Tiffany the Tarantula

Youtube clips

Hacker and Lauren: https://youtu.be/awTnX-nGlUw?si=pR6jt6amc4puwvlr

Blind Date Fart https://youtu.be/QG7VHX64oaM?si=6nO-z6taNZelHYyE

McScuse me Carla https://youtu.be/IrSsjdzlUSw?si=1wdKgotZL6TrUlx7

Send us your favorite clips to react to on the show at [e-mail]

In this episode:

• What if your parents were gay?
• The Stonewall riots, hidden family secrets, and domestic violence
• ADHD medications and heart health in rural communities
• Deep dives into YouTube culture and internet rabbit holes
• Why TikTok creators are going to theaters (Iron Lung, The Backrooms)
• Naming your pets weird things (Tiffany the Tarantula, Brisket the cat)
• Black Appalachia and Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s legacy
• Affrilachia, Frank X Walker, and reclaiming Appalachian narratives
• Family game night, Trivial Pursuit, and how queer history sneaks into your living room

00:00 Intro & Growing Up Queer in Appalachia

00:49 Family Stories & Domestic Violence

04:08 TV, Streaming & Pop Culture Critique

13:35 YouTube Culture & Creators

21:38 Personal Health & ADHD Medications

22:09 ADHD, Heart Health & Medical Reality

23:28 ‌

32:18 Pet Stories & Naming Animals

44:50 Appalachian Scholars & Black Appalachia

50:15 ‌

51:37 Social Media & Academic Research

01:00:19 Outro & Call to Action

Send us mail at [e-mail]

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Subscribe to out newsletter for the Queernecks ramble expansion pack: https://substack.com/@queernecks

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Episode Transcript

Beck (00:05):
Welcome to Queernecks, the podcast that puts the yehaw in y'all means all.
I'm your host, Beck,

Dash (00:10):
and I'm your host.
Dash.
Welcome to today's episode.
What do you think it would've been likegrowing up with gay parents as you are?

Beck (00:24):
Trying to imagine either of my parents as a gay
person is just mind-blowing.
I can't even fathom that.
So I can't imagine whatit would've been like.
The gender roles were real in my family

Dash (00:36):
Yeah And it, it's hard to ans- it's hard to even try to think about
a question like that without…
You have to, because what you have to workwith is the parents that you grew up with.
And so then you're like, "No."

Beck (00:48):
Yeah.
There were rumors that my biologicalfather dabbled in the gay arts but

Dash (00:57):
Queer arts.

Beck (00:58):
Yes.
But, uh, I don't know anything confirmed.
Mom said that she found outhe was going to the Stonewall,
which was my first gay bar.
And then that's when she decided that shewas done and she was gonna divorce him.

Dash (01:11):
Oh

Beck (01:11):
But that's all I know, is that he was going to the gay bar.
I don't know…
I never wanted to ask

Dash (01:17):
yeah, which it could have been true, but it also, going to a gay bar
doesn't make a person gay necessarily.
But also I think sometimes whenpeople are already checked out
of a relationship, they're justlooking for that one little thing

Beck (01:31):
Yeah, well my dad was a serial cheater
too, so.

Dash (01:35):
Which that's funny because that wasn't enough for her.
It had to be that he was gay.

Beck (01:40):
Yeah.
Like, 'cause that's what the waythat it was done in the '60s,

Dash (01:43):
people, oh my God, they are not okay

Beck (01:46):
Yeah, domestic violence was a thing that was just kept under
the rug 'cause my dad was a veryviolent man on top of that, you know?
And my mom stayed with him for 17years, and, uh, apparently he got
a lot better in his last years.
His wife told me that he hadn't hit herin probably a decade when he passed.
So he had, I guess, foundJesus or however that works

Dash (02:09):
Right.
I remember there was a f- a familythat we, the family that had the
farm that we spent a lot of time on.
They were…
Oh, man, it was a fight every…
Well, every time we werethere, it was a fight.
And he was brutal.
They weren't even a- they weren'teven trying to h- he wasn't even

(02:30):
trying to hide it from the kids.
And so she was just like, "First ofall, you're gonna kill me one day."
Like, he knocked out her teeth.
She was so small.
He was, like, 6'5", and he diddrywall for a living, so he was
just built like a brick shit house

Beck (02:45):
Yeah, my dad was a construction guy himself,
ironwork

Dash (02:48):
the danger that he was gonna literally kill her one day.

Beck (02:52):
my dad hid in the trunk one time when my mom was trying to leave him with a
shotgun and said he was gonna kill us all.
Like, it was, my dad wasreal, like a real crazy dude

Dash (03:01):
Yeah.
This guy was too.
And so after that, I didn't seehim anymore until David's funeral.
And for some reason, he cornered me atDavid's funeral and told me how he had got
sober, and he didn't beat his new wife.
And I was like, "What is this?
Is it, it's part confession,part excuse, and why here?

(03:24):
Why now?
Why me?
Why do you care what I think of you?"

Beck (03:27):
Right?

Dash (03:28):
why.
I don't know.
Oh, this, uh…
Brisket locked himself in thebedroom and he's, like, howling.
Hang on.
Oh, it was Ziggy the window is openand so it blew the door closed on her

Beck (03:42):
Hey, that's a good idea.
Hang on, let me crack my window.

Dash (03:45):
Did you get your tickets?

Beck (03:47):
My tick- what tickets?

Dash (03:49):
To the gun show?

Beck (03:54):
Front row, baby

Dash (03:55):
I've always wanted to do that joke.
Oh, man.
And that's from The Office.
Well, I don't think they inventedit, but that's what made me
remember that joke was The Office.
Did you ever watch that show?

Beck (04:09):
No, I tried.
It just, I just didn't get the humor

Dash (04:13):
It, uh, I didn't watch it either, Freely.
Uh, but I, it was, it's always on some- itwas always on somewhere for a time there.
And I have a friend who's, or twofriends who are obsessed with it.
Like, they watch it over and over again.
And I, anytime I see it I'll, like,chuckle 'cause they'll have it

(04:34):
on sometimes when I'm over there,and I'll chuckle at it, and then
they're like, "Well, if you findit funny, why don't you like it?"
And I was like, "That is a,that's a valid question."
It's because I don't care what happens.
I don't care what happens to these people.
I never watch a frame of it that makes mego, "I wonder what's gonna happen next?"
Like, this isn't for mebecause nothing happens.

(04:56):
And sim- similar to Seinfeld.
I can't fucking stand Seinfeld

Beck (05:00):
Yeah, me too

Dash (05:02):
I much preferred like Parks and Rec over Office, and people will often
like juxtapose the two because Parks andRec is loaded with character and story
and even commentary on institutions andpower dynamics and politics and stuff.
But anyway, the person who makesthat joke in The Office is, uh,

(05:22):
Rainn Wilson's character, Dwight.
And, uh, recently, Rainn Wilson saidthat h- you know, The Office wouldn't
be able to be made in this currentclimate of political correctness
and every- and everybody's roastedhim for it, which is good, uh,
because that's so fucking stupid.

(05:43):
The Office was the mostnothing burger of a show.
does he think they were doing likeedge lord humor on The Office?

Beck (05:52):
They just came out with, I think it a- got canceled already.
There was a show called The Paper thatwas supposed to be the new Office,
but it was set in Toledo, Ohio.
There was a local newspaper.
I watched an episode of it 'causeit was set in Toledo, and it was bad

Dash (06:07):
The Paper, it does look like they're really trying to be Office-like.

