Cool Zone Media.
Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff your weekly reminder that we put out a podcast twice a week because it's Wednesday, and so this is part two and it's part two of our twenty twenty five Question and Answers with Magpie and Sophie. And I'm one of those two people, Magpie aka Marger Kiljoy and the other person Sophie, who's my producer. Hi, Sophie, how are you?
I'm doing well, Magpie.
I have all this energy because I'm not entirely certain why. But also I'm standing while recording, which I cannot do for like a long one where I'm reading, Oh yeah, And I think that's why I'm energetic.
You're jazzed woo.
Anyway, Hi Rory. Our audio engineer is Rory. Hi Rory, and our theme music was written forced by un Woman. And this group of questions comes from Blue Sky.
Yeah, that's what might be a little bit shorter because there's less questions from the Blue Sky than there was on the Instagram. But we'll go for it and try not to pick any of the repetitive ones. Margaret mentions about how some of the people sush groups you research has become uncool, and maybe it doesn't end up doing a show about them. Can you name a few of them and why you uncooled them. I feel like it's just like shitty wife guys.
Yeah, I mean, or shitty non wife guys. I guess, yeah, I mean. Often if I am if I'm on like day three of researching, I'm just doing the episode anyway, and then I'm just being like, well, it turns out everyone is at best morally gray, and many people who are held up as heroes aren't. And so most of the time I end up doing that. But then there's like I can't think of any of the top my
head of like the cursory examination. I start being like, oh, this looks cool, and then I'm like, oh, this isn't cool. Although I will say the main reason that I have to put aside topics that I want to cover or I thought I wanted to cover, as lack of good material, like if there's only a single source or okay. The thing I run across the most is that there's always a huge difference between the I'm a pop historian, I'm
not a historian. I don't do academic work, but there's still a huge difference between the like quick article cool cliff notes versions of a cool person in history and then their actual story, and the degree to which those are different from each other can sometimes be night and day. So I go into it being like, oh, I think this person's cool because I've heard the following things about them, And then was, you know, really not good to women? That's like the number one thing. Yeah, that's women.
The next person says, your D and D episode really resonated with me, and I'd love to hear more. What are some of your favorite tt RPGs moments and characters, stories, any favorite system or setting.
I am pretty basic with what I play. I am not I don't like learning the new rules of a new system. I am not a game girl.
Oh really, you don't like rules, you don't like new systems?
Oh my god?
Wow?
Wait have you seen this? Have you seen this Hard Times meme or headline or whatever that goes around Instagram every now and that like anarchists surprisingly strict about rules for board game?
Yes, oh my god, yes, oh my god, I haven't thought about that in so long.
Yes, I know exactly, Yes, Yes, it says.
The process of like sitting down and learning a new system is like not really what I enjoy a new world, a new game, like a new game world to play in. Yes, but so I'm not one of these people. Like a lot of people, and I really respect them. There's so many independent RPGs, and a lot of them are like
really quick to learn and play. I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was in fourth grade, and I recently moved to Pathfinder, which was like a split from Dungeons and Dragons that happened a while ago, and I didn't even bother going with the split when it happened. But I've more recently moved on because of well, I like the system that they created, and also they're just like I'm not trying to, dude say my opinions about
the relative pros and cons of various places. And I've also done work for Wizards of the Coast because I wrote a Magic the Gathering tie in story at one point. Anyway, I play mostly Pathfinder now, and then I also played Pan Number City, which is tabletop role playing game that I helped write that's out now, and those those kind of keep me busy, Like that's kind of enough for me.
I Okay, One of the other memes that I really like is there's this or there's idea like the first Dungeons and Dragons character you make is gonna be like, I am Sir tharg Man, and I am off to avenge the death of my three parents or whatever, you know, something it's not actually super STRAIGHTFORWD because it's three parents, but you know, a vaguely straightforward thing. And then like your fifth D and D character is like I am a goblet being carried by my own magical hand, you know.
Yeah.
