural americans are more xenophobic and uh you know racist and other shit maybe this is what he was referring to but that's your i like but the the point that i was making is basically what you just said is that like it's not scientific like how can you make a a claim like that that's so i don't know well it's just like a huge generalization which i mean i do think it's important to like acknowledge the ways in which the communities that we live in have been really like full of violence and racism and like homophobia right like i mean i think that's part of what i try to figure out sometimes with country queers is like talking about that that isn't the entire story without denying the reality that like a lot of

rural queer people that left years ago, like did have really, really intensely negative experiences. And like, I don't think it's helpful for us to like deny the ways in which, like I grew up in a County that had a neo-Nazi organization that like everyone didn't just let them do their thing and figured it was fine. Right.

Like that was the, like, that's not cool. But I also think that like locating xenophobia and racism only in rural like that was the like that's not cool but i also think that like locating xenophobia and racism only in rural places is the problem it's not like talking about it here but also talking about it everywhere else right like yeah it's just like they continue to put the blame of power structures on people who have had no power yeah political power i'm looking at this for decades i just like to point out that i frequently

a place called heritage kitchen not hate kitchen okay and that restaurant's ran by two gay men god i'm checking out that washington post article i don't know did you go incognito i did go incognito we've leaked go incognito. We've leaked that. Apparently, this survey was conducted on 1,700 Americans, including more than 1,000 in rural areas. So they interviewed more people in rural areas. Wow. So of course you're going to get more responses. For the love of fucking God. Jesus.

And 1,700. I could interview 1,700 people right now and determine that everyone owns a pair of red socks. This is insane. I don't, but. 1,700. Poking holes in that theory already. The fuck? Not surprisingly, rural America is also pretty much the only place where Donald Trump remains popular.

is also pretty much the only place where Donald Trump remains popular. Despite the damage his trade wars have done to the farm economy, his net approval is vastly higher in rural areas than it is in the rest of the country. So what can be done to help rural America? But wait, wait, wait, wait. I just want to back up a second. Because that, I think

that claim in and of itself is pretty interesting too. And I don't want to get into the whole numbers game of like X amount of people voted for him in a county in West virginia versus long island because i do believe and this is from growing up in a rural area i do believe that conservatives have they have a stronger grasp on sort of social control in rural areas but i don't think that that is the same thing as saying that rural areas most people that most people support them in rural areas. Exactly.

And the best evidence for this, as I pointed it is racism xenophobia whatever that allows them to continue their practices of extraction and you know what i'm saying like resource you know when tanya used to talk about running for school board i used to think oh that's cute but there's a rationale to that if you don't think all the things you're doing cute? Is that what you said? Wow. Usually. Yeah, real cute. Anyway, I got the paperwork and tried to run, but my part of the county seat wasn't up. Oh, really? Yeah, it's geography-based.

Well, you know, the thing is, is that, like, for you to make a sort of broad generalization like that, For you to make a sort of broad generalization like that, you have to look at how political economy is sort of expressed in rural areas. You have to look at how and where indoctrination occurs and the stakes for upholding a sort of conservative social agenda. I don't really quite know how to articulate this, but let's say like if you're talking about a place where I grew up in southeastern New Mexico, a lot of people make money off the oil that comes out of the ground there. that started to challenge that and say, look, like the workers should get those profits like and the profits, you know, shouldn't be leaving here. And, you know, then you'd have some real problems on your hand. You'd have segments of the working local working class banding together and shutting down the economy and everything. It's it's imperative for the conservatives to make sure that that doesn't happen. The liberals have completely given it up. They don't care anymore.