Beck (06:13):
Yehaw

Dash (06:14):
It's got Oscar Nunez in it, who was, uh, was on The Office.
Oh, it's a s- It's a spin-off.
Okay So it is, it's partof that whole universe.

Beck (06:27):
Right

Dash (06:28):
Well, it hasn't been "was-ed" yet on the Wikipedia page, so
maybe it hasn't been canceled yet

Beck (06:34):
Maybe.
Nobody I know is watching it

Dash (06:37):
I mean, maybe they're just banking on The Office folks to wanna see it.

Beck (06:41):
Yeah.
Have you noticed how manyshows get set in Toledo?

Dash (06:45):
Uh, a lot of shows get set in Ohio in general

Beck (06:49):
Yehaw

Dash (06:49):
because the, so they'll be set in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana,
and it's because that is theMiddle American sort of zeitgeist.
There's jokes about it.
So that one of my favorite jokes inFuturama was about the television
industry, and there's some robots thatare, uh, like giving input on whether a

(07:10):
show will be successful, and one of themgoes, " But will it play in Peoria?"
And that's, that's kindawhat they were talking about.
Like Glee is set in Lima, Ohio

Beck (07:24):
Yeah, I know.
That's up here too.

Dash (07:31):
But, the joke about that show was that it was a stereotype of America.
Like, even when we try to dodiversity in television, we're
tokenizing, we're stereotyping.
I'm not a Glee stan or even really aGlee defender, but I do get irritated
when people critique the showbecause all of the characters are
stereotypes, and it's like, correct.

(07:54):
Yeah that's, that's the point.
They're all stereotypes because it's kindof a commentary on how we do television.

Beck (08:01):
I use it often in class to talk about the social homophobia,
like the idea of being gay but notwanting to be caught, about how the
football player beat up on the gay kid,and how thou dost protest too much.
We talk about that in class.
Sometimes the people who are mostanti-gay are the queerest ones out there,

Dash (08:19):
Do you give them the studies on it too?

Beck (08:22):
No, I didn't know there were studies

Dash (08:23):
Oh yeah there's literally proof.
There is science about how homophobia,extreme homophobia to the point that it
becomes your personality, just being anexpression of self-loathing homosexuality

Beck (08:36):
We do talk, about the Kinsey scale and how all of, we brought sex into
the laboratory and things like that.
and I always say, "So if you'renot gay, you still have some time."

Dash (08:45):
H- That's right.
I saw, there's a TikTok video of amom talking to her little girl, and
her little girl's like, "What's gay?"
Uh, and she's, I would guessmaybe five, four or five.
And the mom's like, "Oh okay.
So it's when a boy loves anotherboy and a girl loves another girl."

(09:05):
And you know, she, she did greatI think, especially for the way
a kid will just pop that on you.

Beck (09:11):
Right?

Dash (09:12):
And then the kid's like, "Are you gay?"
And she said, "I unfortunately am not gay.
I'm married to your dad."
Uh, and the g- little girl gotsad, and she goes, "Ah, that
means I'm probably not gay."
And her mom was like, "Well, you could be.
We don't know."
It was so funny,

Beck (09:33):
I think I saw that video.
Now that I hear what you're, that,that part of it, I believe I saw that

Dash (09:36):
so endearing to see her go like, "How do I do this?
Okay."
Like, that's how you do it,
you know?
I
mean, it's like a kid sayinglike, "Well, I guess I'll
never be a fighter jet pilot."
It's like, well, not with that attitude
Same goes for being gay.

Beck (09:54):
If you work hard and

Dash (09:57):
You'll be rewarded.

Beck (09:58):
become one of God's special chosen children I always say, why
would he have made us so cute andadorable if he didn't like us, you know?

Dash (10:06):
Why is gay a synonym for happy?

Beck (10:09):
Exactly.
I know why it's a synonymfor awkward 'cause of me.

Dash (10:15):
Um,
You know how it says in the Biblethat you're not allowed to take
more than one trip to bring inall the groceries from the car?

Beck (10:26):
I am aware of that passage, yes.

Dash (10:28):
Uh, I believe it's efficiencies 11, 12.

Beck (10:33):
First efficiencies

Dash (10:34):
I was thinking that is a way to, uh, describe my particular
brand of OCD because my whole…
That applies to my entire life.
Everything I do has to follow thatscripture, Every little thing, like the…
I don't know.
Uh, I don't wanna gettoo in, in the weeds.
However, it's becoming a challenge with,as I get older and have to take more and

(10:56):
more fucking medications because I haveto take them all in one, and it's a pile.
It's a palmful of pills.
And so every morning, this morningI caught myself, I was like,
and it, like I throw them in andit's like a mouthful of pills.
It's so…

(11:16):
it's getting disturbing

Beck (11:19):
Do you ever swallow one, uh, or swallow and there's one left behind?
And then you have to s-hurry and take a second drink

Dash (11:24):
Oh, yeah.

Beck (11:26):
Especially the tiny ones.
They get stuck in there

Dash (11:28):
After I got sort of struck by lightning my ear, the tissue
in my ear was really damaged, Ihad to take prednisone, I guess.
It was steroids.
And they were these, like, fastdissolve and the most disgusting thing.
I can still remember thefucking taste of those pills.
And I was young, you know, and sonot used to taking pills, and I

(11:51):
remember it was such a struggle.
Like, I would be, like,gagging, couldn't get it down.
My mom did the thing where she,like, crushed it up, mixed it
with water and sugar in a spoon,and I tried to do it that way.
That wasn't enough.
That was brutal

Beck (12:04):
The worst medicine I ever had to take I'm allergic to contrast
dye, so if you get an MRI or whateverwith contrast dye I nearly die.
That's how we learned I wasallergic to it, 'cause we did it.
And so when you'reallergic to that, it's…
When you have to have somethinglike that done, they give you an
alternative, and the flavor theyhad, I had- Apple yogurt Blegh.
It was gross, but I got my test done, so

Dash (12:27):
Why would they choose those flavors?

Beck (12:30):
I don't know.
That I don't know.
But that's what I remember about itis how disgusting apple yogurt was.
It's a drink, uh, 'causeit was in a bottle.
It wasn't like yogurt,

Dash (12:40):
When mom was in the hospital I f- for whatever reason, like they were…
She couldn't eat and they, theywere having trouble getting,
you know, calories in her.
And so they were giving her those Boostsor Ensure's or something, like a shake.
And she, all she could talk aboutwas how disgusting they were.
I was like, m- well, and I don'tdoubt it, especially because she

(13:02):
was like, "It's room temperature.
Why would you give me this?
It's like pretending to be somesort of like milkshake and you
give it to me room temperature.
What are you doing?"

Beck (13:12):
Shana and I laughed till we almost cried a little while ago.
Like, literally tears werecoming out of our eyes.
And it was so stupid.
We were just talking we were talkingabout how it would be funny to have
a wiener dog and name it Peter, andthen have another one called Willy.
And then I suggested the last name Long,while she said it should be Johnson.
So we were like, "All right,so we got Peter Long Johnson

(13:33):
and Willy Long Johnson, our

Dash (13:34):
I was just about to say Long is the middle name.

Beck (13:36):
Yeah.
It struck us so funny we cried.
We were laughing so hard.
That's why we're still good together,because we can sit on the couch and laugh
like that, you know, 23 years later, we'restill belly laughing over dick jokes.

