Cool Zone Media.
Hello, and welcome to cool People answer your questions instead of doing other cool stuff podcasts. That's normally called cool people the cool stuff, but today is called cool people who answer questions instead of doing other cool stuff. I'm your host, Margaret Giljoy, and with me today answering questions is Sophie. It's Sophie.
You look so cool right now. Margaret's standing while she's recording, and so she just looks really cool.
That's because I'm like really fit. You know, you're so fit, so fit.
Yeah, and I'm like slouched. I have like a weiring, like all black, and I'm like definitely slouched over looking very very uncool.
I have a rule where I can stand for a like one episode recording, but I cannot stand for a two episodes recording.
That's it's actually, yeah, I respect that. I think it's I think it's I think that would social violation. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like legally correct.
So oh, I forgot to introduce everyone else. Our audio engineer is, of course Ian. No, what nope?
What? Nope?
Where do Ian go?
Oh? Ian still here? Oh?
Okay, good, Ian's still here.
Ian and Daniel did like a like a Freaky Friday, except a face off like a face off, and have swapped editing duties and so now the editor of this podcast is one DJ Danel. Hi Danel, Hi, Danel, everybody Danel.
Yeah, because you're this is the first time, so everyone, if you're listening, you have to say Hi Danel. Our theme music was still written by on woman, right, that.
Has not changed. That will never change because that song is a banger, right.
Unless there's a DJ Daniel remix of the song.
Oh my gosh, I would listen to that. Daniel's so talented.
Yeah, No, I really like the music that everyone produces for cool Zone. So this is you all have probably figured out because it's Wednesday and not Monday, that this is not a regular episode. That's why the title has changed because this is a Q and A thing that we do once a year at the beginning of the
year until the heat death of the universe. So that's where we asked your questions on social media and it was annoying not beg y'all's questions were fine, but we had to go on to social media to do it. That I like to pretend like I've quit Twitter and it is demonstrably false. Yeah.
I was gonna say, I was gonna say every time you say it, and then and then I see you on there, I'm like, I know there she is the big liah layah liah puns on faja.
Yeah, aspirationally and aspirationally quit Twitter user me. But yeah, we have questions, then we're going to answer them.
And you know what we noticed was that the is very representative of how much of a terrible place Twitter is. The questions on Instagram are just better.
Yeah, there's some good ones on Twitter. If you asked a question on Twitter, it's not inherently bad, no, but overall overall the quality.
Yeah, but let's let's get started, all right. I am going to be asking the questions because that is my role today. Magpie, you talk a lot about the value of community. Do you have any advice for people who don't feel like they belong anywhere or who really struggle to find the community and be accepted.
Okay, So I sort of love this question great because it's a really important question. And also I do I talk a lot about community. I talk a lot both in the History podcast and so do a preparedness podcast called Live Like the World. Is dying where I talk about community preparedness. I am an introvert. I am a pretty hard introvert. On the average day, I see zero humans. I live in the woods. My best friend is a dog who's forty five pounds. I can do squats with
him at about eight. He gets really annoyed.
Again just bragging about how unbelievably fit you are.
That's right, that's right. It's totally not that I can't do more squats, is that my dog gets upset. So I think about this question a lot, right, because community does matter, But like people tend to think of community as like the realm of the extroverts, and the realm of the extroverts is a scary place where people expect you to dance in front of people. But that's not the only way to have community, and it's hard because there is some degree of putting yourself out there that's necessary.
I would say that primarily when people are struggling to find ways to connect, I would say overall, prioritize connecting with people in real life rather than connecting with people just over the internet and especially over social media. I think that face to face interactions have like a sort of built in accountability. Like the kind of shit people say to you on the internet is a lot meaner
than what people usually say to you in person. Like obviously people say mean things in person, right, but like no one's like you know, people have a little bit of a like like when you're within punching distance, like people act a little bit more politely, right, go places for common interests. And I think that activism is actually a really good way to do this. And one of the ways to get involved in activism is to think about the specific problems that you are excited about addressing
that feel like the most pressing to you. Whether it is the current movement that is really really big, like I mean while we're listening to it, right, like Palestinian libration movement and solidarity movement is a very big thing, right, but also figuring out specifically, like what strength you bring to that kind of thing, Right, If you're an artist, you might be bringing like, hey, I'll draw flyers, right, or I'll take notes at meetings, or I'll volunteer in
the kitchen. You know, if you like go to a party and everything sucks and you don't know how to interact with anyone, you just like go find the snacks and you hang up by the snacks when you talk to the other introvert who's hanging out by the snacks.
