One Year of Queernecks

Trauma Bonding, Bury Your Gays, and WVU’s Burning Couch Lore

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Hosts Beck and Dash discuss difficulties accessing the film The Foxy Merkins for rental and plan to review it next episode, then talk through queer film history and favorites, including the “bury your gays” trope’s Hays Code origins and later shifts in ’80s/’90s queer cinema. They compare movie lists to watch together (e.g., Alien, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead and the Cornetto Trilogy) and chat about Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and adaptations like The World According to Garp. Beck shares experiences with wage disparity, job stress, high school reunions, grief and unwanted public memorialization of a brother killed in action, and an unsettling workplace stalking incident. The episode includes a faux sponsor segment on “trauma bonding” and a “Noun of Appalachian Interest” about WVU’s burning couches, plus lighter updates on food, books, and upcoming MRIs and boxing.

00:00 Intro & Movie Talk

26:18 High School & Breakups

28:32 Military Service & Heroes

36:05 Stalkers & Exes

42:45 Domestic Violence in Queer Relationships

46:43 Trauma Bonding & Memory

52:26 Appalachian Culture & Couch Fires

01:00:37 Literature & Film Analysis

Episode Transcript

Beck (00:07):
Welcome to Queernecks, the podcast that puts the yehaw in y'all means all.
I'm your host, Beck,

Dash (00:13):
and I'm your host.
Dash.
Welcome to today's episode.
I'm gonna leave the door open and...
Oh, wait, no, the door's not open.
I was p- to say, "Wow, the catsare really leaving me alone."
false alarm.

Beck (00:27):
I've got Rue hanging out.
It's just sitting here beside me.
Well, she got a haircut.
She went to the groomer

Dash (00:33):
Yeah, she looks...

Beck (00:35):
on, let me see here She got her, uh, a whole, whole grooming.
She came home with littlepink bows in her ears.
We took those out immediately.
We're not pink bows kind of girls,but she looks a lot better and I
think she feels a lot better, so.
Who's a good girl?

Dash (00:52):
So we, listeners, we looked high and low for The Foxy Merkins streaming
somewhere accessible, more accessible.
There's no such thing as free really.
But i- in, in the context of a reviewshow, there are movies that are easier
to access because of their inclusionin one of the more popular subscription

(01:17):
services that folks tend to have.
So you know, if, if it had beenon Netflix, that's not free,
but most people have Netflix.
But anyway, that is not on any of thestreaming services that are inclusive of
everything on it, if that makes sense.
But it is on Amazon Uh,I have my caps locks on.

(01:39):
And YouTube.
It's on Fandango.
It's on Google Play.
All of those are $3.
Apple TV, it's $4 So, you knowI'm, we, we talked on air about it.
I'm cool $3 to rent to a movie, especiallybecause this way it goes to the filmmakers
if I'm gonna continue the search for, youknow, a copy that fell off the back of the

(02:04):
truck, but, and I may just make one or Icould post that, you know, in the Discord.
But, you know, thisgoes for everyone else.
I mean, it's just as well thatthese artists get paid for the
thing they made Who's doing that?
Quit I feel whenever I'm up in thistower and I'm trying to do something
and they're scratching around behindme, I feel like Emily Rose in, um...

(02:26):
Oh, fuck.
What, what book is that?

Beck (02:29):
Doesn't sound familiar to me

Dash (02:30):
A rose for Emily.
Not in Lily Rose.
But like, just like, or, or like the, themom in Psycho or something, like just this
crazy old woman in her tower yelling atnobody Emily Rose, my God Can you tell

(02:51):
I just got a job as an English teacher?
I'll have to censor that When I waslooking at these folks to see, you know,
just if there was contact informationfor the director or any of these people,
and they've made a couple other moviesthat are similar to Foxy Merkins.
One of which is a little more speakingof Emily's is, uh, more mainstream.

(03:12):
It's got Molly Shannon in it.
It's called Wild Nights With Emily, andit's a lesbian rom-com about Dickinson

Beck (03:21):
Didn't she die a long time ago?

Dash (03:23):
Yeah What do you mean?

Beck (03:25):
Is it, I, I, I guess I took it to be set in the present tense

Dash (03:29):
No.
Uh, no, it's a period piece

Beck (03:32):
Got ya

Dash (03:33):
Well, I haven't seen it, but I assume it looks like one.
I mean, it's, it looks like they'replaying that part straight anyway

Beck (03:39):
just don't see a lot of gay stuff from that time period
depicted in that time period

Dash (03:44):
Right.
It's, it's kind of a, anarrow sort of genre, I guess.
So, like, there's The Favorite,which is Yorgos Lanthimos
movie, and I couldn't stand it.
I actually like severalof his other movies.
But I couldn't stand that one, andit's the only lesbian one that...
It's the only queer one he's done.

(04:04):
And it was Rachel Weisz and OliviaColman, so it was, it was a
great cast, but I just, I don'tknow, I couldn't get into it.
Couldn't get through it did you everwatch any of those, the, like, really
bad lesbian B movies from the '90s?
Like Claire of the Moon or Bar Girls

Beck (04:23):
No, they don't sound familiar

Dash (04:25):
They're so bad.
They're really, really bad.
But I watched them all because...
And some of them are fun, you know,like The Incredibly True, Incredibly
True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.

Beck (04:35):
I did see that one Not a good movie Yeah

Dash (04:37):
fun, you know?

Beck (04:38):
Yeah

Dash (04:38):
So tho- those are...
And, and Desert Hearts,I mean, that's iconic.
It's classic.
It's legendary.
I love it.
It has a happy ending.
The- which that was the big thingwith the lesbian movies from the '90s,
is that of them actually did havehappy endings for the, protagonists.
the bury your gays trope,have we talked about this on

Beck (05:00):
I don't think so.

Dash (05:00):
from?

Beck (05:01):
No, I don't think so

Dash (05:03):
So it, uh, most people probably know it, but it's just this, uh, this
trope of a, a love story or a dramathat has two queer characters in them.
Often they are in a couple, they'restar-crossed lovers, but it could
also just be, like, the gay bestfriend, and that person either dies
or is punished horribly or both.

(05:24):
And it serves kind of like a woman ina refrigerator as some sort of personal
growth moment for the protagonist,the real protagonist at best.
If they are protagonists, thenit's just they can't be together.
And that trope is tired, you know?
It's overused.
We see it too much.

(05:44):
But it was invented by queer people.
A- And so, you know, it's importantfor us to remember that because it's,
the, the existence of that tropeis from the Hays Code during, the,
the, like, golden age of Hollywood

Beck (05:57):
following the, the decadent

Dash (06:00):
all that, Legion of Decency.
So this was the group that, uh,the precursor to the MPAA, and
they were literally a a cadre

Beck (06:10):
group of religious men, right?
Religious leaders from various faiths and

Dash (06:16):
approve movies or not, so the studios all had to go through those.
And it, it was actually forbidden toshow right, sexual deviance, which

Beck (06:26):
With host

Dash (06:27):
for the most part, uh, queer people, gay, gay people unless it

Beck (06:32):
Yes, it was a moral tale, the

Dash (06:36):
ways.
So they've...
It was kind of a loophole.
And, and Hollywood, of

Beck (06:41):
error of their ways.
So they-- It was kind of a loophole.
And, and Hollywood, of course, took

Dash (06:42):
queer people.
Like, all of these creatives, right, thefolks who wrote the movies, who directed
them, who acted in them, who scored

Beck (06:49):
Four of them, they were all queer or immigrants.
Hollywood was, you know, they were out

Dash (06:55):
So

Beck (06:56):
to recommend someone

Dash (06:58):
and so they exploited this loophole of the bury your gays trope.
They could show queer people on-screenas long as they died folks who don't
quite know that full history, uh,they're very like snooty about the
bury your gays trope, which as Isaid, we don't need it anymore, right?
It doesn't need to exist.
And, and if you're gonna use it, you needto be doing something interesting with it.

(07:19):
You need to be doing somethingcontemporary or salient with it, not
just hopping into a, a harmful trope.
maybe harmful is not the word, maybetraumatized is a better word, Think
about the, the psychic dissonance of a, aperson, a filmmaker needing to do that in
order to represent themselves on screen.
that's a really traumatic origin.
anyway, in the, in the '80s and'90s, there was a big celebration

(07:43):
of not needing to do that, more soin the '90s, but like there was also
like that tension with HIV AIDS.
lot of the queer films from the'90s were fucking crazy, irreverent.
And they had happy endings for the,folks in them, but they weren't very
good because everybody was making them

(08:06):
There's also Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Do you know that one?