And I think these days when I make characters, I'm usually kind of like, I don't want them to be like Kit, but I like trying to play characters that
are a bit abnormal. I think the one that I talk about a lot because I named my dog after her dog is there was a I played a character named Marley who was a ranger who lived in the woods and decided to become a bandit in her like early fifties, I think, after her husband died and all of our kids were grown up and out of the house so it didn't really matter, and so she was just like, I'm going to become a bandit now, and so she started her her adventuring life in her fifties.
And it was fun because then like my grown kids ended up getting woven into the story and I didn't have control over them because the game master, the dungeon master, was determining all of that. And yeah, you get a dog when you're a ranger, and so I picked a dog named Rentraw. And then like a couple months later, my friend on the other side of the hill as me rescued a dog and I was like, your name is Rentraw. And the first thing he did, real Reintrom was a I don't know if I've said this on
air before or not. I only have like three stories and I just told them over and over again. He ate the character sheet for Rentrom because I put it on top of his crate and he just like reached up and ate it. And I was like, well, all right, you're the real Rentrom. You have defeated the other.
Defeated fake Rentraw. And that's beautiful.
I can't remember have you played before?
M M.
One day, We're gonna.
We're gonna get you, only with you, only with you, Okay.
I'm trying to convince. I'm trying to convince enough people to put enough pressure that we can we can do at least a couple more episodes of live play with cool Zone people. I've done a couple before, but it'd be fun to get Sophian as.
A player only for you. The next question, the first person's username on Blue Sky is troll Beard really really enjoy that handle? They have two questions. The first one is for me, Hi, says Sophie. How do you make it work to be the boss of some folks who are not only your friends but also friends who want to end the concept of bosses.
It's a great question.
Great question you can tell me if you a group is answer Magpie. Okay, anything super impleasant about the job I don't inflict on my colleagues one. Two, everybody knows their role.
Three.
Only hire people that really want to do the job you're giving them.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And the hardest part about it is like going back and forth between the friend and boss boundary.
Sometimes that's challenging.
Yeah, not so often with with our group, because everybody is pretty good at handling their own shit and getting their jobs done. But yeah, also, I don't really There's lots of jokes that I'm the boss, but I don't feel like I act very boss like.
And also I mean, just I think it's all right to say on air, but like, legally you're I'm a freelancer. Mm hmm, so you're not legally my boss, you know, but like you're the person who makes things happen. You're the person who I mean, you're the producer. You you
get everything together or you bottom line it. And actually, yeah, I think one of the things that you do that is the most important and actually I think is a thing that anyone in any position of responsibility should see themselves, because you have a lot of the responsibility and the buck sort of stops with you. With Cool Zone Media, to my understanding, is that interfacing with the larger network, you are what allows us to have a less corporatized
experience while working for a corporate media platform. Yeah, because you are able to sort of shield and kind of create a little force field in which we can be a little bit more more free. So yes, but I don't know.
Yes.
The second question from troll Beard is, Margaret, what's your stance on the Blue Wizards?
Do we like that? What do you think is their deal? Are they hot?
Okay, I'm gonna out myself in a terrible way right now. I have never read the Similarian. I watched Laura the Rings a lot, and I have read Lord of the Rings multiple times, and I read the Hobbit obsessively as a kid. And Lord of the Rings like really heavily influences a lot of stuff about like who I It's a very influential book to me. But I don't know
the lore very well. And I got outed recently on my other podcast, Live Like the World Has Died because my co host Inman does know the lore really well, and I misnamed Gandalf's sword. I called it like glam Driel, which is like Galadriel meets glam Dring obviously, right, And I had to get called out for not knowing the name of the sword, which is to say, I don't know much about the Blue Wizards, and I'm I'm I'm sorry to say, and so I don't know they're hot.
Probably I'm assuming they're hot.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like all of the existing wizards that we know a little bit more about clearly have something going on that has a certain certain charm. If you're if you're into an old bearded man and you're not into Gandalf or like even Sarahman has his fucking moments, you know. And but rad Agast, obviously lives among the animals, is clearly the most that's like husband material, certainly of the three of them.
We're gonna go to a quick break to hear from somebody Murgert can't stop talking about.
I know, I'm always raving about things and stuff.
And we're back.
