the Mentally Oddcast transcript: Pandem Buckner
Find an audio version of this podcast here.
Find more from Pandem Buckner here.
00:00:01.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, Lee Friday, and as always, we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Find us on coffee.
00:00:12.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
This week, our guest is Pandem Buckner, who is a native of Greenville, Mississippi. And after attending college in Arkansas, he went to Seattle for a two-week vacation in 99 and has yet to return.
00:00:26.02
Pandem Buckner
I'm not sure what you're doing.
00:00:28.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Apparently, no one in Arkansas has noticed. After working in a variety of fields, he has spent the last two years focusing on working for nonprofits that support survivors of intimate partner violence, a cause he remains deeply passionate about.
00:00:44.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah He still lives and writes in Seattle, and no one in Seattle has noticed. i that That's a feeling I know well. Welcome, dude. Thanks for being here.
00:00:54.73
Pandem Buckner
ah Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the invite.
00:00:58.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
And we're going to let everybody know that you're outside today and not that you live with a bunch of birds among the traffic, just in case, you know, and we hear birds in traffic.
00:01:04.70
Pandem Buckner
thanks That would be awesome, though.
00:01:09.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? I don't know. I kind of, I was homeless for a while in my 20s, not like a long while, but a couple weeks. And I did not care for it, frankly. My adoration of nature aside, i'd prefer to be housed, given the option, i find.
00:01:27.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
um All right. So, right.
00:01:29.91
Pandem Buckner
understandable.
00:01:31.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
we um We typically start by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing. So I'm sure you've got a good one. Let's hear it.
00:01:41.84
Pandem Buckner
I kind of do. I believe it was Jaws 2.
00:01:48.72
Pandem Buckner
And I was like seven or eight years old. was watching on a network TV. So, you know, of course, it's, you know, cleaned up a bit from the, uh, from the theater version.
00:02:04.47
Pandem Buckner
But even with that...
00:02:05.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i'm I'm trying to think what would have been cut out of it. Because it really... I mean, there's a little blood in those movies, but they're not sweary. They're not super gory. i mean, there's there's still plenty scary in that movie.
00:02:15.47
Pandem Buckner
Even with...
00:02:18.72
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, yeah, there's jump scares, of course, all over the place. But I still ended up throwing up a lot and had to go to the emergency room.
00:02:25.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
00:02:28.84
Pandem Buckner
So yeah, that was my introduction to horror movies.
00:02:31.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah and Did you keep up with him after that? I mean, that seems like it would turn a lot of people off forever.
00:02:38.09
Pandem Buckner
No, I'm still not a big fan of horror movies. But I don't throw up anymore, so that's you know that's a good thing.
00:02:42.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:02:46.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Wow. that's That's quite a tale. Who were you with?
00:02:51.56
Pandem Buckner
I was at home with my mother, siblings, and my grandmother, and yes.
00:02:57.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. Wow. So they probably didn't let you watch another horror movie for a while after that, huh?
00:03:02.16
Pandem Buckner
ah No, I don't think we ever did sit around and watch a horror movie again after that.
00:03:07.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. um okay Okay, goodness. Um... You know, wow, i'm I'm looking at the next question that I wrote and I'm like, damn, we're just getting right to it, right? um No, the the next question is actually about consent in relationships, which is something that I think you and I agree is both under discussed and poorly understood.
00:03:22.05
Pandem Buckner
Thank you.
00:03:33.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
And ah with regard to media, like how much, I mean, i actually think that movies and TV contribute a great deal to that. and that heroes, when I was growing up at least, people like Han Solo or Bill Murray and Ghostbusters, did not take no for an answer, and they badgered women, and they told women what they wanted, and there wasn't, I mean, it wasn't even just that they weren't talking about consent, but that it was seen as heroic to let women know what they were thinking, so they didn't have to worry their pretty little heads about it. What what is your take on that?