Beck (08:10):
No

Dash (08:11):
It's a period one...
It's French In the late 18th centurybrief affair between a young aristocrat
and a painter commissioned to paint her.
I've actually never seen it, but letme- so many students have written...
I've read more papersabout this, this movie.
Like, and when I teach queer cinema, Idon't teach this when I do international

(08:33):
cinema, I want it to be representativeof certain things, and this just
doesn't really fit any of those things.
When, like, s- when I, if, to shows- to, to get into international
queer cinema, I will usually showsomething like Fire or something from
a very non-Western perspective justto kind of give them access to s-
they can watch this whenever the fuckthey want to Nobody can watch Fire.

(08:55):
It's banned

Beck (08:57):
Oh, wow

Dash (08:58):
Yeah, and it's been scoured from the internet.
You can...
I tried to find a copy of it onAmazon once, and it was like $140,
and you had to buy one of those,like, special DVD players because it's
that...

Beck (09:09):
The regions?
Yeah

Dash (09:11):
I eventually found an illegal copy that is, it's nearly unwatchable.
It is ghastly pixelated

Beck (09:18):
Have you ever had a book that you d- really loved and you watched
the movie and it was terrible?

Dash (09:23):
So many times, yeah.
One was so impactful that it made itinto a chapter of my dissertation.
I wrote about the fact that themovie pissed me It what, so I saw
your, your list of movies is, wereyou thinking of The Color Purple?

Beck (09:39):
No I think that one's okay.
Have you ever read, uh, The WorldAccording to Garp by John Irving?

Dash (09:45):
Nope

Beck (09:46):
It's a great book.
It's one of my top fivefavorite books of all time.
There's queer characters, there's a transcharacter there's a lot of biting sarcasm.
There are lesbians with no tongues andall kinds of interesting things happening
in that book, and they made the movie,and they cast Robin Williams as Garp.

Dash (10:05):
I didn't even know it was a book

Beck (10:07):
Yeah, he is a terrible Garp.
I love Robin Williams with mywhole heart, like my whole heart.
He was not Garp, and it ruined thewhole movie Like Garp should have been
like a Channing Tatum kinda person

Dash (10:20):
Yeah,

Beck (10:21):
with, with

Dash (10:22):
reading this little, the blurb on the back of the book
here, and I had no idea it wasall, it was about all this stuff

Beck (10:30):
Yeah.
The movie is terrible

Dash (10:33):
under Williams fuck shit, you

Beck (10:36):
Yeah.
Yeah, he should never have been Garp.
I was very dis- 'cause I read the bookand then they were like, "Oh, there's
a movie," and I was like, "No way!"
You know?
And I had ju- it was, I was likeloving the book, and then I watched
the movie and I was very disappointed.
That was in the late '90s, I think ButJohn Lithgow plays the trans- oh, was it?
I read it in the '90s, so

Dash (10:56):
Yeah.
Well, according to 82,

Beck (10:59):
Gotcha.
Well, I didn't get it until, like, '95, so

Dash (11:03):
So John Lithgow played the trans woman.
That makes s- well, I,I'm s- he's a transphobe.
Like, he's very much,like, agrees with J.K.
Rowling.
He's playing Dumbledore now.
and he said something about he hadplayed a trans woman before when he was
attempting to excuse his views, you know?
that's crazy, right?
That, I mean, you remember, you knowthat old joke of, like, "I'm not

(11:24):
a doctor, but I played one on TV"?

Beck (11:26):
Right?

Dash (11:27):
I'm not a trans woman, but I played one on TV The only time that
has ever been funny was when NoelFielding said it on The Great British
Bake Off I don't know how it even...
I don't remember how it came up.
I remember 'cause did you watchThe Mighty Boosh, that show that he
was on before he became, Presenteron The Great British Baking Show.
It's crazy.
It's absurdist.

(11:47):
But there's a character on itcalled Old Greg who Baileys from
a shoe, and he has a mangina.
That's his thing, He's green.
He's made out of seaweed.
He lives in a cave, and he'sjust a character in this sketch
show played by Noel Fielding.
And it was everywhere in the mid-2000s.
so he did that kind of humor.
And then I've, I don't evenremember what it wa- when it was.

(12:10):
It wasn't 10 years ago that hebecame the, one of the co-hosts
of Great British Baking Show,and everybody was like, "What?
This guy And I remember watching thishappen on an episode of Bake Off where
somehow it veered over into transidentities, which how did we get there?
And he goes, "I played atranssexual once on TV."
And I was like Thisactually is extremely funny.

(12:33):
If anybody else had said something likethat, not sure how I would've felt,
but for some reason him saying thatand me knowing that I had enjoyed that
character, it just, that was great

Beck (12:46):
That's awesome

Dash (12:47):
Now I want to read The World According to Garp

Beck (12:49):
I recommend it.
It's one, like I said, one of...
It's a, it's a, it's a quirky book.
If you like quirky things,I think you'll like it.
Now, remember that recommendation isfrom, like, 17-year-old me, but it
was about worldly things I shouldn'thave been reading that in high school.
but I was

Dash (13:03):
Yehaw

Beck (13:04):
I did this summer program at Miami called Junior Scholars where you
went to the dorms and lived there forsix weeks and took a couple of classes.
It was a recruitment tool, youknow, but it was you had to get in.
It was pr- prestigious.
And one day, I ... The way tomake friends back then was to
sit on the porch and smoke.
And so one day there was this girl,uh, her name might have been Becky.

(13:25):
It might have been.
But she was reading The World Accordingto Garp, and she told me that it was good.
And so I had never heard of suchthings, and I wanted to be cool,
so I read that my senior year

Dash (13:36):
Did you say the program was called First Scholars?

Beck (13:38):
Junior Scholars

Dash (13:40):
Junior school, okay.
It was called FirstScholars at SIU Carbondale.
I love those summer programs

Beck (13:46):
Yeah.
I was the administrative assistantfor two years when I, when I b- went
back to school, and that was fun.
The director was a dick, butI liked doing the work, so

Dash (13:56):
Yehaw

Beck (13:57):
I always use that job as an example of the wage gap because during that
job I was doing, I was doing the mailruns, and I was going to the airport
to pick people up, and I was arrangingtravel from Luxembourg, and doing meal
plans, and going to get pizza, and,you know, doing all of the things.
And also sitting bell desk.
You know what that means, right?

(14:18):
Sitting bell desk.
Like, when you come in at midnight andthere's some- somebody sitting at the desk
there and they sign you in, that's sittingbell desk, the person sitting there.
It's a safety thing.
That way if somebody doesn't come home,then they can, they can worry about it.
And so s- uh, because they werechildren, we had to have somebody
sitting bell desks most of the time.
And so I found out he was paying this guyto only do bell desk $2 more an hour for

(14:41):
me, uh, more than me, and I asked him why,and he said it was because he had a kid.
I was doing all that extra workand got $2 less than that guy
'cause he said he had a kid.
That was some bullshit

Dash (14:52):
why.

Beck (14:53):
Well

Dash (14:54):
that pro- that may have played, I'm sure did play a part in it, right?
He probably wasn't just,like, completely lying.
But if it had been a womanwho had a kid, they would,

Beck (15:01):
Yeah.
Oh, I agree.
I agree

Dash (15:05):
Fucking

Beck (15:06):
He was a prick though.
One time I wore a, a T-shirt withthe number 87 on the pocket or
where the pocket would be, right,right on the breast, and he was
like, "What's that, your IQ?"
And I was like, "Youlisten here, motherfucker.
I'm doing like credit card re-reconciliation after like no training.
Like I'm running this fuckingprogram while you wave your
little hand and say hi to people."

(15:27):
Like it made me very angry.
That's why I only did it for two years.
It wasn't worth the hassle That programdoesn't exist anymore in that form.
It went on for like 50 years, butnow they do, I guess, two-week
sessions and they ha- it's notlike a prestigious thing anymore.
It's just a solid recruitment tool.
I just, I don't know.
That's what sold me to go to Miami.

(15:48):
That's the whole reason I wentthere was because of that program

Dash (15:56):
Um, So I guess we are gonna do Foxy Merkins.
Do you wanna do that for next week?

Beck (16:02):
Sure

Dash (16:03):
Mm-hmm.
And s- so, but something else we'vebeen doing is, or that we have been
working on, is making lists of tryingto find, like, trends in our movie
watching, and maybe be a little more,a little less c- fucking random about
choosing what we, what we watch.
So you made a list of a bunchof movies, I made a list.