Dash (13:50):
Which is just proof that dick jokes are only funny to
the person who makes them.
I actually, I laughed until I cried.
I was wheezing and coughing thismorning as well, but I live alone, so…
Uh, but it was becauseI was watching YouTube.

(14:12):
There was a guy…
It's like the, this genre of YouTubevideo called Let's Play, where they
are just playing games, kind of givingcommentary on the experience, and the
screen shows us the game they're playing.
And some of them are, like,serious gamers and whatever.
I don't care about those.
And I don't even know who thisguy was, but he was pl- and,
or what game he was playing.
It was called The Professional, iswhat it said in the description, and

(14:35):
it's a burglar heist game where…
And I don't know anything else aboutthe rest of the game because I only
watched this, like, five-minute segmentof him trying to apparently manipulate
every single joint on this person'sbody to get through some lasers in
a museum, you know, like, to steala, the Hope Diamond or something.

(14:57):
And so literally he had to, like, positionfingers, hand, wrist, knees ankles, head
with, like, click and drag, and then dosomething that caused it to try to move.
And it was just him, like, puttingthis thing in ridiculous positions,
trying to get it to, like, flopover the, across the, the lasers,

(15:19):
and he just couldn't do it.
For five straight minutes, hecouldn't get this thing to move.
And the way it was flopping, itreminded me of that QWOPing game.
Do you remember QWOPing?

Beck (15:27):
No, I don't remember that

Dash (15:29):
Uh, it's Q-W-O-P, and it's called that because the two, the
Q-W-O-P letters are on, you know, thetop outside of the keyboard, and you
use those to try to control a runningpace for a little person on a track.
And it was, like, each of their feet,their legs or, and hands and stuff
like that and nobody could do it.

(15:51):
It w- it took…
I would say the internet, thiswas probably 15 years ago.
Let me Google this.
Let me see if we can still play QWOP.
2008 ragdoll-based browser video game.
So there's a name for this.
Okay, there's a website.
I'm just gonna give myself a vir-Oh my God, I'm playing it right now.

(16:11):
Okay.
I wonder…
Oh, didn't we find out we can'tshare screen in this fucking-

Beck (16:18):
That's so dumb

Dash (16:19):
I know.
I don't know about thissoftware, but whatever.
Anyway, we, so we landed on the wheel ofwhat-have-you told us we needed to bring
some YouTube things that made us laugh.
The YouTube landscape is vast.
I love the two to three-hourdeep dives on shit.
Like, the, I'll put one of those onand sit and watch about something

(16:42):
and a lot of times it's somethingthat I don't give a shit about.
It's really interesting that I willdo that on YouTube and nowhere else.
I take the decision of what to watch veryseriously on every app except for YouTube,
where I'm like, "I don't give a fuck

Beck (16:55):
Yeah.
I watch some crazy stuff on YouTube.
Like there's this one channel, there'sthis one channel called Visual Venture.
He's trying to get to two anda half million subscribers, so
maybe we'll help him do that.
But he has like the darkest channelshe does deep dives on different
inter- slices of internet history,and I find it really interesting.

Dash (17:13):
Cool

Beck (17:14):
I watch a lot of That Chapter.
I don't know if you'veever heard of That Chapter.
He's a guy who is eitherIrish or Scottish.
I've never deciphered which he is.
But he does American crime stories,

Dash (17:26):
Ah, yep.
I know who you're talking about.

Beck (17:28):
yeah.

Dash (17:29):
he has kind of a sense of humor too.

Beck (17:31):
Yeah, his name's Mike

Dash (17:32):
he's not a comedy channel, but, like, he's not dry about it.
And I like…
The dry ones are fine.
Like, I watch Dreadingand Explore With Us.
The funny thing about, you know howNetflix has really gotten into true crime
documentaries and shit lately becausethey realize they go viral on TikTok?
They're just straight goingthrough those channels and pulling

(17:54):
from the cases that they cover.
So, like, I saw the caseof this Taylor woman that,

Beck (18:01):
With a car crash?

Dash (18:02):
No, that's K- Mackenzie Shirilla.
I saw her.
That, but her case is more recent.
But the woman m- in Maternal Instinctis the name of the documentary

Beck (18:10):
We watched that one too.
Yeah, I knew I knew the name.
We watched it too

Dash (18:13):
Mm-hmm.
And so I saw her…
That happened in like 2021 andI saw that on Explore With Us
back when I lived in Kentucky.
so I started like looking through theirtrue crime things, and it's all stuff
that they're just, that has alreadybeen covered by the YouTubers And now
YouTube is going to the box office.
We've had at least two m- boxoffice releases from YouTubers

(18:36):
this year, just this year.

Beck (18:38):
I didn't know that

Dash (18:39):
Yeah, Markiplier released a, He's a, he's another one who does
the, uh, let's play type of thing, andapparently he's, like, popular with,
uh, with younger people, like teensand stuff, and, like, non-problematic.
I don't know anythingelse about him, right?
But apparently he's, like, somebodyyou can leave your kids with.
He's got a podcast or whatever.

(19:01):
But he played a game called IronLung that a lot of people loved,
and it, it was a cool concept.
I don't know shit about games.
But he self-financed and producedand s- wrote, directed, starred in
this adaptation of the video game.
And it's good.
It's pretty good.
He- you can tell he pays attention.
You can tell he knows thingsabout, production or whatever.

(19:24):
Super small cast.
It was…
He's the only person that'sever fully on camera.
There's two people we see through alittle, like, portal because he's in
a, he's in a underwater craft, and thenthere's some voice actors over the radio.
And they, he made, they made bankbasically, and then when it came time to
release it, he released it independently.
Didn't go through any ofthe streaming services.

(19:45):
And I'm like, "That is, that's important.
That could really change things,"because the streaming services have
had a fucking chokehold on creativity.
I'm not gonna be a boomer about itand say they've, they're, they've
killed the movie industry oranything, cause that's not accurate.
A lot of things arekilling the movie industry.
and I love a lot ofthe streaming services.

(20:06):
I love long-form television.
That's one of my favoritethings in the world is long-form
television and mini-series.
Anyway, and the other one is The BackroomsBoth horror movies, interestingly

Beck (20:17):
Gotcha.
We were gonna go see that atthe drive-in, but we decided
to watch something else instead

Dash (20:21):
It's gonna scare you, The Backrooms.
I haven't seen it, but the story of it…
And it's a, it's one very specificinterpretation of The Backrooms.
The interesting thing about TheBackrooms is that it's an internet meme.
Goes back to the mid-2000s.
It's, uh, from 4chan.
And it was somebody just posted a picture.

(20:42):
, On a board where they were - athread where they were talking
about liminal spaces, like liminalaesthetic, and somebody posted a
picture of this, like, very mid-'80saesthetic blank office space.
Yellow, you know, walls and stuff,and they were just like you're in
here, and you hear something in thedistance," or something like that.

(21:03):
And it's…
That's where The Backrooms comes from.
Then they started to create all this loreabout the different levels and what is
in the backrooms, and then there's a wikinow, and people added levels and things.
And there's even purists whoare like, "No, there aren't
monsters in the backrooms.
It's just a liminal s- thing.
That's what's scary about it."
It's interesting.

Beck (21:24):
It really is
We're gonna go see Supergirl thisTuesday 'cause it's half price
and I can't,

Dash (21:31):
Man, I should go see a movie.
I've been leaving the house more.
Now that I have my medsback, I might be better.
They didn't have my ADHD meds though.
Can you tell?