I am unsure if you I don't have an answer to this, and you, I'm not sure if you'll have an answer to this. But I want to read this question and if people listening have an answer to it, can they comment back to this person on Lucy They said, I moved to Boston recently and I'm looking to get
involved with some mutual aid groups in Boston. I know about warm Up Boston, but are there any other good groups like that in the area you can suggest I don't know much about I don't know Boston area, but I wanted to flag that, so if people that do know, can they get back to this person. It's on our blue Sky thread.
And also I just want to say, like there's a question. I get a lot in direct messages of various kinds is like, Hey, I just moved to this place, how do I get involved with stuff? Or I've lived here my whole life? How do I get involved with stuff? And that is unfortunately one of the biggest questions in activism, because a lot of the people who are aggressively recruiting are looking to incorporate you into some sort of It's not always the best, right, but there are also groups
that are desperately looking for help. If you can't find something, you should start something. But it is worth looking around to try and find out what's necessary where you live. And I would mostly say to anyone who's listening to this, who is in one of these groups, this is where overall we are lacking, is making ourselves visible to and
available to people who want to become involved. We have this problem with cliquishness, We have this problem with becoming so afraid of the state infiltrating us that we become paralyzed. But a mutual aid group is a really good example of the kind of group that can usually be fairly open. Honestly, if it's not on some level open, is it really a mutual aid group or is it just a charity?
If you can't join it. You know, I don't know if I'm going to hold by that as an absolute statement later, but what I would say is there are so many people like this question asker where you live, who are trying to figure out how to get involved, and if you're doing good work, one more part of that good work you have to do is learning how to integrate new people. One of the best things I've ever seen is having a point person who sits with
and talks with anyone knew who's at a meeting. You know, like, you may or may not want to just totally advertise. You might still want to stay word of mouth. That's fine, but onboarding is absolutely where we are lacking, and then other people who don't always have the best intentions are picking up that slack.
Next question is they say, as a queer content creator who's getting fed up with society, how hard is it to be an anarchist content creator in the middle of nowhere? What are the challenges and benefits?
I like that if the.
Question is about like being challenges and benefits of being in the middle of nowhere as a queer anarchist content creator.
Magpie's fucking slow ass wi Fi.
Yeah, like Honestly, most of the stuff is pretty material. It was like the beginning of this when we first started recording my wife. I wasn't good enough really to be to be doing the show, and we had to you know, get the better internet. And it's stuff like that for me mostly. I actually, if I was younger, I would probably not want to live like I currently do. But honestly, I mostly want to hang out with my dog and work on stuff. Yeah, and this allows me
to afford to be able to do it. I would be probably just as happy if I somehow had enough space in the city to be like left alone. That's not really true. I like trees more than I like access to coffee shops. Both are great. Somehow we need to create societies that have both. But you know, I find it's all right. Different rural areas with different amounts of community, you're going to be different amounts of open about who you are. And sometimes that's a struggle, right.
I try to be very direct and open about who I am, but sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with it. You know, I'm already where I live. I'm the only person wearing a mask at Walmart, you know. And also that's the only, well not the only grocery store, but it's more or less. You know. Those are the downsides. The upside is I can sit on my porch and see nothing but trees and birds and deer, and I have found that we were talking, you were talking earlier
about you know how everyone's so anxious right now. My anxiety just got so much better when I started living early. Also, every now and then people from cities call to tell me about all the latest gossip and infighting where they live, and I'm just like, I really appreciate this favor you're doing and reminding me why I don't live there.
Yep.
So uh, it's not for everyone, works for me.
What piece of music do you think it feels like it was made for you?
Okay? I have two answers to that. One is an Irish band called Lancam. I think they used to be like punks and now well they're probably still punks, but now they play very doom and gloom, traditional Irish music and more folk music, and Lankam is amazing, and some of it just feels like, yeah, it was just designed
for me. And then the other I would say is a band called Bowl of apist bowl of bronze that is made by other queer weirdo musicians, and it's black metal, and it's I think that I would think you would be ritual atmospheric black metal. I think might be the proper terminology for it. Yeah, and it's it just feels it goes made for me, What about you?
I was gonna make a joke that it was like let the Dogs Out by Vaja Me.