(16:25):
what we did was just, for thisone, we went with the ones that
we have seen the most often,for whatever that reason may be.
I have since been organizingsome categories of those.
So I've made a category m- the moviesthat you listed that I haven't seen.
And then I looked for overlap.

(16:46):
So we both listed a Disneymovie, so I put that together.
You had put Sabrina, the1954 version of Sabrina.
I haven't

Beck (16:56):
Mm-hmm.

Dash (16:56):
one of the ones I haven't seen.

Beck (16:58):
It's really good

Dash (16:59):
Have you s- have you seen Harvey?

Beck (17:01):
No

Dash (17:02):
That's like maybe one of my favorite movies ever, like top movies.
And it's, when is it?
It's from, I think it's also ' 54, 1950.
And it's also got Jimmy Stewart in it.
I think he was in everythingduring that decade.
So I put those together, and then Imade a category of scary but important

(17:24):
horror movies for you to watch.

Beck (17:28):
As long as I can watch him in the daytime with
Shanna home, I should be okay.
I should be all right

Dash (17:33):
I didn't choose them randomly, right?
They, I chose them f- so, uh, I pickedAlien because you're gonna have a lot
of responses and resonances with thefeminist, like representation of it,
and there's a lot to talk about therein terms of how that movie got made.
So that would be a fun one.
Night of the Living Dead similarly, butwith, know, b- a Black male on screen.

(17:59):
And then I put Shaun of theDead on there, which is just...

Beck (18:03):
I've seen that one.

Dash (18:03):
It's

Beck (18:04):
Yeah, yeah

Dash (18:05):
have you?

Beck (18:05):
Oh, have you?
Yeah.
Many times

Dash (18:08):
Did you...
Okay, so there's the rest of the trilogy.
It's called the Cornetto Trilogy.
Have you seen those?

Beck (18:13):
No, I don't think so

Dash (18:15):
It's, there's, the other ones are called Hot Fuzz and
The World's End, I think.
And Hot Fuzz is, I think, technicallyit's the best one of the trilogy,
but I'm not very tuned in.
It's a- about buddy cops, andso I'm, I'm not very, I don't
watch that genre as much.
I watch Shaun of the Dead more becauseI'm really familiar with the zombie genre.

(18:37):
But Shaun of the Dead is funnier.
It's just more ridiculous

Beck (18:41):
I didn't even think about putting like Monty Python or, uh, my favorite Mel

Brooks movie is Robin Hood (18:45):
Men in Tights

Dash (18:47):
I love Robin and the Mennonites.
I was thinking about that movieyesterday while I was combing my beard.

Beck (18:54):
Because we're men.
We're men in tights.
Tight tights.

Dash (18:59):
You, you know that scene where he, he's like stroking his goatee
and then it falls off in his hand?

Beck (19:06):
Or the one he's like, "My fellow whatever, lend me your
ears," and then they all pelt himwith their ears from the audience.
Or the blind braille, the blindguy doing, uh, braille Playboy.

Dash (19:18):
Or when he's on lookout, "Lincoln, what are you doing up there?"
" Guessing?
I guess nobody's coming."

Beck (19:26):
Y- I'm with you.
I'm with you.
Do you have a favorite Monty Python?

Dash (19:30):
Yeah, it's Life of Brian

Beck (19:32):
Yeah, that's a good one.
I, at my funeral, I want that song played.
Always look on the bright side of life.

Dash (19:40):
I, yeah, I really liked Life of Brian.
I liked that it was narrative.
Uh, they don't actually have very manynarrative things, and I like the sketch
comedy format of course, but I likethe ambition of a, of a full narrative.

Beck (19:51):
Yeah.
I like the,

Dash (19:54):
Yeah, Holy Grail is fun too.
But I remember being so angry atthe way it ends when I was a kid.

Beck (19:59):
Yehaw

Dash (19:59):
The way it uh, not that they break the fourth wall, that's
hysterical, I really loved that.
I just didn't like that we didn'tget to see the end of the movie.
I, to know how it ended And I'msomeone who, I actually like the, the
transgender joke in Life of Brian thatEric Idle's character, he, he's, uh, he

(20:20):
goes like, "I would like to be calledJessica now, and Call me she and her."
like, when they wrote it,I think it was just...
I don't know.
It's hard to explain.
If we, if we ever talk about thatone, I'll, I'll talk more about it,
but I don't wanna go off on a tangentYeah, once I started writing m- movies
down, I was like, "This could go on."
So

Beck (20:39):
Right?

Dash (20:39):
like, we'll work on this list, and if you wanna take a look
at, like, the full one I have andpick out ones you haven't seen,

Beck (20:48):
That was most of them, to be honest with you.

Dash (20:50):
Okay.

Beck (20:51):
ones I have seen, I, so I have, I don't know if I've ever sat down and
watched The Little Mermaid from beginningto end, but I have seen enough clips
of it that I've seen the entire movie.
I've not seen Alien.
I have not seen Night of the Living Dead.
I've seen all of the Harry Potters.
I have not seen The Long Kiss Goodnight.
I don't know anything about that one.
I have seen Addams Family Values.

(21:13):
I have not seen The Last Action Hero.
Shaun of the Dead I have seen, andI have not seen Strictly Ballroom.
And I have seen the IndianaJones, at least two of them.
I don't know if I'veseen the whole trilogy

Dash (21:25):
Long Kiss Goodnight Last Action Hero

Beck (21:29):
Yeah, Strictly Ballroom,

Dash (21:31):
Uh,

Beck (21:31):
Night of the Living Dead

Dash (21:32):
Well, I mean, that kinda rounds it out, you know?
Because I ha- I...
There were three from you, fromyour list that I hadn't seen.
And then I made theother categories just by

Beck (21:44):
Which three have you not seen?

Dash (21:45):
Major League, The Color Purple, and Sabrina

Beck (21:48):
Got ya

Dash (21:50):
So w- we can, uh, work on how to, to choose them.
I mean, I, I don't know if it would beas fun to just throw them on a wheel and
spin it, but maybe that's the best way.
I don't know.

Beck (22:02):
Like fun to me

Dash (22:03):
we can figure, we can figure that out later.
And then, you know, just wheneverwe feel like it, go, "Hey, let's
spin the wheel and find a movie."
But for next time we're gonna watch,we're gonna review The Foxy Merkins.

Beck (22:15):
Americans

Dash (22:16):
I'm very excited

Beck (22:17):
I'm going in completely blind

Dash (22:19):
Yeah.
I did too.
I mean, when we...
I...
Like I said, when we started thismovie, there was a time back in the
early days of streaming, uh, likethe Wild West of online streaming
platforms like Hulu and Netflix, wherethey had just weird shit on there.
It wasn't major titles.
They weren't making their own things.

(22:40):
It was just they put this biglike, uh, butterfly net out into
the weirdest parts of indie films- and then stuck stuff on there.
This is how I saw a lot of cool,like, exploitation stuff on Netflix
and a lot of B movies on Hulu.
I don't know why, but that was liketheir thing, and if you think about it,

(23:02):
like, most of the international filmsyou've seen have been statement pieces.
They've been big budget things,and so what does an international
B film really look like?
I'm sad that that's gone now, butthat's how I first saw Foxy Merkins.
And so, like, we clicked on it.
We were like, "Okay.
Say more."
And then quickly into it I waslike, "My life's different now.

(23:24):
I'm changed."

Beck (23:26):
That's how I felt about, uh, Curse of the Queer Wolf

Dash (23:29):
Yeah.
It very, it's, it's very much of thattype, but, a little m- more understated

Beck (23:35):
Yeah.
I'm in

Dash (23:36):
I c- I can't believe, I can't actually believe that I have
never gone back and rewatched it.
So the only time I've seenit was back when it came out.
That was 2013

Beck (23:45):
Oh, wow

Dash (23:51):
What has your, Is it been one week since school ended?

Beck (23:54):
Two, I think.
Yeah.
School was over...
Let's look here.
Grades were due on the 6th of May,so that was two weeks and a day, so

Dash (24:05):
So how, is your summer going?

Beck (24:08):
Uh, I've been working on my dissertation some.
I've been teaching my online class.
And I've been taking days off a coupleof times because my brain just needed
a reset, and I think it'll be...
Yeah, so I did that on Tuesdayand Wednesday of this week.
I just didn't even open my laptop.
I just was like, "Fuckthat," and just didn't.
Which is why the newsletterwas late this week.