Or you find the one dog at the party.
Oh yeah, no, that's the best, that's the best.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then like the other person who only wants to hang out with the dog, you can end up having a conversation with yeah, or you just hang out with a dog, and then it's like all win win, Yes. And you can do this by volunteering at like gatherings. Right if you show up and you're like, how can I help, and then you're like, oh, we totally need someone to pour coffee, right, and then you're like great, I have a purpose. And for us introverts it is
really useful to have a purpose in social gatherings. I really like tabling. I actually really like presenting as part of my introversion. I'm a weird, outgoing introvert.
But like, you're an ambi avert, Yeah, I'm like a I'm an ambiavert.
Yeah no, that makes sense to me actually, And so if I have a purpose, I'm good and I really recommend it. You do have to go out and meet people. Yeah, in order to have community, but you don't have to
like go out all the time and meet people. You can go to like three parties and then be done, or like go to a couple activist meetings, figure out how you plug in, and then kind of sit back a little bit and like and if you're an extrovert, your job is to make sure that all the introverts are still wrangled and still like connected, and like reach out to them every now and then be like, hey,
like we're putting together. I'm using this artist as an example, but like, hey, we need a new flyer, Like are you available? Can you do this?
Thing? You know?
And any other thing that I talk about a lot is just like literally know your actual physical neighbors if you can. This is going to be very different in vary different places. I'm not saying become friends with your neighbors, but like know who they are and like figure out how much you can trust them and stuff, because sometimes
community is literally just who's around you. And I actually think introverts have another advantage in this, where like I'm not super caught up on who's mad at who or what, who's dating whom, and blah blah blah and I don't give a shit, you know, because I don't care. So that's great. So then I can still sort of be friends with ever. I mean obviously, like when one person's like a horrible piece shit, it's worth knowing about.
Right, But yeah, can I add one thought to it? Yeah, And it's something that I say all the time to people, But like, support your friends and their weird hobbies. I think supporting your friends and their weird hobbies, they will support you in your weird hobbies and then organically community will happen.
Yeah, totally.
And if you're like, hey, I like this weird thing, are people gonna think I'm weird? No, because there's other weird people who like that weird thing and it's normal and it's cool and that's good, and then you have your community.
Yeah. And if people don't think that the weird thing you're into is cool, if they're just not into it, that's fine. But if they think it sucks, then like, we'll fuck them.
We'll fuck them.
Yeah.
That's the other thing that you definitely will learn is like we'll fuck them is totally okay.
Yeah, other people aren't better than you. Whoever you're listening to other people aren't better than you. Well, there's some people. I guess Hitler is dead, but like you know, everyone's better than Elon Musk. If you ever like think to yourself like, oh I suck, just be like you're not Elon Musk. You're doing better in somebody, you know, in terms of being a person.
Yeah, you ready for the next one?
Yeah, I'm born ready.
Yeah, because you're.
Just so fit.
It's it's my favorite thing is how it's doing squats magpie. Are there cases where you started researching and had to drop them as a subject because you learned bad things about them?
Okay, So I've had moments where I would have, but I work on a really tight deadline, and so what I usually end up doing is like if the if the core character is actually kind of a piece of garbage, I shift the story to be around the larger social movement.
And I try to do that anyway on the show, like every now and it's about individuals, but usually it's about larger social movements where I focus on individuals, and then like what happens instead is that there's people I try to avoid, Like I not want to talk about Margaret Sanger, right, who's the founder of planned parenthood is eugenicist who used to be an anarchist, who is more complicated than anyone wants to get into. I don't want to get into it. I don't even want to get
into it right now. But I was like doing something on early birth control advocates and I'm like, you know, time to talk about how messy that is because all these motherfuckers are into eugenics, you know, so I just do messy shit. I don't know, Yeah, figure it out.