00:04:11.13
Pandem Buckner
I have to agree, um especially with the romantic comedy genre where they like have to the protagonist had to convince their loved one to love them or give them a chance. And it's just like she already said no, that's the end. That should be the end right there.
00:04:29.62
Pandem Buckner
Like you're big for a much shorter movie, but a much better representation of consent.
00:04:30.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:04:35.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:04:36.99
Pandem Buckner
Um, And especially now with so much content in the Manosphere about you don't have to take her no for an answer and try that particular video that circulated around that kind of pissed me off.
00:04:52.86
Pandem Buckner
And just saying, oh, you just have to keep trying. You have to keep trying. You have to keep trying. No, she said no, walk away.
00:04:59.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's the thing. Trying to what? To convince someone that they should like you after you disrespect their boundaries? Like, what are you even trying?
00:05:06.81
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:05:08.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
um always think of the movie UHF, because that is one of my favorite, favorite movies, one of my favorite comedies. And I love Weird Al, and I think Weird Al is really wholesome.
00:05:17.27
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
00:05:20.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yet... Even in that movie, when his girlfriend breaks up with him for very good reasons, like he did not fix a problem that she felt very strongly about, So she broke up with him and he left a preposterous number of messages on her answering machine that were screaming and begging.
00:05:40.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then he somehow managed to get inside of her apartment and fill it with flowers and a big like light display and just things that like you would call the police if someone did that in real life.
00:05:48.87
Pandem Buckner
Like, yeah.
00:05:53.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:05:53.81
Pandem Buckner
Like, that's breaking and entering. That's a crime.
00:05:56.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:05:57.75
Pandem Buckner
And that's not a romantic gesture.
00:06:00.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Exactly.
00:06:00.61
Pandem Buckner
I recently watched, and this is to sound hilarious because i didn't I had never seen these movies before, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark from the 80s.
00:06:00.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
00:06:10.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:06:11.12
Pandem Buckner
I watched it for the very first time. It's free on YouTube. And then there's another one, Elvira's Haunted Hills, was released like 16 years later.
00:06:19.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:06:21.92
Pandem Buckner
And I loved how she was in charge of herself. Like when she said no, she meant no. And some dudes like groped her, she punches him. And it's like, love that.
00:06:36.58
Pandem Buckner
Like Elvira, the paragon of feminism, who knew? you
00:06:40.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:06:43.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, she is a lesbian in real life, so that all adds up. um
00:06:48.48
Pandem Buckner
Yeah. but
00:06:49.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
i I actually didn't know that for a long time. i think there was some reason she was in the news recently and she was out somewhere with her wife, not at all dressed as Elvira. Yeah.
00:07:01.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, so, so what do we do about it? I mean, is it a question of, of encouraging movies and TV to be better? Or is it about more emphasis on that not being how people are supposed to conduct themselves in real life?
00:07:17.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, how do you address it? How do you address it with young people?
00:07:22.12
Pandem Buckner
oh On a Hollywood level, i don't know how much is possible, really. We can ask for more positive representation. We can ask for more boundary respecting in films and plots, but ultimately they're going to choose what's easiest to do.
00:07:45.62
Pandem Buckner
And that's going to be sticking with what's worked before. With the boundary pushing of romantic comedies.
00:07:49.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And what makes the most money, certainly.
00:07:51.36
Pandem Buckner
Yes, exactly.
00:07:55.62
Pandem Buckner
Large corporations especially are just risk averse. They want to make the most money with the least risk of losing money.
00:08:03.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which is why it's so weird that this is happening with Superman right now.
00:08:03.46
Pandem Buckner
So they're going to stick.
00:08:07.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
How mad people are about Superman. and
00:08:11.75
Pandem Buckner
Which is awesome. I'm glad they're mad about it, that he's like a decent person.
00:08:16.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's just so, like, I don't understand how you can not know that you're the bad guy if you're mad at both the concept of kindness and also Superman.