(24:30):
I apologize for everyone for that.
That happens sometimes I guess, though.
What's this?
It's pixelated.
I can't see it

Dash (24:38):
No, it says WHS Art Club, it's, uh, it's orange letters
on a q- uh, what is this?
Camouflage background.

Beck (24:48):
What does that stand for, WHS?

Dash (24:51):
Williamsburg High School.
This is actually

Beck (24:53):
Ooh

Dash (24:54):
school days.
This T-shirt is

Beck (24:56):
Oh, I have a couple of those

Dash (25:01):
Yeah

Beck (25:02):
Yeah, this is, this year is my 30 year out of high school, my 30th year.
I graduated in '96

Dash (25:08):
are you gonna go

Beck (25:09):
Yeah.
Are you

Dash (25:09):
a

Beck (25:10):
go to one?
Hell no.
Hell no.
the people that I, the people thatI wanna see I have friends with
on Facebook or some other media.
Otherwise those people, God love'em, they can kiss my big white ass.
I don't care.
I ain't, I ain't doing it.
I ain't going.
They tried to organize
'Cause I was a class officer.
I was, uh, vice president of my juniorand senior class, so I'm supposed to

(25:33):
be involved in the planning of that,and we tried one time to put something
together, and the girl who put it togetherwanted everybody to spend $150 to come
to this event, and everybody was like,"I don't have that kind of money."
And she got pissed.
She, like, makes lots of money.
You know, she was always therich kind of girl, cheerleader.
Her mom was the health coach andthe cheerleading coach and all that.

(25:54):
But yeah, she tried to make it $150to come to a dinner, and everybody
was like, I c- I was in grad school.
I couldn't even afford that,you know, if I wanted to.

Dash (26:01):
Yehaw

Beck (26:02):
and we've never tried again, so I figure that's how it'll go.
My school does alumni banquetswhere anybody from any year can
come, and they have tables for allthe different decades and stuff.
So I might check out one of thosesomeday if I'm ever old and really bored.
But I don't know.
I don't think I would ever.
Would, would you go backto a high school reunion?
I can't imagine you would.

Dash (26:21):
Uh, no, I never have.
And, and Williamsburg, they're,they do the same thing.
They have a, an alumni g- galayear, and any alum can attend, and
it's, I'm sure it's structured insome way by when you graduated.
But it was such a small school, and the,the survival rate for our graduates is

(26:42):
so low, and then the interest level amongthe people who survived, we all left.
We peaced the fuck out, right?

Beck (26:49):
Yeah,

Dash (26:50):
I

Beck (26:50):
lot of us did too

Dash (26:51):
with, they're, they live in Colorado or Nevada or, you
know, they're fucking, uh, hippiesthat live van life or whatever.
David would go to them...
I think the first, like, maybe five yearsout of high school, he went to the galas.
He got something out of it, though.
Like, he was popular in high schooland had friends and stuff, and was...

(27:13):
He was one of those people, like,he was expected to go to those.
Nobody's looking around wonderingwhere I am, and if I came in,
they would not know I was there.
So I'd just be explaining whoI was all night to people.
And then the fact thatI look so much like him.
So when I...
We looked alike before I transitioned.

(27:33):
We looked very similar.
After transitioning, I began to...
look very,

Beck (27:38):
very, just

Dash (27:39):
similar

Beck (27:39):
very

Dash (27:40):
just, like,

Beck (27:40):
similar, just like five inches shorter My brother
and I looked a lot alike too

Dash (27:43):
Right?
Imagine taking testosterone.
Like, you would, you would turn into him.
And so, like, that's...
I don't like that, dealing...
You know?
So there are times when I don'tsee, like seeing myself in the
mirror because I look like him.
So I don't want to...
When I, and I get looked atsometimes on the rare occasion when
I'm down, down there, and somebodywho would remember him sees me.

(28:05):
It doesn't happen a ton because I'm soold now, and he's been dead so long,
but it, I just live in fear of that.
'Cause it's not only, it's,like, it's about, it would be
a conversation about, like, my

Beck (28:17):
My gender, right?
The fact that Itransitioned, it would just--

Dash (28:19):
I,

Beck (28:20):
I,

Dash (28:20):
I

Beck (28:20):
I don't think many of them even know that.

Dash (28:22):
And then

Beck (28:23):
And then it also would be a conversation about family

Dash (28:26):
I don't like talking to those people about him.
Like, hero worship is just too

Beck (28:29):
Yeah, I hear

Dash (28:30):
Oh,

Beck (28:31):
you.
Yeah

Dash (28:31):
It's, it's Memorial Day, isn't it?
Goddammit

Beck (28:34):
Is it?
No, that's the end of the month

Dash (28:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

Beck (28:38):
Oh, I was like, "The what?"

Dash (28:40):
I always become kinda crazy in, towards the end of May, and every
year, even though it's been fucking20 years now, 20, it's been 18, I'm
still surprised that I react this waymentally and emotionally to Memorial Day.
And I don't know what you would think.
Maybe if I didn't have ADHD I'd be ableto prepare for the fact that I'm gonna
be a mess in the second half of May.

Beck (29:02):
It's Mon- I checked, it's Monday.

Dash (29:04):
yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna do that, right?
The, Jellico's gonna put up the banners.
They literally put banners of him up.
Have I s- did I show youthat picture last year

Beck (29:12):
No

Dash (29:13):
I'll, I'll find it and send it to you, but they have this creepy
banner of his, You know the littleflyers that you make with the faces
on them for a funeral with the...

Beck (29:23):
Mm-hmm.

Dash (29:24):
What are those called?
Pamphlet

Beck (29:26):
Through the obituary pamphlet is what I always called them

Dash (29:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, whatever that is.
It's that photo of him you know, the,the street lamps, the banners that
they put on street lamps for, like,

Beck (29:37):
Yeah.

Dash (29:38):
stuff.
That's where they hang the decorations.

Beck (29:39):
Yeah

Dash (29:39):
one of those, and they put it on every, every street
lamp on Main Street in Jellico

Beck (29:44):
Was he the only one?

Dash (29:46):
I- from Jellico, yeah.

Beck (29:48):
Well

Dash (29:49):
a lot of people d- died in that war, but they were f- pretty spread out,
like, where they were from, you know?
So as far as I know, a lot of peoplefrom region went to serve, but he's
the only one that was killed in action.

Beck (30:06):
Got ya

Dash (30:07):
it was also, like, that, that very, like, post 9/11, everybody
was super, like, patriotic.
and it just stuck with everybody.
Also, I think it was justthe fact that it was him.
He was so beloved.
It's em- it's kinda...
It's, it is embarrassing.
It's embarrassing the way they heroworship him multiple times a year.
It's on Memorial Day, it's on hisbirthday, it's on Veterans Day.

(30:30):
When I went back to work at EKU,' cause the veterans, or, uh, veterans
services office there, and at mostuniversities, but EKU's considered a,
uh, military, friend of the military?
There's some designationthat, for universities that
are supportive of veterans.
And this is all a very good thing,but for, for whatever day it

(30:52):
was, I don't, it might have...
I swear to God it might have been 9/11or something, something that didn't
make any sense, it could've justbeen Veterans Day or Memorial Day.
There was the administrativeassistant from the veterans
office who heard that I was

Beck (31:03):
I was working My mom worked at TJ before me.
I didn't expect all this to happenwhen I came back to work at TJ.
All these people who

Dash (31:12):
David, and they were like, "Oh, I was at your brother's funeral."
It was like they, a celebrity sighting,
you

Beck (31:17):
You're like, "Hey, me too."

" Dash (31:18):
Right, yeah."
And you know, most people it was okay,but this woman, She ma- she makes this
master list of every person who has beenkilled in action since 9/11, sets up a
stage in the veterans corner there inthe plaza, and has people sign up for
blocks to get up and read the names.
They just stand there on a microphoneon a stage and read the name of every

(31:43):
person who has been killed in actionsince 9/11 in some marathon to mark
that day, whichever it was, and I c-don't even wanna know what my face
was doing as she's describing this tome, because it just, just now I was
like, "This sounds, it's getting s-more fucked up the longer I talk."

Beck (32:00):
Right?

Dash (32:01):
And so then she said, she was like, "Oh, well I, I can arrange it where
you're the one who reads his, his name."
And that was, I hadn't even putit together yet that his name
was gonna be involved in this.
I was just reacting to how ghoulishthis whole, this thing was in general.
And so when she saidthat, I was like " Whoa.
Uh, I want you to take his name out."
And she was like, " Excuse me?