What has been the most pleasant surprise you've encountered in researching and presenting any topic on the show.
Oh god, I don't know if I can come up with an example off the top of my head. But I really like when historical men turn out to like be wife guys.
It's my favorite fun. It's so fun because you know, in reality, the only wife guys that exist are James Stout and Daniel Goodman. In my life, yeah, I love Danel, but it's really fun when they show up in history and you're like, oh, man could be our guys one day.
Yeah, totally. Just people who just like genuinely are just like really into supporting the women. If you're like a straight guy, and you're really into supporting the women who are close to you in your life. Yeah, that's fucking great. And I wish that wasn't the exception, and I'm proud of everyone who's working to make it not the exception. But that's what I get excited about when men meet a minimum bar that I didn't expect them to.
I think there's another thing that, like, when you figure out that you have like a connection, like one person removed to somebody in a story, you get really excited.
Oh that's true too, you get really excited.
I'm gonna ask the frog question because I've I've been holding out on the frog question. Somebody asked, somebody asked on Twitter if we had a favorite frogs. And we're gonna go to a quick break after this, but I think that we should answer the frog question first, Margaret.
I think we know you should go first. Okay, you have a stronger answer.
I have a stronger answer, And I'm very excited about this. I am now a frog boy mom, which is something that I'm very excited about. My mom got me a gift of two African dwarf frogs and they're awesome and they jumpy and they're in their little tank that's like got rainbow rocks, so they're already just being prideful, which is nice. We're raising them right from the start and they're adorable.
And Alex Jones gay frogs. They're just starting out. It's not the water turning. I'm gay. The funniest thing you've ever said to me.
I'm gonna think that every time I look at them. Thank you so much. But they're amazing and I've met them and uh and my mom won't let me take them back home to my house until after Christmas, which is such a mom thing. But I visited them and I've properly named them. And there's one that's like small with like a little head, and his name is Stanley Tucci. And then there's one that's long and skinny and lengthy and his name is Kareem Abdul Jabbar or the Captain.
Hell yeah, and I love them. And African doarf frogs are now my favorite frogs. So if you know anything about African doarf frogs, please message me. I would like to know.
Hell yeah, Margaret, Okay, my favorite frogs currently are the concrete frogs that I'm going to give my father for Christmas, and this episode comes out after Christmas, so I can say it. Yeah, and I'm getting them from the Cursed Concrete Animal Store.
They're a curse concrete And it's in one of those stores that sells like the giant like like statues of like animals. Is it one of those.
Yeah, like like you go up and there's like a concrete sasquatch next to a concrete kneeling soldier in front of a cross next to Yes, Oh.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah, the first time I ever went there, I bought a raccoon. I like, don't believe the story I'm about to tell, not that it didn't happen, but the like supernatural part of it is just like it focks in my head. But okay, So I bought this raccoon, this like squat raccoon statue as soon as they moved into my house, and I was like, and I would put it in my truck. And I was driving home and backcountry roads where I live, and I had never hit and killed an animal in my vehicle in my life.
And for the like five miles that I had this raccoon statue in my truck, I hit and killed a raccoon. Oh and then I, you know, I took it out to the woods and stuff, and I kind of think it's spirit is now in the fucking curse statue that protects my house. And if I had known, I wouldn't have done it.
This answer got weirder and weirder.
I wouldn't have done it. Raccoon.
Somebody just wanted to know where your favorite frog was, And now we got raccoon spirits in a statue. And if that's not Margaret fucking killed Joy, I don't know what it is.
And if you want a curse statue, buy them from the Monkey Pole Store, which is our primary sponsor these days. Ah is it? Yeah? I think so, isn't the Monkey Pas Store. Well, every goods and services is like a weird, horrible exchange. You know, there's a tear rible price, like if you want a good or service, you have to work a job. It's a terrible price.
The curve is the it's the curse. And because a lot of people ask this when we did the it could happen here, Q and A and I saw a couple of people ask it. For the cool people, Q and A, I am desperately trying to get the Android ad free version up and running. It is not something that I can just click and say yes, like we've said yes on our end. We're just waiting on corporate bureaucracy to figure itself out. But I'm hoping to have it soon because I I yeah, I mean I would love that.