They've the only the only sort of political realms they care about anymore are the urban centers because there's a bigger sort of petty bourgeois, you know. Totally. And also I think what conservatives have to do just because they're so deeply unpopular is they have to be good at forecasting, right? So they have to sort of put their finger on the scales decades in advance sometimes i feel like and that's hard to just undo in you know an election cycle or even two or three or whatever right right now which is like part of our critique of electoral politics it's like that's not necessarily the most expedient way to bring about change yeah yeah yeah well i think that i don't know do y'all have anything you want to add to it i'm still waiting for you to read that last article where he's like some rural i mean the

last paragraph where he's like some rural readers might find this condescending can you just read what he says because i'd have something to say about that i'm sorry some of you uh ignorant coal smudged reprobates might take some of you people who actually live in rural areas might find it condescending that myself a wealthy new yorker is trying to figure out how to solve your problems right without asking any of you about what you're doing william can you just read that part my question is why the fucking new york times keeps printing the same fucking thing over and over the new york i'm bored as fuck i know. I mean, I'm not a subscriber, but shit. You're boring.

Gaipe wrote a good thing. They published a good thing by Gaipe recently. I didn't read it. Damn. I'll take your authority on it. But it's the only thing I've ever seen that I felt like was any good. Well, it keeps people like Krugman up at night because they're like, what can be done to help rural America? That's what he says.

What can be done to help rural America? You can focus on New York City is what could be done, actually. america that's what he says what can we have done help you can focus on new york city is what could be done actually what he means yes well what he means is like how do we turn them back into uh you know um not useful yeah yeah exactly how do we squeeze capital and labor for real when he writes some people might find this condescending like this is the thing if you have to say that about any group of people that you're talking about you should probably not be talking right like if you are a straight white man who's like you might find this condescending women but let me tell you about how your cause has failed or like whatever the fuck yeah this is this is a problem you're conceding separate from all of his like individual arguments like if like what are you doing why why does he think that like

this is such a thing that happens in the new york times what happens like so much nationally that like people just want to write about places and communities that they have no connection to but like position themselves as experts and like that's the thing that gets me more than anything in this article is like you're literally self-aware enough to realize that people are going to be offended and frustrated by you. But you still think you should do it. That's the New York Times way. And the old rich white guy way, I have to say. Like, this is such a particular like.

Literally, I acknowledge that this isn't my community, but still let me tell you why I know more about it than you do. Like, I can't. I just can't. And if you aired those grievances, I'm sorry to even cut you off. I was going to say, I hate to drag us back to episode one, but it's very easy to write or talk or just bullshit about things you have no accountability around. Well, the thing is, though, I don't think they really. Nobody's going to knock on his door and be like, OK, well, now you're packing an ass whooping. Well, the thing that I though, I don't think they really... Nobody's going to knock on his door and be like, okay, well, now you're packing an ass whooping.

Well, the thing that... Hey, I'm with you on that. A lot of these motherfuckers, they've never felt... I'm telling you, they have never felt threatened or insecure a day in their life. That's what I'm saying. They've never felt... And that makes a difference.

They actually don't have fear in their lives. The thing that pissed somebody off on Twitter so bad that I said was that they don't have any awareness of power or in political economy somebody was like well he's got a nobel prize in economics and it's like well i think that should probably tell you something about the nobel prize like it's a bunch of bullshit but like look if you're talking about a rural community most rural communities are defined by one single resource whether it's farming coal mining or oil or maybe some furniture plant in like north carolina or georgia like textile yeah we don't refer to new york city as like a finance community we don't refer to like we don't refer to national finance community up there right we

don't refer to national as like a music community but we do refer to this as a coal mining community or it's like i mean like i'm saying that like the political economy of those places are structured around that and so all the like the sort of attendant like cultural things are going to spin out of that and they have no awareness of this they just think that everybody because that like trump wins these counties that everybody here supports trump when in reality it's's that the people here who support Trump are incredibly powerful. Powerful, and disproportionately wealthy, comparatively. They've made the powerless completely invisible. Right.

So we're invisible to both the conservatives, obviously, because they want us to be, because then we'd start challenging the actual flow of profit, and we're invisible to these motherfuckers because we don't vote the way they want us to. They want us to, right. And it's like Tonya pointed out, I think, in the early going was that like 80% of people didn't see anything they thought they wanted to vote for.