(32:24):
I can't...
I, I'm not gonna do that.
This is my program.
I do this every year."
And I was like all right,I'm gonna start a big fight."
And I...
This was kind of like the first time...
This happened to me several times, but Igot really, I guess triggered is the word
for it, I don't use that word lightly,while working there, because I was also...
When I was in grad school there, I startedlike 18 months after he was killed, and

(32:45):
so there was already that association.
It was just too much emotionalbaggage to me working there, because
I had transitioned since I left.
But I did, I started abig-ass fight with her boss.
I, I like emailed her s- her- thedirector of the thing, and I was like
"You know, I'm, I'm Gold Star, uh, family.
I'm a survivor, and I have requestedthat she take his name out of this."

(33:08):
making a lot of assumptions abouthow we, we should feel about this,
because something she said to mewas like, "Well, such and such is
reading, and they had multiple die."
And I was like, "I'm gonna quotethat when I email your supervisor."
And her supervisor, the director of thecenter, was a famous cunt, but she knew...
She took this seriously.
I was like, "I've only worked here like f-six weeks and I've already gotta do this."

(33:33):
So it must have been,'cause that would've been...
I started in July, so yeah, itmust have been September 11th
then that she was doing it for.
And so I got a reply, and she waslike, "Okay, I will take this out if
you absolutely demand that I do it.
But it's, you're disrespectinghis memory or whatever."
Which was a stupidthing to put in writing.
So, and I, but I didn't say anythingabout it 'cause I was like, "Your

(33:56):
supervisor is gonna get this."
And so yeah, a month latershe no longer worked there.
And I'm not super proud of that, right?
I didn't want her to lose her job,but why would she fight me on that?

Beck (34:06):
Right?

Dash (34:07):
Like, it's a simple request.
I'm uncomfortable with this

Beck (34:16):
Something similar happened in Scioto County at the ... There
used to be a big department storecalled Marting's right downtown
and they went out decades ago now.
But in the front windows there that,that faced the Chillicothe Street,
they had, uh, like a memorial putup that had just 100 or, or more
pictures of people from the area thathave died from the opioid crisis.

(34:38):
And I knew the person who was organizingit, so I gave them a, an eight by
10 of my brother to put in there.
And my niece didn't know that I didthat, and she saw it and got very
upset and wanted it taken down,but she didn't know who to contact.
And we talked about it years later, and Iwas like, "Well, I was responsible for it.
Be mad at me," you know?
Because I thought it wasimportant to To show solidarity.

(35:02):
We are not alone.
This affects every family, you know?
He was, uh, y- he wasyoung, he was handsome.
He could have had a bright future, andit, it took him too, and I thought it was
important to put his face to it, you know?
But like I said, my niece didn't wantit, so I don't know who gets to decide
that, his sister or his daughter

Dash (35:21):
well, she might have, uh, felt or responded differently
had she known it was you, you

Beck (35:26):
Yehaw

Dash (35:27):
it felt like else, it wasn't their decision to make.
But,

Beck (35:32):
She was in high school when this happened, so she was pretty young

Dash (35:35):
Yehaw And I just, I don't know.
I don't like outsiders making...
Like, there's just everythingto hate about that, you're...
They always lie that it's like,"I'm honoring them," or whatever.
You know, okay, then whyis this about you then?
Tell me why you can't take any criticism.
I can't make a simple request.
This is not about thesepeople who have died.

(35:55):
This is about you.
You bo- you gotta be theone who does this program.
Anyway, not to be a bummer

Beck (36:00):
It's not a bummer to talk about that kind of stuff.
It was part of our story

Dash (36:03):
Yeah.
Oh, dude, I had a stalker one timethough at at a, a university I worked at.
There was this woman who just hada really intense crush on me, she
was a coworker to the point that,like, I had to report it and stuff.
Like, it was, it was creepy.
But, she found out...
She had Googled me, I guess, andshe had found out what my birth

(36:23):
name was, looked it up, foundout about him, 'cause there's...
I'm mentioned in articles about him.
There was a lot of articles,and news stories, and things.
She found out the day he died andpa- painted or drew a picture of
him, of this creepy ass picturethat's everywhere, And I was like,

(36:43):
is one of the most disturbing thingsthat's ever happened to me at work."
And I went and talked to my, uh, my bossabout it, 'cause I, I, and I didn't know.
I didn't know what my rights were, right?
I'm fucking first generation white trash.
I don't know what to do when somebody

Beck (36:59):
Yehaw

Dash (37:00):
you.
Was like, "I, even I know, even myhilljack ass knows that this is weird."
and so my supervisor, uh, I wastalking to him about it, and he was
like, "Okay, I need to tell you somethings about your rights and stuff."
And he said, "I havesome obligations too."
he k- he knew that, you know, I,I didn't have a lot of history
in, in white collar spaces.

(37:21):
He's a great dude.
I was really lucky that he was, Igot to learn the industry from him.
But he goes, "You're talking likeyou don't fully understand that
this is absolutely fucked up."
And I was like, "It is, isn't it?"
And he said, like, you're not, I-you're underreacting essentially."

Beck (37:39):
That's what happened

Dash (37:41):
Uh, uh, we, he reported her and she wasn't allowed to me.
She had been texting me.
You- it's pretty easy to get acoworker's phone number apparently.
I've never done it personally without, youknow, just the old-fashioned way, asking.
Right.
you know, she was messaging me onTeams knowing I had it on my phone.

(38:02):
And so we had this order of separation.
She was only allowed to contact mevia email about work things, and
to, like, check in or whatever,which I didn't really wanna do.
I was actually afraid aboutreporting 'cause I, I thought,
like, she's gonna be mad at me,she's got power over me or whatever.

(38:22):
It was very um, illuminatingabout people don't report.
Th- just you can't reassuresomebody on the things that y-
that you, they worry about in thatsituation, or it's hard to anyway.
bef- like, the only reason I knew about itwas because she sent me a picture of it.
She texted me a picture of it.
She's like, "I have a surprise for you."
And I was like, " Thatsure is a surprise."

(38:44):
Okay

Beck (38:46):
The only weird thing I can think of that somebody did was
an actual girlfriend that I had.
Uh, it was my first real girlfriend.
We lived together,

Dash (38:54):
Was it the Becky?

Beck (38:55):
Oh, no, that was later on.
Her name was Tracy.
Yeah, her name, my, my firstgirlfriend, her name was Tracy.
When, so I left and went to my mom'sfor a couple of weeks and let her
get all of her shit out, right?
And then I came back, and when I came homeshe had stolen every pair of socks I had.
That is the weirdest thing, and Istill think about it 25 years later.

Dash (39:14):
she

Beck (39:14):
You know?

Dash (39:15):
them?

Beck (39:15):
I don't know.
She denies it to this day.
And I'm like, "Well, I came home andhad no socks, so somebody took 'em."
Like, there was a greatthief in the neighborhood

Dash (39:26):
you're not, like, gonna mistake that.
You know, like, misplacing a pair ofsocks is one thing, but all of them?

Beck (39:33):
Right.
It was wild.
I, I still think about it years later.
She also, I came in one day while shewas still living there, and she didn't
like that I smoked cigarettes, and shewouldn't let me smoke in the house.
I had to smoke on the porch.
So I sat right by that window andsmoked a cigarette right there in the
living room just to be an asshole, andI put it out in the ashtray and I left.
And I came back, and there was oneof her boxes was still there, and

(39:56):
I looked through it, and she hadtaken that cigarette butt and put
it in a baggie and wrote a littlenote that said, "Last cigarette
smoked."
And it was like, that's weird.
That's, that's, that's weird.
Like, she was so obsessive, though.
Like, I told her one time I thought Ilooked cute in my blue underwear, so
therefore I was never allowed to wearmy blue underwear again without being

(40:17):
asked who I was trying to be cute for.
She was one of those people.
Like, she taught me a lot aboutwho I didn't wanna be with and who
I wouldn't be in a relationship.
So I value that time, but I wasvery stupid She was very controlling

Dash (40:31):
I, I binged actually the second season of Worst Ex Ever on Netflix,

Beck (40:37):
I saw that.
Is it good?