I know, I actually sometimes feel like kind of bad about how like over the top with my like esoteric music taste. I am. Yeah, like I do enjoy a pop song here and there and stuff, right, but it's like, but it doesn't feel made for me, and like, and I also just don't know it, you know.
At Anderson's eighth Adoption party, eightier Adoption of Birgary party, I play who Let the Dogs Out on a loop for like four hours and like, it's such great background music. I have to be honest, none of us hated the song by the end of the night. All my friends that came to celebrate Anderson, so shout out shout out to them.
But my real answer would probably.
Be, uh, I really, I really love listening to Kendrick Lamar because he talks about my hometown in depth, and like his references, it just feels like it feels so nostalgic.
Oh yeah, let's go to another break.
What we hear from Magpie's Favorite.
And we're back.
God, I love our advertisers. They pay for my dog's food.
Oh that was a question that I forgot to ask from the Instagram. I'm wan to bring in somebody wanted to know, like your favorite dog product that you that you got for Renshaw and my favorite dog product that I that I've bought right now.
Yeah, I have this thing that looks like a soccer balls, the size of a soccer ball, but it's like kind of a herder plastic.
Oh do you have a hurting ball?
Yeah?
Yeah, Oh my god, those are great. James talks about that all the time.
Yeah, and Rinchell doesn't totally hurt it, but he plays catch with it more than anything else, because anything smaller than that he thinks. It's like, hooray, I got the thing, Now I kill it. Now I'm done. Why aren't you?
You know?
He doesn't bring the thing back to me to throw again very consistently, but this ball he really struggles to pick it up. Yeah, and then he does, and then he runs up really excited and then provides it to me again. And so that one's working really well for me right now. And then I don't know, he looks real cute in his harness, and he does. He wears it all the time. He actually gets mad at me.
I take it off at night, and he gets kind of mad at me every time I take it off because it's the thing that goes on him to allow him to go outside. I think, So, yeah, what about.
You, I gotta I got a couple of things I can shout out those like slow feeder bulls, amazing, amazing because my two dogs. And if you didn't know, I got a second. If you if you don't follow me or like don't listen to other things, I got a second dog. Her name's Truman. And so now eating time is a competition. And Anderson if she eats too fast, immediately will throw up. And Truman, if she eats too fast,
it's just there's no chewing. And so I got these inserts that go in their stainless steel bulls.
Oh, it's gonna be easy to feed them drugs.
Go ahead, no, no, no, for sure, you're you're not wrong.
I got these two inserts that go in each o their bowls that help with uh.
Just slowing down the paces and slowing.
Down the food. And that's great.
The other thing is like, not all dogs are made equally, like they're they all have different preferences and things work out, and so so for both my dogs, it was what it was. For Anderson, it took like, I don't know, five different harnesses before I found one that was like really great for Anderson. Anderson's like fucking like if Houdini wasn't a fraud, Like was like houdiniing out of her harness like no other. She was an escape artist. And
I finally found a really great harness for her. That's the uh two Hounds Freedom No Pole harness, and that's really great, Oka Truman. Uh, I'm on harness three right now.
And then this one's really like one a week.
Yeah, I know, I've had her for like, yeah, this is you're right, this is literally one a week I've had and it's because she had never like she was never been walked before me. She was you know, and only time she ever, I was telling mag the only time Truman ever was put on Alicia's but she was being given away, so like Leish is very scary to her, and so harness chew toy not great and so and so I tried a couple different harnesses and I finally
found one that's really great. And it's the rough where front and rage reflective front clip dog harness and yeah, so so harnesses are not built built equally. Also, just like shout out to all those toys where you can put a treat in.
And it keeps them busy.
I remembered another thing when we were talking about the feeders.
Mm hmm.
For like a year, there was this dog feeder that was being advertised me on Instagram. Yeah and I and it's very beautiful. It looks like a mid century modern piece of furniture and I pull a lever and it provides the dog food.
Oh, I've seen it. I know what you're talking about.
Yeah. Yeah. For a year I resisted because it's not a cheap thing. No, and did you buy it?
Did you fucking buy it?