Yeah, it's not brand loyalty on our part.
It's for sure not brand loyalty on our part. And one of the main things that I wanted to do with this Android version is also make it so that you know, it's something that can be used on any any app you use already, and it's not something where you're just doing it on one thing. So hopefully that is coming very very soon, and we have good news for you on that. Yeah, in twenty twenty four.
Early in the meantime, there's that press fifteen seconds button waiting for you.
Now and Wheat.
Are back whoo.
And somebody ask us to listen their top five fruits and vegetables and like that's a lot, So maybe give me your favorite fruit and your favorite vegetable, and I'll give you my favorite fruit and favorite vegetable.
Okay, I'm gonna come out confrontational green peppers my favorite vegetable. Okay, why is that called green bell peppers? As soon as I said I like green bell peppers, Twitter got mad at me. Oh, in kind of I like classic, why do you hate waffles? Kind of way.
Yeah, shut the fuck up.
I love green bell peppers. They're they're the most when I'm like, man, I need the taste of a vegetable. Nothing is vegetable like a green bell pepper. And my favorite fruit, I'm currently drying a bunch of apples, Like apples. Apples are great, so I've been really into dehydrating apples.
I think for me, I have ties in both categories, So you're gonna get four because I simply cannot pick. And my top vegetables I think it's a tie between asparagus and Brussels sprouts.
Oh those are good.
Yeah. My brother has a really awesome roasted Brussels sprouts recipe where you know, you just roast the Brussels sprouts for about twenty five minutes, flip once, and it's just all oil on a little bit of sea salt, and then you mix them up with some red wine vinegar, a little bit of alsamic a, little bit of olive oil, a little bit of garlic, and some dijon. Lightly mix it up and it is perfection.
Okay, see, I almost want to change my answer because what I said didn't make me hungry, but what you just said made me hungry.
So fair enough, fair enough. And then my top two fruits are definitely as you just said, the apple because wow, I specifically really like cosmic crisp apples. And then blackberries, Oh my god, Oh what an awesome fruit. And they're so easy to grow. I mean, they'll take over your entire fuck they took over all of Oregon. But blackberries are fucking delicious.
Yeah.
I saw a variety of this question several different times. And this person also also I loved the Muhammad Ali episodes.
Thank you cool?
Those were great episodes. Was that the one that Ian suggested us?
That was a request from me?
And yeah, yeah, shout out Ian. Who is your hero? It's a hard question.
I would say probably Eric Omela Testa, who I have not covered on this show, but he shows up all the time. He's this Italian anarchist who once smuggled himself in a crate full of sewing machines to get to Brazil in order to write the how to Organize a Union by Acres that's like one of them. And then the one that's like more direct and more impactful in my life is our Sloliquin. Mm hmm.
Somebody asked you your favorite book of a Versuilas also.
Oh, okay, fuck, I mean, I've read The Dispossessed the most, but I think that probably a book of her short stories called Urcinian Tales. I have like a real love for her short fiction, and it like stays in my mind really well, and she just probably has more influence on me artistically than anyone else.
What about you, I don't really want to answer this one because I don't think you have like one person that I'm like, this is my personal hero that I want that I could pick.
I also think that.
I don't know, humans maybe aren't meant to be heroes.
Totally part of the reason I haven't done a Malla test episode yet. What if he sucked? I don't know. No one ever talks about his family. You know, you know it's that.
I hear you, I hear you. There's a great question from somebody that said, out of all the people you've talked about. Who do you think your dog would have loved to meet?
Everyone who is reasonably short? It's so real. He loves all of them and the only way to get away with being a large person with My dog has been really into dogs. Yeah, so whoever likes dogs the most? My dog just loves dog people and gets so confused by anyone who isn't as excited as he is.
Yeah. For me, I think that Anderson would have liked to have met the riot dog El Negro Matapacos.
Oh fuck, no, you're totally right. I need to think of the dogs.
Yeah, the one that the all black dog with the red bandana. Anderson's a been Dana girl herself. Yeah, I think they would have had fun patrolling the Hue Romans.