Dash (40:38):
Uh, it's, yeah, it's good television.
It's disturbing.
Uh, like, and there's a, aqueer relationship one episode.
It's a lesbian relationship.
And it was...
You know, they did- they don't alwayshandle those well, and it was kind of...
It was interesting, and it was niceto see, too, like, that was Some of
these episodes, like you leave feelingeven more, uh, distrustful of police

(41:04):
And so, like, their episode, they atleast had someone, a detective, who
was trying to solve, or trying tohelp and, and deal with the situation.
But it was still like, this is not justlike, "Oh, my ex was kinda controlling."
Th- these people were fucking

Beck (41:20):
Yehaw

Dash (41:22):
So if you have that kind of trauma in your past, I don't recommend it.
But it was also kind of, I don't know,you're, it's, a lot, that television
is about voyeurism, you know?

Beck (41:32):
Yehaw

Dash (41:32):
shitty reality TV about other people's problems.
There's that line of exploitation andvoyeurism and stuff or whatever, but
like, we all know why we watch it.
I also watched The Crash about the,the teenager that ran her car into
a building to kill her boyfriendwho was in the passenger seat

Beck (41:51):
Well, Lord?

Dash (41:52):
And she tried...
And it, and they've got,they've got her on video, right?
And so there's, it's disturbing.
She was going 100 miles an hour.
And first of all, I learned about, a lotabout the forensics that go into proving
like who's at fault in an accident, 'causethey're like, "Yeah, there's a computer
in your car that is telling on you."
she was, like, trying to do...
She was like, "Oh, it wasan accident," or something.

(42:13):
Like, you accidentally drove intoa building at 100 miles an hour.
And they were like, they pulled upthis chart and they're like, "Well, the
computer in your car says that you nevertouched the brakes and that the gas pedal
was actually at 100% for f- the f- thefive seconds up before you hit that."
And I was like, "Oh, shit.
Okay.
Don't ever try anything'cause you won't get away with

Beck (42:32):
Right.
Wow

Dash (42:34):
But she is a piece of shit

Beck (42:41):
Do you, why do you think it, it's common knowledge, I think,
that domestic violence in lesbianrelationships is especially high,
and that bisexual women in particularface the most amount of, violence.
Why do you think that is?
This is a topic that comes up everysemester when we talk about domestic
violence because people don't eventhink about the fact that, you know,

(43:02):
uh, two lesbians could have domesticviolence or, you know, what would
happen if, if somebody got outed inthe middle of their boyfriend beating
them or, you know, all the specialcircumstances that might be around it.
So it always, it, it's alwaysan interesting conversation.
But I was just wondering what you thought

Dash (43:16):
I believe that that is a factor, the fact that we don't think about it.
We don't think of women as beingcapable of n- not just that kind of
violence, but we underestimate women.
We don't think of women asbeing murderers or whatever.
Like and, and by we, I mean, like, apatriarchal culture makes the assumption

(43:37):
that women don't have any power.
And so two women dating eachother is the definition of benign
to this patriarchal hive mind.
Maybe that has something to do with it.
Uh, in, in regard to bi womenin particular, I mean, I'm sure
biphobia plays a part in it.
I don't know a ton aboutdomestic violence like the, the

(43:57):
statistics and things like that.
I know that you do know, so Itr- I definitely believe you.
I think, though, that it is an escalation.
I don't think many...
Like, I've watched a lot of theseshitty documentaries, I've read
memoirs and I've studied people.
My research is on groupidentity and, and motivation,
self-esteem, and stuff like that.
People aren't going into contexts going,"I one day will become a physical abuser."

(44:23):
But they, then they do, andit, it, you ask them how it
got there, they don't know.
They can't explain how thatescalation got there, and I think
that we ignore women in particular

Beck (44:36):
I think the cycle of violence has something to do with it.
You know, the idea that you start outin the honeymoon phase, and then there's
tension building and then an explosion.
And the more times this cyclehappens the, the smaller the, the
time between the explosion and thetension grow to the point that it's
just explosion after explosion.
So I think part of it is the, thevolatility of ... A, a lot of people

(44:59):
who are, are out are not in safe spacesin their families or their communities.
A- there's a lot of queers thatdon't have a good job, I think
a lot of that plays into it.

Dash (45:10):
The insular nature of a marginalized community like that I mean, it, it could
be similar pressures those that increasesubstance use or risk-taking behavior.
Trauma, like trauma plays a part ingeneral well- or mental wellness in

(45:32):
a community like ours And we knowa lot about what childhood trauma
does to a person as they mature.
And lot of, uh, queer folks,of our generation anyway,
that was their experience.
That's a good question, though, andit's so difficult to treat something
like that without falling into unhelpfulgeneralizations or harmful stereotypes or

(45:59):
reductive reasoning that misses the point.
And of course, the people who would becapable of that kind of reas- oh, well,
we recently re- defunded all, all ofthat kind of research, so we'll never

Beck (46:09):
Right No, we'll, we'll swing back to the left eventually

Dash (46:14):
I mean, yeah, and, and maybe it's just a pendulum, but I, I
just hope the anti-intellectualismnever reaches this point again

Beck (46:23):
Yeah, I'm with you on that

Dash (46:25):
But higher ed kinda has it coming.
I mean, they played their part in makingpeople not want to associate with us.
Well, this has been fun.
Maybe it's time to hearfrom this week's sponsor.
Oh, no

Beck (46:37):
What?

Dash (46:37):
what I wrote this about.
This episode of Queernecks isbrought to you by trauma bonding.
Hmm.

Beck (46:50):
Isn't it ironic?
Don't you think?

Dash (46:56):
The emotional gorilla glue of the rural working class.
It's like team building, but forpeople with no options and shit to do.
It's that invisible, unbreakable tetherthat snaps into place the exact second
you and another person survive the samehighly specific, deeply chaotic ordeal
that city folks would need three yearsof expensive talk therapy to unpack.

(47:17):
Before anyone taught us what wordslike boundary or codependency
were, we just called it friendship.
the relationship dynamic that doesn'tstart with small talk about the weather.
It starts because you were both trappedin the back of a broken-down 1994 Chevy
Blazer during a flash flood, or becauseyou spent three hours together in the
principal's office waiting to find outif the sheriff was gonna be involved.

(47:38):
We are talking about that kindof bond that can only be forged
in the fires of mutual absurdity.
You didn't become close becauseyou liked the same music.
You became close because you bothworked the late shift at a gas station
where the ice machine was possessedby a vengeful spirit, or because
you share the exact same look ofmild dissociation whenever brings
up a specific Sunday school teacher.

(48:00):
There is a shorthand here that bypassesthe normal human courtship process.
don't have to explain your family treeor why you get a little twitchy when
your phone rings at two in the morning.
They already know.
They were there when thetree fell through the roof.
They know exactly what kind of moodyour dad was in based on how he parked
the truck on the gravel, and they'vekept secrets for you that are legally
binding in the court of public opinion.

(48:23):
It's the kind of loyalty where youcould go five years without speaking,
but if they call you from the ditchat midnight with a flat tire and a
trunk full of something they oughtnot have, you don't ask questions.
You just grab jumper cables,a shovel, and hit the road.
So trauma bonding, helping rural folksmistake adrenaline for affection since
the first time two teenagers tried tooutrun a property owner with a flashlight.

(48:44):
And now back to Queernecks, where we'restill trying to figure out if our mutual
respect is based on a shared worldview orjust the fact that we've both seen things
we aren't allowed to talk about in public.

Beck (48:54):
I'd say it's a little of both

Dash (48:56):
Maybe that has something to do with it.
I don't know.
Have you ever been the assholein a relationship or a breakup?

Beck (49:03):
I mean, I broke up with Tracy and she took it real
hard, but it was her fault.
Like 100%, it was her fault

Dash (49:09):
that's not the...
Yeah, that's not what I mean.
I mean, like, not necessarilyabuser, but just the asshole, like
the, the instigator, the problem.

Beck (49:18):
No.
Uh, 'cause I've only had afew, uh, real girlfriends.

Dash (49:21):
I don't know if everybody has that experience, but I sure was.
I did

Beck (49:25):
Yehaw

Dash (49:26):
Yeah.
And it, and it...
That's what I was talking about earlier.
Like, I didn't hit anybody, but I wasn'tnice, and I was cruel in specific ways,
and I couldn't explain to you how itever escalated to be so cruel especially
to somebody that I or was addicted to.
And, like, I learned a lot aboutmyself during those breakups,

(49:47):
but it was, it was awful.

Beck (49:50):
Yehaw

Dash (49:51):
Never before or since.
It was just something about thatmoment and, and of course it was a
love triangle 'cause they were datingeach other, I was dating both of them.
One was a f- former

Beck (50:00):
Former ex who got together with his other former ex in the past Thursday.
But it was just a reallybad situation Right

Dash (50:07):
And it went on for like four years,

Beck (50:09):
Oh, wow.
No, I, I dated Tracy for, for abouttwo years, and then we broke up, and
I dated another girl for about a year.
And then Tracy changed accordingto her, and so we dated for
another s- eight months or so.
And then Shana and I met, and we gotback ... Or Shana and I got together, and
I haven't ever looked back since then.