Yeah? I bought it. I love it, Oh my god. And it's it's funny because it's like it wasn't a hard thing to like go over and pick up the dog food bag and scoop out three scoops of kibble into a bowl every day. That wasn't like some suffering in my life, right, But now I just like walk over and pull the lever because my dog free feeds because he's it's just not very food motivated.
Yeah, Anderson was a grazer before she got a sibling.
I have a feeling the same thing would happen. I think if I got Rentraw a sibling, I would have to feed him on a schedule. But anyway, I like it, so I'm so happy for you. It's a pretty high quality if you're going to advertise them on Instagram. If you're the advertiser of this and you want me, he should send me one. Yeah, I already have one, but I don't know why. Zeriously he would soothe my ego. I guess the other thing.
That's been coverly in Handy is the lick Matt. The lick Matt is a great concept. Oh, Truman really likes the lick Mat. I tried to give Anderson one and she's like, I'm not a baby, which I thought was really funny that Anderson was like, I'm too dignified for a lick mat but this like thing, it's very good for self soothing and it like helps them like calm down and just rub a bunch of peanut butter on a lick Matt and Truman's just happy for like twenty minutes.
It's great.
This question asker must have known, being like those people can talk about their dons.
That person was like Low's bitches got answered.
I literally almost said those bitches, Yeah, I know. I read it in your eyes.
And like they're not wrong, Like I probably have like seven more things I could list out.
Yeah, yeah, Renchaw is very confused right now because I'm standing instead of sitting, and you're he's he's a podcast dog, and so he knows that when I'm in the podcast closet, he just curls up at my feet and has to be quiet. But he's he's trying to figure out what it means when I'm standing. But he's finally succeeded and now he's laying at my feet.
Oh, underrated product.
My best friend Robin set like dog blankets, like blankets that like dog like inexpensive blankets that you could put on things for your dog that'll make your dog feel cozy. What a great concept. Well done, blanket Land. Good back to not that question. Uh huh fuck Mary, kill doctor Phil, doctor Oz Oprah.
Uh. I don't like any of them at all.
I know they're all horrible.
Uh.
You gotta fuck Oprah because you can't give anything that good to a man.
I know. But I can also see Mary and Oprah because she gives cars to people. I mean, she's evil, but she seems like accidentally evil. She's evil, I don't know.
After the d after experiencing her at the DNC, I'm like, oh, fucking Oprah. Robert's actually writing an Oprah series for Behind the Bastards, all right, Well.
Before that comes out, I'm gonna pick Mary Oprah because yeah, she uh, she seems to be doing bad from not an evil in her heart. Is it cares to me killing both the other two?
That's the answer. It's kill and kill.
Yeah, Mary Oprah, steel all our money, kill the other two.
Yeah. Then then to get divorced, marry her, yeah, file her divorce proceedings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What are your what's your favorite color?
Oh?
Probably the lavender.
Oh yeah, good answer.
It's not what color I wear. I when I wear anything besides black, which is rare. I wear olive or I wear wine red.
Yeah, but my favorite color is yellow.
Yeah. Oh, that's a good question. What kind of organizing efforts can you recommend radicals who are COVID conscious.