Yeah.
Oh, this is a great question. How do you explain anarchism to people who are skeptical about it?
Okay, that's both a great question and also like one of the weird hardest questions. It really kind of depends on where someone's coming out about it. A lot of it for me is that I'm like, well, what if we took the best parts of both caring for the individual and caring for the community. And put them together. And what if the main argument that people had in the twentieth century between like capitalism and communism, the individual versus the community, Like what if they're both right and
they're both wrong. And one of the main things I start with is that anarchism isn't what you got told it is. You know, it's an existing social movement and concept that's been around one hundred and fifty years that has practitioners of all different types and ideas. And yeah, I don't know, it's so funny because it's like such a you're like, it's the ideology. That's not an ideology, it's the you know. Oh god, that was my broadcaster voice.
I heard the advertiser voice. Yeah, I don't know, you know, because I try not to like convince people to go become anarchists or whatever, right, I just like want people to like learn that it's not what they got told it is.
It's a great answer. How do you feel about co ops?
I love co ops? Is there like a context?
Is it just like the person said, tell us how you feel about co ops?
I very recently worked for a nonprofit that helps finance worker cooperatives, and the way I feel about like grocery store co ops is like more complicated. If you want to hear my hearing thoughts about that, you can listen to our episode that we did with author ren Or Eye where they explained food cooperatives and their complicated history. I think it's a very useful way to engage as anti capitalists in a market economy and subvert a lot
of expectations around it. And also a lot of the work that's been done by cooperatives comes from racialized people and especially black communities in the United States, And there's like all kinds of work that people have been doing around like how to stop economic extras action from impoverished areas. And I think we have a lot to learn. Nothing has taught me more about how capitalism works than working for a place that finances work or cooperatives in a good way.
Do you have a favorite person you've covered this year?
I love all my children equally. When people ask me this, it's like when people like ask me what my favorite book is, my first thought is, I've never read a book. What is a book you know? Or like, who's your favorite band? I'm like, I've never heard of music. I don't know. I don't know what I've done. As soon as someone asks.
Me that, I completely agree. Do you have a favorite bird? I love all these animal questions. These are great.
Probably maglizes.
Fair enough.
I picked them as my name. You know, yeah, what about you? What's your favorite bird? I just like birds.
I I definitely have a bird feeder in my yard and what I like when they come and eat the food. I've had a lot of hummingbirds over by my desk lately and that's been nice to look at. But I like all birds. My brother is like terrified of birds, which you know makes me happy.
Yeah, I have a bird feeder right outside my office window, and yeah, I know I see it. Well that's the that's the hummingbird feeder and there's no humming. It was a terrible plan. But on the other window you can't see it from here, there's a bird feeder that it took the birds like a month of fine as as they found it. Now they're like constantly there and it's all these tufted tit mouses and I'm super excited about it.
I had to ask my friend whenever on this show I like secretly talk about like I had to ask my friend this thing. It's always the same friend. So if you're listening, hi, thanks for telling me. It was a tough to tiss tit mouse.
Yeah, we're going to take another quick break, but we shall, we shall be back.
It would take a break for what.
For for capitalism or for pressing the fifteen second skip button, or for those who have the cooler Cooler Zone media subscription on an Apple for literally nothing, and we're back.
Come, We're back.
That was really fun. I think I saw this a couple of times. But what is your research in planning and writing process, like for an episode? And I also saw it for when you're ready to write like a short story.
Oh okay, that's fiction and fiction short story. Yeah. So with an episode, I somewhere around the end of the week shortly after recording the last episode, or I plan them out ahead of time. Sometimes I plan them out way ahead of time. I kind of match them a
little bit to the guest. I don't tell the guests what it's about, but I try to find something that the guest doesn't know as much as me about, or doesn't know as much as I'm about to learn about, but has a general interest in, or like a broader context of understanding, like a you know, whether shared identity or whether like knows some people who are involved in
similar struggles or whatever thing, And so I pick a subject. Honestly, these days, I mostly go to my bookshelf and I find because I just I just buy fuck tons of history books, and I go to my bookshelf and I kind of have like a running list of things that I'm excited about, and then I'll usually take a book or two as kind of my first and primary source.