Beck (21:43):
Yeah, they're out of mine as well.
I'm on Adderall.
Uh, there's no secret about that.
Yeah, and that…
'Cause I take two different ones.
I take the extended release, andthen I take the non-extended release.
I take one
first thing in the morning and, yeah.
And they're out of both of them.
So luckily I have enough for this week.
But we'll see how it goes

Dash (22:00):
No, not me.
I'm just raw dogging ADHD

Beck (22:09):
I'm also on Pristiq.
I don't know if you'veheard of that one before

Dash (22:12):
No.
Something does need to be donethough, because they don't want
to increase my Adderall dosebecause I have a heart defect.
They found the same heartdefect that's killing mom.
I'll probably cut this out.
But while they were trying to figureout what, what was making me sick,
they were like, "Oh, you have…
It's called leaky aorta."
yeah.
It's…
A- and he was like, "You know,you're not gonna die of it tomorrow,

(22:35):
but yeah, eventually you'llhave congestive heart failure."

Beck (22:37):
I'm sorry, dude

Dash (22:38):
I mean, there's…
They can treat it.
You can try to be a healthierversion of yourself while you're
younger, which is really the bestcourse of action for something like
that 'cause my mom did not do that.
But also, like, something'sgonna kill all of us

Beck (22:55):
None of my aunts made it past 50, the 50s, so I'm hoping that
I just make it to 60 is all I'mhoping, so I can beat all of them,
'cause it's competition at this point

Dash (23:04):
maybe.
And my, that generation of, you know, mymom and her siblings, many of them have
lived longer than their parents did.
So, like, the hope is that we are c-once this nightmare of an administration
is over, we go back to trying to learnabout science and health and stuff.

(23:24):
the other thing we would needto do is democratize medicine

Beck (23:27):
You know, The United States is the only country participating
in the World Cup that doesn'thave, uh, socialized medicine

Dash (23:34):
I saw that, yeah.

Beck (23:36):
We're also one of three industrialized nations, the other
two being Swaziland and PapuaNew Guinea, that don't offer, uh,
government-funded maternity leave

Dash (23:47):
I was listening…
Remember when we weretalking about Super El Niño?
And I was, uh, listening to aclimatologist talk about it this
morning and know a little bitmore about it, and I'm t- I want
to go back to precedented times,

Beck (24:00):
Right?

Dash (24:02):
precedented.
I'm getting fatigued with all ofthese things, 'cause it's gonna cause,
like, a famine basically next year

Beck (24:11):
Have you heard that LA, the fault that they're on is like
at 1,000 year high or something?

Dash (24:17):
Yeah.
It is, it's gonna go.
Like, and a lot of people, at this point,people who live in California, they always
kinda talk about the big one and jokeabout the big one, and man, is it overdue.

Beck (24:29):
Yeah.

Dash (24:30):
Damn.
Do you know that Kentucky, like,h- per, I don't know what you
would call it, per square foothas more faults than California?

Beck (24:40):
I did not know that

Dash (24:41):
It's full of them I think because it's at the foothills of the Appalachias
and because of it being it has somany caves and rivers and underwear-
underwater- underground water systems

Beck (24:52):
You said underwear

Dash (24:53):
I did.
Oh, uh, I s- I put the link to theYouTube teleparty in the Slack And

Beck (25:00):
put my link, the first one that I wanna start with

Dash (25:02):
okay

Beck (25:03):
Yehaw.
Oh Join the party

Dash (25:07):
There you are so this came, uh, Eric sent me this and he found it on Twitter.
There's an account that just tweets thisover and over again and I don't know why,

(25:35):
What are they doing?
We're just innocent men.
And there's, like, people have asked themabout the clip, the, t- the performers in
that, and they were like, "I don't know."
Like, the guy who was doing the puppet,he goes, "I just did this thing.
I asked her to get down real close."
And listeners, if you haven't seenthat clip, and I'll put a link to
it in the episode description it's apuppet and a human woman, and she…

(26:00):
The clip opens with them nose-to-nose.
She's bent down to be nose-to-nose to him.
And so he was like, "Yeah, I just toldher to get real close to the puppet, and
then I said that, and she died laughing."
And that was what he wanted,was to just crack her up.
I think what's funny to meabout it is the way she breaks.
She wasn't expecting it, and thislittle snort when she laughs, I
was like, "He really got her."

(26:20):
I love seeing somebodyreally get somebody.

Beck (26:23):
Yehaw

Dash (26:24):
that is a good joke right there when you can just get them like that,
and on TV.

Beck (26:28):
I agree

Dash (26:30):
Okay, let me get I can't remember if we were on the air or not
or if we were recording yet when youexplained this clip, so, you wanna
tell us why you picked this one?

Beck (26:40):
So this clip was, it was my mom's, like, favorite video for a long time.
It was the first video that I remember,like, kinda going viral in my family.
It's like the firstYouTube video I ever saw.
And it had…
it pops up every now and again,not so much now that my mom died.
But it would just make thefamily rounds sometimes.
And again, it was my kindafirst introduction to YouTube,

Dash (27:39):
Oh, man.

Beck (27:41):
Okay, so it is very sophomore humor, but I mean, it, my mom
like cried laughing over it,

Dash (27:46):
and what's incredible about this too is that it is also a real commercial.

Beck (27:52):
Exactly

Dash (27:53):
Oh my God, I haven't seen that one.
All right.
This is the one I was tellingyou that I picked because I
want-- I think you'll like it.

Beck (29:49):
This sounds like people from Bingo, I swear

Dash (29:52):
Well, and so that video is from 10 years ago now.
It's been and from a comedian namedLibby Higgins, but that was early in
her career kind of the first time…
She was active on Vine.
She was one of those peoplewho was really funny on Vine.
But the number of people whothought that was real, right?
They didn't know that was acharacter was kinda surprising to me.

(30:15):
She has a podcast too called TrailerTales with a couple of other comedians.
Th- they're very funny.
There's rumors that one or more ofthem is MAGA, but I in my limited
efforts, haven't been able to verifythat because they don't really talk
about serious things on their podcast.

(30:36):
It's only jokes about being white trash.

Beck (30:39):
Right?

Dash (30:40):
But anyway I, I enjoy her shit Excuse me?

Beck (30:45):
Excuse me.
She reminds me of my oldneighbor, Suzanne, but she was…
Suzanne thought she was high shit.
She was a gym teacher.
She was the lady, I've told youabout her before, when we moved
to Bowling Green, the first thingshe said to me was, "Honey, we
gotta get that weight off of you."

Dash (31:00):
Oh, right, right

Beck (31:07):
I saw you posted you were 200 days smoke-free, by the way.
Congratulations.

Dash (31:11):
Yehaw,

Beck (31:12):
I'm so proud of you

Dash (31:15):
Pretty crazy.
That's, it's more than ha-it's more than half a year

Beck (31:19):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
If you can make it a couple ofyears, you're gonna be scot-free.
You know what I mean?
'Cause you're still gonna havea lot of cravings and stuff
where you're at right now.
But are you to where it smells awful?
Have you gotten through that

Dash (31:32):
Yeah I walked past somebody that was puffing away and I was like, "Ugh."
It kind of burnt the
inside of my nose, you know?