People are not voting because they know it's bullshit. This ain't rocket science. The proof's in the pudding. Been for a long time. Why bother? Literally very few people in my family vote. And that's the God's honest truth. I called my mom one

day on election day when i was doing voter turnout i was like hey did you go vote today she was like what nobody gives a fuck because their lives aren't changing depending on what dumb ass has been elected in the last 20 years their lives are not different right yeah you're you're exactly right well i'll get so uh you know i can skip right to the end i can skip to uh can i just say that maybe my favorite part of this podcast so far is you saying the proof is in the pudding. The proof's in free con day, bitch. And I double my share today.

I'm going to take advantage of that shit right after this. Well, I'll read the last paragraph. I'm sure that some rural readers will be angered by everything i've just said seeing it as a typical big city condescension but i still think i'm an expert enough that i should write it because you should learn from me because i live in new york city and therefore i know everything about your communities right but sorry but that's neither my intention nor the point. I'm simply trying to get real. He's trying to get real. If Paul really wanted to get real, here's what he'd do.

Come on up here and spend a week with us, Paul. He would come down here and pack an ass whooping. That's the only way to get real. Some people only respond to physical pain. Paul needs to respond to some physical pain. Paul, you need to get down here. I'm going to put you on the top of Pine Mountain in a pair of roller skates, boy, and we're gonna stand at the bottom of the hill and wait for your ass.

Pac-Man style. Pac-Man style, baby. We can't help rural America without understanding that the role it used to play in our nation is being undermined by powerful economic forces that nobody knows how to stop. You can help rural America, New york people by focusing

on new york just go focus on the community that you actually know something about that would be helpful that would be helpful do your low-income housing you dumb dick you got a lot of issues of your own to work on maybe protect your mob bosses better yeah you know what is this motherfucker what did he win the prize the nobel for economics well what the hell does that mean he writes things he is a theorist he's a teacher yeah he uh he's he's well credentialed i'll put it like this what's he have to say about gentrification he probably thinks it's bad but um look kr Krugman is, it's like I said, he first came to my attention in the 2008 crisis because at that time there was this big question, do we bail out the banks? Do we try to restart the economy through some kind of New Deal type program?

And he was one of the few that was saying yes. You know, he did the bare minimum. He did the bare fucking minimum. I think that's probably what he won the Nobel Prize over. Who the fuck knows but regardless um a lot of these people they don't have any analysis of class like they don't when they think of economics they don't see it that way they don't see like history as a perpetual struggle of between classes and and the distribution of resources is done by uh you know hard work right right you work hard you make money right maybe i'm making assumptions about him i don't know but it just seems to me that like he you're it just keeps coming back to what you said rachel

he just doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about and he gets paid six figures a year to do that i swear to god he probably gets paid about a quarter million dollars a year to do that well and this is just like a larger thing i just like i don't it just seems so obvious that like the most effective work people do is in communities where they're like accountable to other people in their community where they're like deeply understand the community because they live in it that's a novel idea isn't this like it's not rocket science i don't know apparently maybe we do need to win a nobel prize for something as basic as like i just think it's like so insulting to go in and this happens to a lot of communities it's not just rural it's not just appalachia

right like it's been happening to communities of color for a long time it's been happening to like all sorts of marginalized communities that like quote-unquote experts think that they like need need to and are best positioned to like solve the issues and get real and get real well his issue the reason why he's writing about this the reason is like I said earlier is because he's concerned that that's where Trump's votes are coming from. Look, the liberals used to have rural America, right? Had it for decades. There's towns in West Texas called New Deal Texas and shit.