(50:30):
So Sh- Tracy would tellyou that I'm the asshole.
She would definitely tell you that.
But

Dash (50:35):
Right.
I mean, that, that's subjective.
Everybody feels

Beck (50:37):
Yehaw

Dash (50:38):
Everyone's trying to win the breakup

Beck (50:41):
I didn't steal her socks though, you know?
Like

Dash (50:44):
A- people in any given normal breakup could say the other person
had done wrong and be correct,

Beck (50:50):
Yeah Because nobody's perfect.
We all

Dash (50:51):
up.

Beck (50:52):
Yeah

Dash (50:53):
but being the monster, that's a truly unique experience
that, you know, not everybody has.
And,

Beck (51:00):
Yehaw

Dash (51:01):
that's als- that's just informed my life in general since then of being like,
"Oh, God, the potential that's in here."
It actually informed my research.
It's one of the reasons whyI research group motivation,
self-esteem, identity, and monsters

Beck (51:14):
Yehaw That's so interesting
There must be somethinggoing on in my hallway.
Both girls are staring at the door

Dash (51:25):
Maybe somebody's cooking something

Beck (51:27):
Maybe.
Somebody uses a lot of garlicin this hallway, I know that

Dash (51:31):
Hell yeah.
Everything needs garlic

Beck (51:34):
I, uh, did some fine dining earlier today and made my spiral mac and cheese.
It was delicious.
It was Rue's first time having macand cheese, and she's a big fan

Dash (51:42):
What is spiral mac and cheese?

Beck (51:44):
It's Kraft macaroni and cheese, but they're little spiral noodles.
They're really good.
I like 'em better than regular noodles.
It holds the cheese sauce better

Dash (51:51):
I like those.
Mm-hmm.
I like those with Alfredo sauce

Beck (51:56):
I don't like Parmesan all that much, so Alfredo sauce isn't my favorite

Dash (52:00):
Didn't know it was made out of that.

Beck (52:02):
Yehaw

Dash (52:03):
I picked up some, I got some pork and I picked up some beans
and chili spices, so I'm gonnamake, I'm gonna make some chili.

Beck (52:12):
Nice

Dash (52:12):
real things

Beck (52:14):
I need to clean out my refrigerator is what I need to do,
and then go to the grocery store

Dash (52:18):
Well, do you have a noun of Appalachian interest?

Beck (52:21):
I do.
I did a fun one today.
All right, this week's noun ofAppalachian interest is the burning
couches of West Virginia University,which is one of those traditions that
makes people say, "Is this culture?"
And the answer is, "Well, it is now."
If you've never been to Morgantown,West Virginia, let me paint the picture.

(52:41):
WVU wins a big game, the town isexcited, students are yelling, somebody's
cousin is climbing a street sign,and then somewhere in the distance,
a couch begins its final journey.
Now, I wanna be fair, not everyWVU student has burned a couch.
Most students are just trying to passbiology, find parking, and figure out
why rent is so high for a house with aporch that leans like it has secrets.

(53:03):
But the couch fires have becomefamous enough that, for a while,
people outside of West Virginiaacted like every dorm room came with
a lighter and an emergency sofa.
The couch fire thing mostly becamelinked to big sports moments,
especially football and basketball.
A win could do it, a loss could do it,a tense game could do it, and at some
point, the couch was less furnitureand more emotional support kindling.

(53:24):
And listen, I am nothere to encourage arson.
Please do not burn your couch.
Sit on it, nap on it, eat shredded cheeseover the sink, and then return to it,
but do not set it on fire in the street.
The fire department has enoughto do, and your landlord already
thinks you are a problem What makesthe burning couch interesting,
though, is how it became a symbol.
It turned into this weird shorthand forWVU party culture and Morgantown chaos.

(53:47):
It was funny, but it was also became aheadache for the city, the university,
and everybody trying to convincethe rest of the country that West
Virginia is more than one viral photoof upholstery meeting its maker.
Because that's the tricky part.
When people from outside Appalachiahear a story like this, they sometimes
use it as proof of every lazystereotype they already had about us.
They don't see students beingridiculous in the same way

(54:08):
students are ridiculous everywhere.
They see West Virginia behavior,which is not, the same thing.
And let me tell you, as a collegeprofessor, I know what college students
everywhere are capable of nonsense.
Some schools flip cars.
Some schools tear down goalposts.
Some schools act like they invented beer.
WVU just happened to have acouch-based brand identity.

(54:29):
There is something very Appalachianabout the object itself, too.
Not the fire.
Again, do not burn your couch.
But the couch, the old porch couch,the basement couch, the couch that
has survived four roommates, threedogs, one breakup, and a mysterious
stain nobody wants to discuss.
In Appalachia, a couch can be indoorfurniture, outdoor furniture, a
guest bed, a therapy office, oreven a place where your uncle falls
asleep after Thanksgiving dinner.

(54:50):
So when a couch gets draggedinto the street in Morgantown,
it's not just a couch, it's asacrifice to the sports gods.
It is a bad decision with cushions.
It is a public safety issuewearing plaid upholstery.
WVU and Morgantown have workedhard over the years to stop
the fires, and good for them.
Nobody needs a flaming sectionalblocking traffic after a basketball game.
But as folklore, the burning couchhas already done what folklore does.

(55:12):
It stuck.
It became a story that people tell, rolltheir eyes at, laugh about, and try to
explain to outsiders without soundinglike they personally own a gas can.
So today, we honor the burning couchas not a recommendation, but as a
warning, a symbol, a little piece ofAppalachian campus legend that says,
"We won the game, we lost our minds, andnow the fire marshal would like a word."
So that has been your Noun ofAppalachian Interest for this

(55:35):
week, the burning couches of WVU.
Soft enough for company, dangerousenough for Morgantown, and absolutely
not covered by your security deposit

Dash (55:44):
I, I didn't know that that was a WVU thing.
I d- I

Beck (55:47):
Oh yeah

Dash (55:49):
when the Cats win

Beck (55:50):
It started, I believe it started at WVU and, and like kind of

Dash (55:54):
Yeah,

Beck (55:54):
morphed out.
Yeah

Dash (55:56):
I remember there was a, a particular thing they won.
It, it's been in recent years, and byrecent I mean, like, old people recent,
so maybe 15 years, past 15 years, UKwon some championship, and I don't
know if, which of the balls it was.
Th- they were burning couchesand rioting in the streets and

(56:17):
turning cars over and stuff, andthe memes were pretty incredible.
especially the couch-based memes.
Have you ever been in a riot?

Beck (56:25):
Um, No.
I was around when the riot of thepr- of the prison happened, but I
wasn't personally involved in any way.
So no.

Dash (56:33):
Uh, I've never been in a, a riot, I don't think, but I have been
in some really sketchy crowd situations

Beck (56:40):
I went to Warped Tour four summers.
Does that count as, as sketchy crowds?

Dash (56:44):
Definitely

Beck (56:46):
Those were the stinkiest teenagers I had ever encountered in my life that
were at Warped Tour It was an assaulton your senses every time I went

Dash (56:53):
That was, I mean, that's kinda what Knoxville smelled like
anytime there was at a festival

Beck (56:59):
I have a friend that goes around and does the merch and, uh, the some
of the, uh, promotional stuff for,for, uh, festivals and stuff like that.
She seems to like it.
It's a lot of on the road time.
I can't imagine living my life on the road

Dash (57:13):
Merch girl.
That show Poker Face with NatashaLyonne has an episode where she's the
merch girl for a, a band touring, andthey write a song called Merch Girl,
and it's really stupid and bad, butit gets, gets stuck in my head a lot.
And it's

Beck (57:31):
Yehaw

Dash (57:32):
Sevigny who's singing it, so

Beck (57:34):
Got ya.
So did you like the 76th Street,"I think that I just got more gay.
Ah."

Dash (57:41):
In fact, it inspired me to, to go and look up some, a playlist on Spotify.
and I was, I was typing in stufflike '90s lesbian alt rock and things
like that, and found some pretty funplaylists to, to spice up my algorithm.

Beck (57:58):
Ace.