Beck (31:38):
Yeah.
That goes away.
Thankfully, that goes
away.
It's not as bad after a couple years,so, because now it just reminds me of
my mom, and I kinda like how it smells

Dash (31:47):
Yehaw.
Maybe I'll just…
But I want you to be able to seeit, and we can't share screen.
You know, w- maybe we'll do s- memes andsocial media and stuff on another episode.
And use software we canactually share screens.
Yeah.
Yeah let's…
'Cause th- there is social mediaon the wheel of what have you
also, so that would work for that.
But yeah.

(32:07):
Well, uh, I would be interested inhearing y- y'all's favorite YouTube stuff.
Is there a channel you like?
Is there a compilation you like?
I like to watch things about spiders.

Beck (32:21):
Ugh

Dash (32:22):
I don't know why.
I'm just f- fascinated by them.
They're just really cool.
I don't know.
It's weird.
I would

Beck (32:29):
I've n-

Dash (32:29):
one

Beck (32:30):
my best friend hates spiders, and then her her son came home
with a like a giant tarantula.
And when he moved out, he left thespider, and Tracy ended up taking care
of it, and its name what was its name?
Tiffany.
The spider's name was Tiffany.

Dash (32:48):
That is not what I was expecting you to say.

Beck (32:51):
And it just passed away like a month ago.

Dash (32:53):
Aw RIP Tiffany
Tarantula

Beck (32:55):
Tiffany.

Dash (32:56):
I had a coworker that had a cat named Chicken, and I
thought that was really funny.

Beck (33:02):
Yeah, I had a cat named Ted, damn it

Dash (33:04):
yeah.
I don't know if I've really had too many.
That…
I was about to say somethingso stupid, that I haven't had
weird pet names for my cats.

Beck (33:13):
Yeah, you have a brisket?

Dash (33:16):
Brisket, Beef.

Beck (33:18):
I had one named Trance.
We called him Trance in your pants

Dash (33:21):
I think it's that like it, when you name an animal,
it's no longer weird to you.
It's, it might be weird to otherpeople, but like it never sound, Brisket
never sounds weird to me until I haveto tell somebody his name's Brisket.
And then I'm like, "Oh, okay.
Yeah, this is odd."
And Beef he w- he remindedme of a cow and was fat, so

Beck (33:43):
I get it.

Dash (33:44):
Yehaw

Beck (33:45):
I've been calling Rue, uh, Rufus this week.
I've not settled on her nickname yet.
Or if she has like a full name, it'sgonna be Rue Dabega, D-A-B-E-G-A.
Rue

Dash (33:56):
yeah

Beck (33:57):
But Rufus has stuck this week, so

Dash (34:00):
I'll either name it whatever word pops into my head, which is what
happened with Brisket, or they'll benamed after some book or TV show or movie.
So Oscar and Felix are named after…
Oscar is named after a book,a character in Extremely Loud
and Incredibly Close, the
narrator.

Beck (34:20):
Yeah

Dash (34:21):
Felix is named Felix because Oscar was named Oscar,
and they're the odd couple

Beck (34:26):
Got ya.
We, I always let myanimals name themselves.
I keep 'em for a while and thenthey tell me what their name is.
Like Ted, we named himbecause of TED Talks.
That cat never shut up, so his namewas TED Talks Damn It, was his name.
. Today was, uh, Does ThatDog Have Eyebrows Day

Dash (34:44):
Do you want me to post that on the Queerneck story?
Yeah.
The original post let's hearfrom this week's sponsor

Beck (34:53):
Okay

Dash (34:54):
So, uh, first wanna recognize that this is not a universal experience.
There are probably many folks whodidn't have this experience growing
up for various reasons, and maybethis experience is gone entirely
for some of our younger viewers.
I don't know.
You'll have to let us know.
But we are, uh, sponsored today by,uh, Family Game Night, the highly

(35:17):
competitive tournament breeding mildresentment held right at the kitchen
table on a rainy Friday night.
This holler tradition of pulling a stackof taped up cardboard boxes out of the
hall closet and trying to construct anevening of it out of sheer chaos was
likely born out of the need to keep theyoungins out of trouble of a weekend.
The inventory is alwaysa complete disaster.

(35:39):
You've got several ancient sets ofnearly complete card decks, so you
can play poker, but no one has everseen the point in buying chips when
there are so many different kindsof dried pasta in the cupboard.
If somebody wants to play checkers, theboard is missing half the set, so you're
kinging milk jug caps with old washers.
But the highlight of the night isthe 1987 version of Trivial Pursuit.

(36:02):
You just don't know the glory ofplaying a 20 years out of date trivia
game that nobody stands a chancein hell of knowing anything about.
There is little funnier than asking ateenager to identify the Secretary of
State under the Reagan administrationor name a Czech tennis player who
retired before they were born justto get a little plastic wedge.

(36:25):
The pop culture category isbasically just a list of people
who died of old age 20 years ago.
But every now and then, that 1987 boxwill absolutely throw you for a loop.
You'll be sitting there under thefluorescent kitchen light picking a
history card, expecting a question aboutthe construction of the Hoover Dam or
some shit, and suddenly you get hit witha question about the Stonewall riots.
Right there between questions aboutIran-Contra, and the birthstone for

(36:48):
October, the game drops a piece ofqueer liberation history on a family
that hasn't even processed the factthat their uncle's roommate has been
living there for a real long time.
It is a beautiful, deeply awkward fiveseconds of absolute silence while your
papaw tries to figure out if Stonewallhas something to do with Jackson.
By hour three, the dog has eaten thegreen wedges, your cousin has gone all

(37:10):
in on a pair of jacks with a bowl ofuncooked penne, and everybody is too
tired to argue anymore, which is reallythe entire purpose of family game night.
So Family Game Night, teaching countrykids how to navigate high stakes gambling
and unexpected social history long beforewe had to deal with the real world.
And now back to Queernecks whereour pasta is still uncooked

Beck (37:31):
See, we had a real, uh, a real life slot machine in my house.
Um, my dad tracked down the firstone my mom ever played and bought
it, and it sat right outside my room

Dash (37:41):
Oh yeah, you told me that.
That is cool.
Did you have to use money to play it?

Beck (37:46):
Quarters, yeah.
You put quarters in it.
Mom had a bucket of quarters that stayedin it, and you could play all you wanted.
I had a cousin who was delayed and hewould sit there for hours and play that,
and he'd hit the jackpot and he'd love it.
But yeah, it was a lot of fun.
the whore that moved into my mom'shouse, some- they did something with it.
It was not there when I moved back in

Dash (38:05):
Oh man, that sucks.
You might be able to track it
down on like eBay or something

Beck (38:10):
Maybe.
I couldn't prove that it was mine.
There were no, like,papers or anything, you

Dash (38:14):
Right
You know, we, mom had a giant…
She had these, well, tons of mason jarsand Ball jars and things everywhere,
and one of them was full of pennies.
And it was like a, I don't know if it wasa gallon, but it was one of those ones
that was like a, you know, a foot tall.