In Jimmy Carter's second election, he carried West Virginia. So it really bothers a lot of these liberals who are like, oh know all of our votes now come from the urban centers and stuff but they that they don't realize that like because the sort of economic landscape has shifted so dramatically in the last just the last three decades like it's almost impossible to even like the liberals aren't gonna get rural america back like that i mean like it's not likeernie could do it probably but like anybody to the right of him is not going to be able to do it because they're not i don't know they just don't understand the sort of economic forces at work you know where where people are working the nature of work well that's just a trill billy's official um endorsement of bernie is that what just happened

i'm just i'm just asking. It's so complicated. Sorry to bring that up, but I did just notice that happen. The thing that Tanya said earlier is that most of your family doesn't vote. A lot of the people I know don't vote. Bernie is the only opportunity, I think,

to break out of this cycle of electoral politics as something that doesn't change our lives substantially electoral politics is mostly for the bourgeois classes that's mostly who in in the thing about bernie beto raising all that money is the best example of it i got like six million dollars from gentrifiers running 5ks right and so it's like that's that's that's who electoral politics mostly serve bernie is still tacking to this bullshit disappearing middle class thing and it's a huge mistake he's made he's basically fighting

for the same demographic that beto's fighting if you really want to have a transformation a political transformation of this country you have to go for those people who aren't voting. And again, this might this has been our critique of electoral politics. It might actually be structurally impossible to have some sort of campaign because so few people vote and because a lot of those people who are demoralized and disenfranchised just can't vote. And so we more induce or endorse the gulags. Because a lot of those people who are demoralized and disenfranchised just can't vote. And so we more induce, endorse the gulags. It's our official endorsement. Ideological recondition.

No, we are for President Omar. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know. I guess it's a whole other issue. And I did kind of want to talk about the Beto thing a little bit but it it's a whole other issue but the I think the the main point is that like I think Bernie probably represents the best opportunity to break out of this sort of cycle that we've been in but um I don't know if I may pivot to Beto for a second this is just pertinent to what we're talking Tom can I just say you have a great radio voice? I've just been thinking about it through this whole thing.

Oh, it's excellent. Every time you talk, I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds good in the headphones. I appreciate it. It's excellent. Okay, sorry. Keep going. We haven't talked about Beto wanting to bring Tinder to the hollers so that people can find their... Folks, they're not

able to fall in love. Catch me up on this, because if he does a real queer one, I'm in. So he basically did a little stump speech. You know how he's hopping on bar tops all over the country? From a bar top, you've seen this. I haven't really, but I trust you, it's fine.

I just am not following it as closely. Thank God. What was it? Maybe the first one he did. Yeah. He was like. The very first one. Yeah, the very first one.

He like said that we need to bring Tinder to rural areas. This is part of his campaign. He was trying to be a cool millennial guy talking about internet access. Okay, but one thing I will just say before we go off air is that if anyone listening to Trillbillies has the skills to create a rural queer-only dating app, please do it. Because that actually maybe answers your previous question, Terrence. It's called Christian Mingle.

No. You remember the man. Farmers only. I'm saying for queer people. Christian Mingle is what I'm telling you queer people. Christian. That's what I'm telling you. You just got to know the secret. How to order off the menu.

Tanya, what I'm saying is the opposite of that. So that you don't have to sneak around. I'm joking that Christian Mingle is actually a queer. I know you're joking. I just am telling you. It's too hard. I'm really serious. She's putting the call out for that. I'm just for real.

I've had multiple people request this. And none of us have the tech skills to do it, so I'm just putting that out there while we're talking about it. But I can't even get none of these numbnuts to find my iCloud. Right. I don't know that we have very technical listeners. Well, we pay her the big money. You mean our fans? You've been trying to get our fans to find your iCloud?

I've said this multiple times. I can't find my iCloud. If someone would just find it, send it to me. Wait, what? Why are you asking our fans? I just mean I've said it on there before. Ask an IT person. Somebody.