But then I'm really interested in filling in lots of context and stuff like that, and so often, I mean, frankly, one of the things I do for research is I'll start on Wikipedia, but I don't end there. I look into the sources that inspire the Wikipedia, and then I also end up looking at but a lot of academic articles, and I just kind of like slowly piece it together.
I ease take about the first day of work just to hear how people usually tell the story, and then think about how I want to tell the story and get all the pieces, and then I start filling it in, and I also take notes as I write, and then by the third or fourth day, I'm usually mostly writing and going back and putting all the pieces together, and
I don't know that's how I do it. I have no academic training or background, so it's been an interesting I have a lot of writing background, and I have a lot of research background and even background history, but I don't have a background specifically in the formal way of like collecting all the sources and researching and stuff, you know, And so I've been like hitting up friends who do have more of that experience short stories I do have more formal education with, and I've kind of
exploding head diagramed, gone back and forth between whether or not I outline extensively or not. I started off like never outlining. I'm like, I'm just writing a story, and then like, why do all my stories fail? And someone was like, that's because you don't outline them. You don't know what's going to happen, you know. And so then I started writing more from outlines, and I use a lot of specific not formulas, but like structures for stories.
My favorite one is the try fail sequence. And then I write a story and then I let it change the outline as I go, as I learn more about the characters, and then honestly these days, I think I'm a practiced enough writer, but sometimes I'm back to just being like, I got an idea, I got like a character and what's wrong and where they are, and then I just write it and then I do a second draft.
I don't follow a lot of what Heinland Robert Heinland had to say, but I follow Hinland's rules of writing, and any aspiring fiction writer I highly or even artist in general, I highly recommend looking at Hineland's rules of writing, which is very much about like starting things, finishing things, and not getting caught up revising the shit out of everything. And I actually think that that's helped me a lot.
To tie it back into the podcast with the fact that I do a weekly podcast is that I cannot really sit around with revisions over and over again. I just have to learn to get things right the first time. And except that sometimes I won't get things right, I mean I've always right. You know what you're talking about.
Do you have a dream guest for this podcast?
Depends on how good of a Ouiji board I confind.
I was gonna say the Ghost of Emma Goldman.
Yeah, totally, that's the reverse episode I want.
I immediately want ghost.
Also, yeah, I've had most of my dream guests on this show. Yea for me, Like, I mean sometimes you can kind of tell, like I'm a big Mountain Goats fan. So having John Darnell on and talking about the Levelers and the Ranters in the English Civil War and then arguing about theology and politics with John Darnell was like
really nice for me, you know. But no, I mean, my dream guests are the ones that are easy to work with than smart and funny, and like, I'm not worried that they're going to be like scared off by the radical politics of the show. But I also don't think that they're going to be so purely invested in radical culture that the average listener has no fucking clue what we're talking about, you know, Like the perfect guest bridges the history from my script to the reader.
Great answer.
Thanks, Thanks.
How did we meet?
How did we meet through Robert Evans?
Yeah? Through Robert Evans, I believe.
Yeah, yeah, I guess probably the first time I met you as guesting on well, we probably talked by email first, but when I guessed it on Behind the Bastards for the first time several years ago.
Uh, huh. I think that's right.
Yeah, and then in person, just in whatever mysterious place we live that happened to be the same at the same time.
Yep. Do you have a favorite Rintross story from this year?
Hmm. It's funny because, like Rintrow, like I think about how like when I was younger, I had all these stories because all this crazy shit kept happening to me, right, and like bad stuff happened all the time. I live a very low key life, so most of my Rentrot stories are like you wouldn't believe the nerve a truck drove by today, or like you know when rintroll. Okay,
here's my favorite Rentrost story from this year. I was staying at my friend's cabin and my friend in in on the West Coast, and my friend was like, oh, the cabin's haunted, just as a heads up, and again I kind of don't believe a lot of this stuff.
And then as I'm like hanging out outside this like other person from like the cabin neighborhood walked by and was like, oh, you're staying there and I was like yeah, and he was like, you don't go into that one room upstairs, right, And I'm like, uh no, which room, And then I like and then I stay in the cabin by myself, just me and Rentrow because my friend leaves, and I'm, you know, there for a week or whatever, me and my dog in this cabin in the woods.