Beck (38:31):
Yehaw

Dash (38:31):
Which you're not supposed to keep pennies in that, in those because they
can explode, but, you know, whatever.
And so we would play poker with those.
But some- I don't know why, butsometimes we would also actually play
with pasta, like different kinds ofuncooked pasta that she kept in various

Beck (38:47):
My family would…
By the time I was old enough to, 'causeI was the youngest, so by the time I was
old enough to be playing games, I rememberplaying Pictionary with my brother-in-law
one time, and I didn't know what a goateewas, and he got mad and quit playing.
So

Dash (39:00):
I think that I don't know, but really lucky to grow up
having that experience, and someof my favorite memories are…
'Cause we really did, it was regular,

Beck (39:10):
Well, we had card nights.
My grandparents used to come overand play cards with my mom and dad
every night when I was a kid, but Ididn't get to play in those games.
But then once in a whilewe'd have a whole family.
We played this game called OhShit which was kind of like an
early predecessor to Phase 10.
It was the same idea as Phase10 with different rounds.
And we used to play that as a family,so there, there was some card.

(39:33):
And euchre, they used to play euchre.
Ooh, did they had a trophy fortheir euchre tournaments that
they would pass back and forth.
So that was our version, I guess.
you know how to play euchre?

Dash (39:44):
Uh, no.

Beck (39:44):
It's very easy to learn

Dash (39:46):
I mean, I would like to.
I like card games.
Uh, we used to play those a lot too onfamily game night, especially as we got
old enough to, like, do more complex math.
Around the time I was probably…
It was, we still lived in the trailerpark, so I would've been, like, under 10,

(40:07):
under 11 And probably quite a bit youngerthan that, we started playing poker.
And poker is like the intro,especially like five card draw,
that's easy to learn the basicmechanics of how a card game works.
And but then as we got a littlebit older, we played a lot of Rook,
which uses a proprietary deck.

(40:27):
You don't use a standardcard deck for Rook.
there's a, a game similar to Rook thatdoes use a standard card deck called
Setback, and the grownups would play that.
I don't know why, becausethey're the same game basically.
But the grownups played Setback, but whenthey were with the kids, we played Rook
I love Rook.
I haven't played it
w-

Beck (40:46):
never played that one

Dash (40:47):
like 20 years.
It's, I, it's so good.
This, it's such high-levelstrategy and reading people,
but the thing about theStonewall, that's real.
That's how I learned about Stonewall, wasfrom our out-of-date Trivial Pursuit game

Beck (41:09):
Oh, I didn't learn until like I got to like almost grad school.

Dash (41:14):
obviously I'm not learning about it from the game, but that's
the first time I heard about it.
And even just the way the questionwas phrased, like, you know, it was
asking about, like, what kind of…
You know, what was the riot oraction about, you know, gay rights
that took place, yada, yada.
Uh, and so that was the first timeas a kid I actually even thought that

(41:37):
such a thing might happen, that gayrights were a thing, that k- that
places gay people hung out were a thing

Beck (41:44):
Right?
I just didn't think about gay stuffuntil I got out of high school.
Like, I knew I knew deep in my heart'cause I had feelings for particular
people that I knew my other friendsweren't having the same kinds of feelings.
But I wouldn't let myself cometo grips with that because it was
so scary in high school back then

Dash (42:02):
You know.
Man, I had such intense crushes.

Beck (42:05):
Yeah, me too.

Dash (42:06):
But I, the girl that I wound up, like, actually kind of dating in high
school was the only person that I…
Not the only person I dated.
I had boyfriends.
But she was a straight girl,and she ruined my senior year.
It was…
I can't say that I wish we, Ihadn't dated her because I learned
a lot about stuff, I guess.

(42:26):
But my God, did she ruin my life.
'Cause she wound up dating my best friend.
And

Beck (42:33):
no

Dash (42:34):
turn- yeah, so my best friend Ben, like, she left me for him on prom night.
It was like a fucking teen movie

Beck (42:42):
Yeah, I didn't know early enough, uh, to go to the prom with…
Though I did go to prom withgay people, just gay men

Dash (42:48):
Yehaw

Beck (42:49):
fuck

Dash (42:50):
What'd you do?

Beck (42:51):
Just ripped off half my fingernail

Dash (42:53):
What?

Beck (42:54):
Yehaw

Dash (42:55):
Are you a fingernail biter?

Beck (42:57):
So I was for a long time and then after my mom died, I just quit
for, you know, whatever reason.
And so I've got eight perfectlygood nails, like I have to trim
them to keep them short now.
And then I've got these two that I'vebeen fucking with, and then this one,
I don't know if you can see it, but I
tore the whole n-

Dash (43:14):
Oh.
Oh.
I can feel that.
Stop touching it.
I can see you picking at it right now.
Put your hands in your pockets.
Sit on your hands.
I- I've never been a nail biterbecause my nails are indestructible.
I would break a tooth trying to…

Beck (43:32):
Yeah.

Dash (43:33):
I have to cut them every other day

Beck (43:35):
I cut mine about twice a week usually, 'cause they grow out so fast now.
Used to I didn't think my nails grew atall 'cause I just would tear them off.
'Cause I was a biter first and thenI became a picker, and picking was
worse because you like rip off.
Like that is gone.
Like that, like I

Dash (43:51):
Yeah.
Oh, man.

Beck (43:51):
nail left on that.

Dash (43:53):
You were like, "Why don't my nails grow?"

Beck (43:56):
that's…
Yeah, yeah.
Pretty much

Dash (43:59):
I, yeah, I feel bad for people who have…
'Cause I've never been a nail biter,like I said, but I pick at my, I
have picked at my cuticles and chewedon my cuticles before as a kid.
I would chew them thingsback to the knuckle.
Sorry if this is triggering anything toanybody listening, uh, 'cause some folks,
man, they got it bad with nail biting.

Beck (44:16):
Yehaw

Dash (44:16):
And that would suck because of the way, you know, like when you break a nail
off too short, it hurts to touch things.
You can't do shit

Beck (44:24):
Right?
Meow.

Dash (44:26):
Yeah.
Can you hear her?
I don't know which…
Sometimes they get treats atthis, in the afternoon, so
that may be what she's after.
Come here, baby.
Oh.

Beck (44:37):
I have everybody shut out of the room, so

Dash (44:39):
Well, I'm in the hallway, so
Uh, did you bring any nounof Appalachian interest?

Beck (44:45):
Good.
This week's noun is a person All right.
Uh, today's town ofAppalachian interest is Dr.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Now, I know many of you will say, "Who?"
But you probably know him from the PBSshow Finding Your Roots, where he sits
across from famous people with a book andsomehow makes genealogy feel like both
a family reunion and a courtroom drama.

(45:07):
He'll look somebody straight in theeye, turn a page, and suddenly f-
they find out their great somethingwas out here causing trouble in 1847.
And you know, I respect that.
Everyone needs to be remindedsometimes that we all come from
a long line of troublemakers.
But before Dr.
Gates became the man on PBS gentlywrecking celebrities with census
records, he was a kid from West Virginia.
He was born in Keyser and grew up inPiedmont, a small town tucked in the

(45:30):
mountains along the Potomac River.
Piedmont was a paper mill town, thekind of place where everybody knew
your people, your business, yourmamaw, and probably what time you
turned the, your porch light off.
Appalachia is often talked about likeit only has one story, one accent, one
experience, one kind of family, and youand I both know that has never been true,
no matter how many outsiders believe it.

(45:50):
Dr.
Louis Henry Gates, Jr.
is part of Black Appalachia, andBlack Appalachia is not a side note.
It is part of the region's history,its labor, culture, music, schools,
churches, neighborhoods, and memory.
You do not get to tell the storyof Appalachia and leave that out
just because somebody watched onedocumentary and decided we were all
barefoot extras in a Coal Camp remake.