I think that there's a lot of stuff that can happen remote. I think that a lot of organizing is like phone tree type stuff. I think that it's a little bit hard because sometimes in person meetings are a really good way to be able to do some of the more remote work. Like people probably don't say phone tree anymore, but like phone tree type stuff is a really important part of the chain. A lot of organizing
is just literally it's like project management. You're just being like, hey, remember how you said you'd do that thing and how you'd come out if you know, like, hey, they're about to deport all these people and you said you'd probably be interested in trying to do something about that. I'm just gonna just check in with you, you know. I think that that kind of organizing could easily happen online as long as I mean, some of the actual direct action
needs to happen in person. But there's also a difference between COVID conscious and like, you know, there's people who are like I would consider myself COVID conscious, I wear a mask, I you know, sometimes avoid gatherings and things like that, right, And then there's people who are like for very strong reasons like cannot risk it at all, right, in which case you're not necessarily participating in direct action,
because jail is not a COVID safe space. But I think there's a lot of work that can be done sort of behind the scenes and or remotely. I think that you might have to do a little bit more work to continue to insert yourself because there's a little bit of out of sight, out of mind that people suffer with. But I think that's part of what you would almost be setting yourself up to do, is to be the person to make sure that people don't feel that way, so that other COVID conscious people don't feel
left out. And I think that it's hard because a lot of those spaces are not going to be places people have this sense of immediacy to their action and
therefore all other concerns fall to the wayside. Like, you know, that's part of how shitty men or shitty people end up in activist spaces for a long time, right, is because they're cutting the trees right now, we don't have time to talk about the power dynamics of what's going on right you know, And that the same sense of immediacy can cause people to not care as much about COVID consciousness because they're putting aside risks, even if these
are people who believe that it's risky, you know. And I also think people kind of especially younger activists, get kind of excited about the fact that they're taking risks, you know, So it's not ideal. That's that's that's what occurs to me is behind the scenes type stuff. And also probably like working with other you can work with other people who are on your same level about that kind of thing, but you're not always going to find that, so you'd probably have to start something.
Yeah, and like making food at your house and then dropping.
Totally if you're working with like a food nut bombs for example. There's a lot of work that involves in like procurement, both in I mean literally dumpster diving, but also like talking to different stores about when they're going to be you know, food that they could be donating. God, you know, what we need is we need bookkeepers like It's actually funny because like the question earlier about like well, what's your role Sophie as a boss, or like how
does that play into it? It's like we need project
managers and bookkeepers and administrative stuff so much. And one of the problems that we suffer with as a society is we've somehow come up with this idea that the people who are administering are more important or they have more you know, they're like better, they're higher, right in like a literal sense, if you're describing a layout of a thing, they might be a higher level, but not morally or something like that, right, And so we're so used to associating those that we start being like, oh,
and therefore we don't need managerial help, Like no, there's a reason that people build structures the way we do. Like not every building we build is flat, right, you know.
Goes back to like I used to ask when I would do like job interview type stuff, and sometimes I just ask this question of people.
It's like what part of the pencil are you and why? Like you still you need all those parts of the pencil to work. You need you need the wood, the lead, the.
Metal, class, the eraser, you need all those different things totally.
Oh that's interesting because then it's like in podcasting, it's like I'm the lead, right, Rory's the eraser mm hm oh yeah, and then you're the wood.
I'm the wood in the middle class.
Yeah, that's true and therefore morally better. See that's the problem is, but no one actually thinks that, right, Like, you know, like at the end of the day, people don't actually think Like a lot of people get really sad when they get promoted, right because they get like, well, they're like, well, now I'm promoted higher than doing the thing that I'm good at or whatever. But then your case, that hasn't happened to you. But I think that just yeah,
I don't know. Administrative stuff, it's yeah, it's great, and it's undervalued because we have such negative associations with it.
Yep, Well that that's going to do it for us. Any any last thoughts.
It's twenty twenty five. It started with really intend Oh New Year's Day. By the time it comes out, maybe stuff will have happened. But yep, there are two different rental truck attacks in the first day of twenty twenty five.
Here's one thing I want to flag is a lot of people buy or adopt pets around the holidays and then by this time they return them. So rescues need fosters and volunteers, so pay attention to that. It is a very common thing that people buy pets as gifts. Pets are not gifts. They are members of your family. And if you hit yeah, so that is just one
thing I want to flag. So if you are able to volunteer, foster, or if you're looking to rescue a pet, there will be a lot available because pets are better than humans.
Yeah.
Anyways, dogs are great, Cats are great, pets are great, You're great. We're all great.
Thanks, hooray. And that's like, you know, I was like, okay, it started with the real intense stuff. But like that's the thing is that, like I mean when I say we've got this, it doesn't mean that everything's gonna work. Yeah, right, but like it was never gonna No one was like welcome to life. Everything is easy and you're gonna win,
you know. Yeah, Like we're all just gonna do the best we can and we're getting a little better at coming together and taking care of each other, and uh so we'll do more of that this year.
Yep, all right, see you next week.
Bye bye, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.