And it's like mostly fine, but I kind of a little bit like I don't watch horror movies that week, and I kind of like don't really leave the bedroom in the middle of the night, you know.
Yeah.
And then one night I'm like up anyway, and so I'm in the main part of the cabin and Rentrow just goes over to this rocking chair in one of these rooms and just starts fucking alerting hardcore at this empty rocking chair in the middle of the night in the supposedly haunted cabin. And I'm like, that's cool, everything's fine. That's my favorite Rentrot story. And then I died and now I'm a ghost.
Yeah. One of my favorite things about Rentrot was the time that I took here again smoothies and Rentro does not like cars, no, but he only seemed to it, and it's and I don't know, there's probably some scientists, but he only barked at the gas cars he didn't bark at the electric or hybrid cars, and I'm like, wow, we're dressed so woke.
I know, I know, it so funny. Yeah, I'm like, I think that like when the engine isn't running, it's just like, oh, it's a big silent thing. It must be like about the noises.
Definitely. Yeah, Rench I was also a delightful dog to hike with.
Yes, he's a great hiker.
Yeah. What are some things that give you hope when things seem heavy or too hard? I think I think we'll end on that one.
Okay, I'll use a story and I don't think I've told on this podcast before, but I'm sure I use this story. Sometimes. There was a hurricane in eastern North Carolina and it flooded just huge chunks of eastern North Carolina. And one of my best friends was there doing flood relief, and you know, and the only way you could get into this storm affected area was in small plains, right,
and small plains are like the dangerous planes. But the kind of people who own small planes tend to be like libertarian guys, right like, And so you know, this anarchist friend of mine who's a you know, filthy crustpunk who you know has a beard down to their navel or whatever, you know, and like is flying in this tiny plane with this random libertarian guy into a storm, you know. And I'm like, people come together in crisis.
And when you give people the opportunity to become helpers, and when you give people the opportunity to become helpers in ways that they are uniquely suited to be helpful, people rise to that. That's what gives me hope. There's a there's a lot of like not hope going around, including in my own head. But yeah, that's what I hold on to.
What about you, I think just seeing seeing how people have evolved and have seeing so many different people that are listening.
There's a lot of people that.
Are listening these days and are not just staying in there and staying in their old old ways of thinking and are adapting and are really moving with the movements. And that's really fucking cool. And I've seen that, you know, even with like you know, senior family members and you know what I mean, and just people just paying a little bit more attention to what's misinformation and disinformation and really learning to do their own research and talk and
not just talk at you, but listen. I think listening gives me hope.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Well, well, yeah, that's our message of hope. From acting as if I'm sarcastic, I really earnestly believe in being optimistic, at least strategically. You know. Yeah, me too, so and we will talk to you next week with a more regular episode.
Yeah. Oh, do you have anything you want to plug?
It's a whole new year. I don't have a bunch of projects. I have a book coming out at the end of the year. I'm going to tell you so much more about that over the course of the year. And I'm really excited too. It's my longest novel and it's the first book of a trilogy, and I'm really excited about that.
My colleague and friend, James Stout has been doing a lot of really amazing work, and I would just like to plug that. You know, the CPD is detaining thousands upon thousands of migrants, which includes both elderly folks and children, and it's cold, and they're in the desert where there's not a lot of shelter, and they're desperately in need of food and water and other resources as temperatures get very cold, and I just wanted to plug a couple
of the mutual aid groups help bring them. The first thing I'm going to give you is tiny rail slash order aid GFM. That's b O R D E R AI d G F M or GoFundMe dot com, slash j A c U M b A dash M I g r A n T dash c A m p S And that's that's all over several of our different shows. And I can also include in the link for this episode description. But yeah, check that out.
And you don't even have to fly into a hurricane in order to help those people. You can just give money to the people who desperately need your money. And like most of the time, throwing money at problems isn't the solution. Right now, there are people who are ready to use your money very directly to help people.
Yeah, that's all I got, all right, see y'all soon. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production Cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts and Cool Zone Media, visit our website Folezonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, app a podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,