(46:11):
Dr.
Gates went on to become one of themost important scholars in African
and African American studies.
That field is deeply connected toAmerican cultural studies because
it asks how race, language,literature, history, and identity
shape the country that we live in.
And yes, I did just say Americancultural studies on a podcast
that also once spent serious timediscussing gas station chicken.

(46:31):
The, we have a range.
His work reminds us that cultureis not just paintings in a museum
or some old book nobody wantsto read unless there's a quiz.
Culture is what people remember.
It's what families pass down.
It's what gets hidden, what gets saved,and what gets whispered, and what somebody
finally says out loud at Thanksgivingafter too much sweet potato pie.
That is why Finding YourRoots works so beautifully.

(46:52):
It's not just about famous peoplelearning they are related to kings
or moonshiners or somebody who had 18children and apparently no hobbies.
It was about how historylives in regular families.
You could find it in family names oldhomesteads and hometowns, in the stories
that have been passed down and thestories that nobody is allowed to tell.
There's a few of those in every holler.
But people from this region know whatit means to carry a place with you.

(47:15):
You can leave the mountain, the milltown, the holler, the riverbank, but
it has a funny way of packing itself inyour suitcase without asking permission.
Dr.
Gates spent his career showingthat the past is not dead weight.
It is a map.
Sometimes it's messy or painful.
Sometimes it shows you somethingbeautiful that your family almost
lost, and sometimes it tells youthat your people were much more

(47:35):
interesting than anybody gave themcredit for, and that's the part I love.
one of the best-known voices in thestudy of Black history and culture.
That does not make him an exceptionin Appalachia, it makes him
part of the truth of Appalachia.
So today we honor Dr.
Lu- Henry Louis Gates, the Appalachiannow, who reminds us that family
stories are never simple, historyis never finished, and that West
Virginia has produced more thanpepperoni rolls, country roads, and

(47:58):
people who can give directions usingbuildings that burned down in 1983.
Thank you, Dr.
Gates

Dash (48:04):
Hell yeah.
Love.
The first time I heard of him wasin, uh, my master's program, and
we read The Signifying Monkey.
Have you read that?

Beck (48:13):
Nope

Dash (48:14):
It's from, uh, 1988.
And so I like it.
I'm a structuralist.
I- a post-structuralist.
I love structuralism.
And so he's, like, signifying when used inAfro-American cr- uh, cultural criticism,
describes kind of tropes like metonymy,metaphor, double talk and it's a way
of indirectly referencing something.

(48:35):
So an example that, that he gave wasthe way in African American vernacular
you can show affection for someonethrough the construct of an insult.
But it comes from, doubling the termoff of Ferdinand de Saussure's construct
of signification, which is basically,uh, the relationship between a sign

(48:58):
and what it signifies basically is,like, h- how we express meaning.
Anyway, that is just to say thathe is brilliant, and everybody
should read Signifying Monkey
Um,
you heard of Affrilachian?

Beck (49:16):
Yeah.
I follow them

Dash (49:18):
Oh, is it a…

Beck (49:19):
Facebook.
There's a page, uh, it's Affrilachian.
It's a, an artist and a
poet

Dash (49:25):
Oh, okay.
So, um, the person who coined the term isnamed, Frank X Walker and it refers to,
uh, the kind of culture created by peoplewho arrived in Appalachia via the slave
trade or, the Underground Railroad, right?
Like people of those experience.
And so he coined it because he's a poet.

(49:47):
And he taught - I'vetaken courses with him.
He taught at EKU when I was an undergrad.

Beck (49:52):
neat!

Dash (49:53):
before he was famous.
This was before the Appalachia, the ideaof it as a cultural expression took off.

Beck (50:01):
That's amazing

Dash (50:03):
Everybody should read Frank X Walker.
I don't…
Wonder where he's at now?
He's from Danville, Kentucky

Beck (50:10):
That's around Pikeville, isn't it?

Dash (50:12):
No, Danville's Central Kentucky.

Beck (50:14):
Ah.

Dash (50:15):
Walker coined the term Affrilachia, signifying the importance of the
African American presence influencein Appalachia he was Poet Laureate
of Kentucky from 2013 to 2015.
Where are you teaching right now, Frank?
Maybe he's not teaching.
Maybe he's And he learnedunder Gurney Norman.

(50:35):
Have you ever read any of his stuff?
He died recently, but he was alsoa very big deal you know, to, to
Kentucky and to in general I'llput some links to Frank's stuff.
Uh, I'm gonna put a bunch of stufffor people to, to study up on if
they want to and Beck will put itin the newsletter this week too.
Oh, well, we gotta spin this wheel andsee what our homework is for next week

Beck (50:58):
Okay This fa- this YouTube one really threw me for a loop.
I was watching YouTube videoson end and I couldn't…
That's why I went with the one that I wentwith, 'cause it started everything, right?
'Cause it was such a broadthing, a YouTube video that kinda
meant something, and there'slike, where do you go with that?
That's the way that I interpreted it,and so that's why I went with, you
know, the first one that I remember

Dash (51:17):
Yeah.
Um, Oh, damn.
It landed on social media.
Yeah and you know, if it land, next timeit lands on it, it maybe it'll be easier
to just bullshit come up with something.
it was fun.
I ne- hadn't
seen that before

Beck (51:33):
things.
Yeah, I overthink things too, so

Dash (51:35):
That's relatable though.
All right, so social media.
What, your favorite memes or stories orpages or things you learned, unexpected
stuff, anything about social media,

Beck (51:50):
okay.
well, I did a academic project onsocial media on a, uh, a page called
You Might Be From Portsmouth, Ohio If,
And as a site of public memory.
It's one of the YouTube videos that Ihave on my channel, and I watched it
the other day, and it was pretty good.
I had forgotten how much work Iput into that particular project.
But it was neat to see Facebook usedas a site of serious academic work

Dash (52:12):
Oh, yeah.
I think I told you about that ethnographyI did of the zombie survivalist
groups, I can see why people gethooked on that kind of research.
Ethnography is fun, especiallylike im- immersive ethnography

Beck (52:25):
Yehaw
I learned all about that inmy anthropology, uh, thematic
sequence as an undergrad

Dash (52:31):
I didn't learn anything about research until my, uh, until grad school.
We just, I did, they did, wedid not do that kind of research

Beck (52:38):
We had this assignment, we had to pick somebody from the community
and write a project on them.
Like, it had to be,like, a 40-page project.
So I did all this workon my, uh, my landlord.
He was this guy who, he was thelast person to play both first
string for the basketball team andthe football team for Ohio State.
He was on both in the '50s.
And so I wrote this whole thing about him.

(53:00):
I had to actually write two papers becausethere was the paper that I gave him, and
then there was the paper where I wroteabout what a piece of shit he was for
the community at the same time, right?
'Cause he bought up everythingand was a slum lord.
And so I did all this work, and I put…
I did transcription, and I did hoursof typing, and I did interviews and all
this, and all that came back he said if wewanted our projects back to let him know.