Anybody. Anyone I know. Y'all are smart enough to find us in the adult section of Patreon. Surely you can find my iCloud. find us in the adult section of Patreon. Surely you can find my iCloud. But it really was pretty funny

that Beto said that listen, they can't find the love of their life. He really said that. Because we don't have Tinder here. I wonder if he's ever used Tinder. I've used Tinder and as a real queer person it fucking sucks in eastern Kentucky, let me tell you.

Unless you're trying to find a straight couple looking for a third, which is not what I'm looking for. It's pretty bleak. Or it's Johnson City. You also have to cast a very wide net. And then people are like, where are you? And you're like, eastern Kentucky, and then you never hear from them again. Yeah, I'm 140 miles away.

Well, I think the reason i wanted to bring that up specifically on this episode is because the portrait of rural america that krugman paints is of one where it is predominantly populated by conservative people and that's kind of why i asked you the question is rural america more dangerous for queer people i don't want to answer the question for you but and it doesn't i don't know if you can even quantify something like that but i think my like opinion on this and rebuttal to to krugman would be rural america in general is an incredibly oppressive fucked up nation the conservatives just have more power in rural places it seems like than the his sort of haven of uh you know diversity and multiculturalism in new york city or something like that yeah i mean i would say to the thing

around is rural america safer for queer people this is a this is a thing people bring up a lot too is like where are queer people safe? And it's another thing that I think needs more discussion around like, when we were talking about queer people, who are we talking about? Right? Because actually, like the majority of queer people who are physically not safe in our country are black trans women are like trans women of color, trans people of color. And that's true in cities. It's true in rural areas. It's like, it's, it's like, it's not as simple as rural and urban and what's safer and less safe. Right. It's about like other layers of identity. It's about, it's about class. It's about like access to all these other things, which I think is like true also in terms of like thinking about rural america as this homogenous whole like it's it's just way more complicated than that like it looks there are pockets of huge wealth in rural communities and they're clearly big stretches where there's not wealth like it's just it's just i feel like the yeah it's complicated it's complicated cis gay white men have a lot of wealth too yes a lot yeah

um yeah well that that that uh i think that probably in our i have one request that we go out on west virginia coal mine and you work 40 hours a week for it. My rendition wasn't good enough for you. I thought it was pretty good. We'll polish that. Can I have you come in tomorrow at 8am and set up a studio in the bathroom? Perfect. I'll be here.

You think the bathroom is the best audio quality in this house? Well, probably both. Honestly, this room is great audio quality. A lot of wood. And soft surfaces. Exactly. Does that help? Well, Rachel, thank you so much for this.

Hell yeah, Rach. This was fun. Thanks. I had fun too. This was fun. Let's plug your stuff one more time before we sign off. Yeah. How do we find you on Instagram and all your socials?

It's just countryqueers in all the places. Countryqueers on Instagram. There's some takeovers. It's on Twitter. Patreon. Most importantly Patreon. Yep. And CountryQueers.com. And can you still get a sticker if you sign up on Patreon? No.

Cut that out. That shit has sailed, bitch. I don't have enough left well thank you again for joining us Rachel and we gotta do it again yeah let's do it again sometime soon

alright keep your eyes peeled and before we go I just wanna plug our Patreon make sure you go and subscribe to that p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com

slash drillbilly workers party and no apostrophe no apostrophe to that. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Drill Billy Workers Party. No apostrophe. Not adult content anymore. We're off the list. That doesn't mean that we're not still adult content. We definitely are. That we're not smutty anymore.

It just means I sent a strongly worded email to the Patreon people. And they responded. I said, look, you're leaving to the Patreon people. And they responded. They responded. I said, look, you're leaving money on the table. He really did. It's kind of. I know.

Was it embarrassing? He dug deep. He dug deep into his capitalist soul. He dug deep. It worked. All right. All right. Well, we've got to go, but we'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.. Bye.-Bye.-bye.-bye.-bye me thank you for your time. You work a 40-hour week for a living just to send it on down the line. Hello, West Virginia coal miner, let me thank you you next time.