Dash (57:59):
Lot of,
L7

Beck (58:01):
Shanna and I share a Spotify, so it's like we're, have DID.
Like, she listens to a lot of rap,and I listen to a lot of audiobooks.
She's reading Megan or she'slistening to Megan Thee Stallion
and I'm listening to the, a historyof homosexuality or whatever.
Bad homos
I'm listening to a really cute book calledThe Way To The, or the, or The Trip To A

(58:23):
Small Angry Planet or something like that.
It's science fiction about aragtag group of people in a
cargo van going across space.
It's really interesting.
I really like it.
I generally don't go for stuff like that,but this one has been really cute, so

Dash (58:38):
Hmm.
Doesn't have a Wikipedia page

Beck (58:41):
C

Dash (58:42):
A long

Beck (58:43):
The Long Way to a Small Angry-- Long Way to a Small
Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Dash (58:48):
there it is Cool.
I used to read so much science fictionand I just don't anymore Have you ever
read um, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

Beck (58:58):
I have

Dash (58:59):
It's pretty fun.
The prose is a little grating.
Like, it's like, we getit, you're cute, you know?
It's no Terry Pratchett

Beck (59:06):
You know, I tried to read some Discworld and I couldn't get into it.
Like, I don't know if I just picked thewrong book to start with or something.
But I just, I couldn't

Dash (59:14):
Did you in through or something?

Beck (59:18):
Yeah, I think so

Dash (59:19):
I haven't read it, that, that one.
I mostly read...
Mostly I read s- uh, sci-fishort stories actually.
Like, there's

Beck (59:26):
Yeah.

Dash (59:27):
that I've read, but I really like short stories.
I took some courses on writingsci-fi short stories Was one of
my favorite undergrad classes

Beck (59:36):
We did one of the, when I was an English teacher in, in Portsmouth
at Shawnee State my, I basicallyjust followed the syllabus of my
friend, and she had picked out thesetwo stories for them to write about.
And one of them was called The Swimmer.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
I can't remember who wrote it.
Uh, but basically there's this guyand he wants to swim from one end
of town to the other, from pool topool to pool, like from one backyard

(01:00:00):
pool to the next backyard pool.
He wants to swim the whole thing.
And you find out at the end thathe's an alcoholic and things just
start making sense at the end,like all the details are all wrong.
And it turns out that hehas dementia or whatever.
That, that was the, the weirdest story.
And then we also did, uh, ohO- O- O'Flanna- O'Flannery.

(01:00:23):
Flannery Yes.
It was about the, the, the, the murder

Dash (01:00:29):
Well, most of hers are.

Beck (01:00:31):
Are they?
Are they?

Dash (01:00:32):
a, she's sort of a Southern Gothic, uh, so is it A Good Man Is Hard to Find?

Beck (01:00:39):
Yes.
Yes.

Dash (01:00:40):
yeah.

Beck (01:00:41):
Yes

Dash (01:00:42):
one.
I taught Revelation and Itaught, there's another one.
It's like the big three of hers.
Uh, Good Country People.
what it was

Beck (01:00:53):
I really enjoyed those, but I've, I've seen memes that are like what, how do
teachers, how do English teachers pick outthese random ass uh, essays that you're
gonna be thinking about 20 years later?
And I'm still thinkingabout those essays, so

Dash (01:01:06):
Yeah.
Yeah, she's...
They actually made, there's a biopicabout her with Maya Hawke, uh that
came out, I don't know, in thelast five years, Wildcat 2023 I,
people, I don't think they liked it.
Well, they didn't love it, butyou know, it's not, it doesn't
have, like, horrible reviews.
But I, I haven't seen it, but...

(01:01:27):
I don't know.
I like Flannery O'Connor.
The thing I, I loved about,uh, Revelation, I can't
remember if it's that...
Is, is it Revelations orplural, or is it plural?

Beck (01:01:37):
I don't know

Dash (01:01:38):
It's Revelation.
It's singular.
Is it's really, well, it's abouthypocrisy, but it's also about
whiteness, hegemonic whiteness.
There's this woman who is our narrator,at the beginning, she's sitting in a
doctor's office waiting room, and she'sjudging all the people who are in there
with her, and sort of ranking them,categorizing them by their social status

(01:02:02):
and e- and explaining their social status.
And so there's a, a Black family, Ithink I don't remember who else, and
then there's a white trash family.
Like, she names them as white trash, andshe says, like, they're worse than the
Black family because should know better.
Like, white people don't haveany excuse for being as low

(01:02:23):
as Black people or whatever.
a lot of people who are reallycritical of Flannery O'Connor or,
like, find her difficult to readbecause of the way she, she puts shit
like that in her characters' mouths

Beck (01:02:35):
Right

Dash (01:02:35):
i- i- on, on both sides of the spectrum.
You know?
Like, some people are uncomfortable l-having that secret of white supremacy
said out loud some people don't knowthat writing something in the story
isn't the same as condoning it.

Beck (01:02:50):
My students seem to like both of those stories that
we did in that English class.
Uh, they didn't find "TheSwimmer" as weird as I did.
Maybe you have to have some time,have to have some life experience to
get how weird that one was There's amovie about it from the '60s as well.
And I watched part of thatwhen I was doing the research
for it, and that was okay.
Th- I would recommend reading it.
It was, it was worth a, a, a glance

Dash (01:03:13):
Well,
maybe let's get off of here

Beck (01:03:15):
What else you doing this week?

Dash (01:03:17):
What else am I doing?
Tomorrow I have to get a bunch of MRIs.
Not a bunch.
I have to get some MRIs, but it'sgonna take a long time because
they're doing with and withoutcontrast, and they're of my hands,
which is apparently super difficult.
And the...
It, like, there's a reminder in myphone about it, and I keep reading it.
uh, like, "with and withoutcontrast," and I keep reading

(01:03:38):
it as "MRI without consent."
Which is kinda how it feels.

Beck (01:03:43):
Contrast dye, I'm allergic to it

Dash (01:03:45):
Well, MRI contrast dye is different than the CT but it, it doesn't mean that
you wouldn't be still allergic to it.
'Cause I was surprisedit didn't hurt, you know?
There wasn't the, the horribleburning feeling that the
CT contrast dye gives you.
Like, you know, like feelinglike you're gonna die.
In your case, you, you might.
But

Beck (01:04:04):
blue

Dash (01:04:05):
I didn't f- I didn't feel anything.
So And then what am I doing?
Uh, I'm gonna go to boxing And I'mgonna hang out with my friends this
weekend, work on my truck I don't know.
What about you?
What are y'all doing?

Beck (01:04:19):
I'm gonna be writing my dissertation and, uh, that's about it.
Shana's gotta work all weekend,and I, I enjoy the time at
home, so I'm not complaining.

Dash (01:04:30):
Yehaw

Beck (01:04:31):
I, I, I don't really get cabin fever very much 'cause all
my snacks are here, my dogs arehere, and the internet is here.
What else do I need?
You know?
And pants are optional

Dash (01:04:41):
I may, I may take myself to see that Obsession movie, that horror movie.
It's apparently a big deal.
People are really talking a lot aboutit in, in ways that make me feel like
I need to see it, so I may do that too.

Beck (01:04:56):
Very cool

Dash (01:04:57):
oh, I've been s- like using job hunting as an excuse to not clean
the house and do things like that.
been sitting here on the computer allday, so I should do that at some point

Beck (01:05:09):
Yeah.
Yeah, we did some cleaning yesterday.
I'm gonna do some more tomorrow.
Our big problem rightnow is our pizza boxes.
We just have a collection of pizza boxesthat need to go out to the garbage.
So that's it
And the TV, box our TV came in
Well, have a good week, homie

Dash (01:05:25):
Yeah.
a good weekend.
It's gonna be actuallynice weather next week.
It's gonna be above 80, so

Beck (01:05:30):
Nice

Dash (01:05:31):
Everyone, thanks for hanging out with us again.
We hope you have week.
We hope your summers are starting off well

Beck (01:05:38):
Don't forget to watch the Foxy Merkins this week

Dash (01:05:41):
yeah, if, if you got $3 to spare, load it up on YouTube and come
and, uh, listen to us talk about it.
Of course, if you haven't seen it,it'll probably still be pretty funny to
listen to us describe this movie to you.
It's gonna sound like we haveeach, like we're sharing a stroke.

(01:06:01):
which is kind of like what we soundlike in general a lot of times

Beck (01:06:05):
Yehaw

Dash (01:06:06):
But yeah.
Oh, and, uh, yeah, be, be good if youfeel like it, not, don't get caught.
And say hi to your mom and them

Beck (01:06:14):
Bye