(53:21):
And I was like, "Yeah, I want itback for the feedback," you know?
And he changed, he had one wordsuggestion and gave me an A, and that
was all he did on my 40-page project.
I was bitter.
Bitter

Dash (53:33):
That's fucked up, man

Beck (53:35):
Yeah.
He ended up getting firedfrom, uh, from Miami, so ha

Dash (53:39):
Oh, right.
Yeah,

Beck (53:42):
It's, it's common knowledge.
Dr.
Cinnamon was an Africanist and Dr.,
uh, Gladish was a botanist, and Dr.
Cinnamon went to, uh, Africa on a researchstudy and he brought some plants back,
and one of them was psychoactive, and Dr.
Gladish knew it, and grew it in thegreenhouse anyway that's there on campus.
And it got turned in, and they both gotfired, and they were my least, my two

(54:03):
least favorite professors ever at Miami.
Dr.
Gladish is the only onethat ever made me cry

Dash (54:09):
Oh.

Beck (54:10):
He was the worst.
Like, as somebody who is a professionaleducator now, he was the worst.
Like, he would teach you A, B, andC, and then test you on E, D, and F.
You know?
Like, th- there just was nocorrelation to what he would do.
His big mistake was he gave us accessto all of his files on Canvas, and
he, I don't think he realized he hada copy of all of his exams and quizzes
if you dug hard enough.

(54:32):
So I ended up getting an A in that class.
He said we could accesshis files, so I did.
I just didn't tell him what was in there.
That was his dumb ass for notknowing what was in there, you know?

Dash (54:44):
I mean, you know, y- you found the resource and you used it

Beck (54:48):
I bet he wondered how I was doing so well in his class 'cause everybody…
That was one of those classesthat 80% of the class fails and
everybody else gets a C, and I'msit- sitting there getting an A.
I'm sure
I drove him crazy.

Dash (54:58):
one that found them?

Beck (54:59):
Yeah, well, I sha- I shared it with Shana.
So cause we took botanytogether as undergrads.
I saved it to my very last set ofclasses that I had to take 'cause
I'm not a science person at all,

Dash (55:09):
I didn't take botany

Beck (55:11):
Well, you could take, like, botany or you take biology or, you know.
So I took botany and geology forthe science classes that I took.
I didn't wanna take, like,human biology or anything like

Dash (55:20):
I I mean, I took a lot of science courses because I think I said, like,
I accidentally minored in biology,but I just kept taking bio classes.
I did take geology because youhave to take more than just bio
to, for the gen ed requirement.
So I took economic plants,but it wasn't about botany.
It was about…

(55:41):
It was actually a really interestingcourse about how agriculture
creates society and such.
Weird dude teaching the course, but thefirst day he wheels in this cart full
of essential oils, which are just oilsexpressed from various plants, we just
spent the whole class smelling stuff

Beck (56:00):
In my botany class, uh, the professor was a
adjunct and so she didn't…
I don't know.
She was, she tried realhard, I'll give her that.
It was not a great class.
It felt very high school.
She ended up quitting and goingto teach high school anyway.
But we had this one demonstration whereshe went to Jungle Jim's and got, like,
30 different kinds of fruit we had nevertried, including durian fruit, and we

(56:21):
got to try a- all kinds of little things.

Dash (56:23):
Tried durian?

Beck (56:25):
I have.

Dash (56:25):
Oh my God.
Yeah.
That's the one that you're not allowedto take to like the airport or eaten in
certain places because it smells so bad

Beck (56:33):
Yeah, you can buy it at Uncle Jim's though.

Dash (56:35):
What does it smell like?

Beck (56:37):
Uh, gasoline and vomit mixed together

Dash (56:41):
So is Sheets.

Beck (56:43):
Y- basically, yeah.
Like it, it was foul.
Like totally foul

Dash (56:51):
Oh, well, now I know.
I don't have to experience myself then.
You what?

Beck (56:56):
I've pet a sloth

Dash (56:58):
Cool

Beck (56:59):
One of the weddings that I did in Cincinnati, the girl
worked at the Cincinnati Zoo,and she had her reception there.
Uh, she had her wedding inthis gorgeous Catholic church.
Like, it was the most beautifultemple I've ever been in.
And then she had a reception at the zoo,and because she was a zookeeper they
brought a whole parade full of animals.
They had penguins.

(57:19):
There were, uh…
Oh, what are they called?
O- ostriches.
Uh, not ostriches.
Flamingos.
That's what I was trying to come up with.
And a sloth and a monitor lizardand all kinds of interesting stuff.
But I like…
Got to…
The petting the slothwas my favorite part.

Dash (57:33):
Are they soft?

Beck (57:34):
Yes.
Well, they're kinda wiry, like,

Dash (57:36):
They look kinda wiry.

Beck (57:38):
yeah, kinda like a chihuahua.
You know what I

Dash (57:40):
Yeah, right

Beck (57:41):
yeah.

Dash (57:42):
I used to want to pet a koala until I learned that they all have chlamydia.

Beck (57:46):
Yeah.

Dash (57:48):
Now I'm good.

Beck (57:49):
That'll do.
That'll do it.
That'll do it

Dash (57:51):
They're debaucherous, like…

Beck (57:56):
When the pandemic came around we started look- watching YouTubers
that smoked weed a lot 'cause it wasjust, you know, it was interesting.
And there are a couple of…
There's lots of weedtubers out there.
But one of the most popular is this girlcalled Koala Puffs, and I think about
that sometimes when we see her material.
I w- I wonder if she doesn't know that

Dash (58:16):
Maybe not.
the first, like, what we wouldconsider content creator I ever
was aware of was Jenna Marbles.
that is millennial humorright there, Jenna Marbles.
And she still w- has a lot of fans,I know they're out there, so please
don't hate us for me saying that.
Like, you, you have to agree,that is millennial humor.
And I'm, I appreciate millennialhumor, but I also can see why she's

(58:40):
not making content anymore, 'causethese fucking young ones are…
All they do is drama.
The, there's a whole genre ofcontent on YouTube that is drama.
They call themselves drama tubers.
Can you imagine if that was your job?
What are these kids made of?

Beck (58:58):
I cannot.
And I teach
college freshmen.

Dash (59:01):
Oh I sh- I know something I should've…
I'm just gonna send you this becauseit's too long to put on the show,
but there's a YouTube video that,uh, also makes me laugh a lot.
We're gonna remember a bunch ofshit that we should've put on here.

Beck (59:12):
Yehaw

Dash (59:13):
listeners, tell us your favorite YouTube video,

Beck (59:16):
of listener requested YouTube
videos

Dash (59:18):
would love that.
I would love…
Send us your stuff in.
If we get enough we willreact to your YouTube videos.
We'll- we could even go live and dothat, react to YouTube videos on YouTube.

Beck (59:29):
I would, that'd be great

Dash (59:30):
That would be real fun.

Beck (59:32):
[e-mail]

Dash (59:34):
correct

Beck (59:35):
comment on any of our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts

Dash (59:37):
Yep, you can comment on YouTube if you listen there.
You can comment on Spotify.
I don't know if you can comment on Apple.
And if you haven't, we haven't askedthis in a while subscribe if you're
listening to us, and leave us afive-star review wherever you listen.
That helps us out, helps us,helps other people find us.
You know, we're a weird bunch.
We don't come up organically forfor a lot of people's algorithms.

(01:00:02):
We're a hard sell.

Beck (01:00:03):
searching queer Appalachia?

Dash (01:00:05):
Yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't come up.
Uh, I haven't quite yetcracked the keyword puzzle
for whatever it is we do here.
So any help y'all can give, ifyou think somebody will find us
funny, Send the link to them.
have a good week.
Pride Month may be coming to an end,but we love you and we're proud of
you anyway, and we'll stay that way.

(01:00:27):
so be good and say hi to your mom and them

Beck (01:00:29):
Bye