00:08:28.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that's what a Superman villain is. He's someone who doesn't like kindness and doesn't like Superman.
00:08:33.29
Pandem Buckner
right who's completely selfish doesn't have empathy doesn't have compassion doesn't have consideration that's the villain no
00:08:41.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
But even Lex Luthor isn't mad that other people have empathy. course, Lex Luthor also divested from his businesses when he became president, but I digress. So...
00:08:53.50
Pandem Buckner
that back then
00:08:57.19
Pandem Buckner
that's the thing that's that's bothered me
00:08:57.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
00:09:02.16
Pandem Buckner
with movies and and TV and comic books especially because I'm still a big comic book fan. um Like, who would they have as a 47 analog?
00:09:15.45
Pandem Buckner
And I'm like, there's no villain bad enough to be a 47 analog.
00:09:19.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
There really isn't.
00:09:20.76
Pandem Buckner
Like, even Doctor Doom is respectful. Like, that's just not gonna not going to work.
00:09:24.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:09:25.93
Pandem Buckner
Even Lex Luthor has, like, standards and limits.
00:09:30.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know. ah Did you watch Harley Quinn? The animated Harley Quinn show on HBO?
00:09:35.05
Pandem Buckner
I watched the first season. I didn't watch the rest.
00:09:37.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. So you know there's a point at which a villain calls Wonder Woman the C-word and people are not having it.
00:09:44.77
Pandem Buckner
Yes, I love that scene though.
00:09:46.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it's like, okay, yeah, you're villains and everything, but there's there's no reason for that kind of talk. Just calm down.
00:09:53.50
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:09:54.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he has to, he does a little apology to her.
00:09:55.15
Pandem Buckner
Right. Just the looks on everybody's faces just killed me.
00:09:59.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:09:59.79
Pandem Buckner
Everybody's like, oh my God. He said, oh my, wow. and like Oh, that was so great. Oh, they need to do that more.
00:10:07.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and you really should keep watching because it gets so, so much more fun after season three.
00:10:07.86
Pandem Buckner
ah
00:10:13.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Plus, there's a spinoff. Kite Man has a show now.
00:10:16.66
Pandem Buckner
Oh, God. Why? Why, man, of all people?
00:10:21.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, well, you know what? It's actually a ton of fun because what happens is Kite Man finds a girlfriend who's actually into him, which he deserves that. He means well. And they buy that bar that everybody hangs out at.
00:10:34.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's them in the bar.
00:10:34.81
Pandem Buckner
Oh,
00:10:37.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, you know, people are...
00:10:39.48
Pandem Buckner
awesome.
00:10:39.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
They introduce some new characters, but also Bane is hanging around. Which I love because my husband does the Bane voice. And it is so hilarious.
00:10:47.19
Pandem Buckner
oh awesome
00:10:48.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, right? Right? So speaking of TV, right? Matlock with Kathy Bates. That first season was baller. Loved it. And one of the themes is that the main character, Matty Matlock...
00:11:05.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Is ah she gets away with things. She's sneaking around trying to prove something sort of masquerading in this law firm as someone who's very different than herself.
00:11:12.27
Pandem Buckner
and
00:11:14.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And what she says is that she can get away with it because she's larger and she's older and such women are pretty much invisible. Any thoughts?
00:11:27.66
Pandem Buckner
are for I think. First of all, I don't know in what universe Kathy Bates is invisible. I don't understand the laws of physics of that universe.
00:11:36.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? Well, the character, the character is not her herself.
00:11:41.31
Pandem Buckner
OK. I think there's one that's common in current American society is that older women and larger women tend to be invisible or derided and harassed online.
00:11:58.73
Pandem Buckner
I do see it often. I do follow a lot of like Instagram models as such. A lot of them are older or larger and I think they're beautiful, but they still get harassed a lot online.
00:12:11.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah, well I sure do. And people say I ask for it because I comment on political matters on political pages. But ah yes, yes, I exist as a woman with opinions.
00:12:18.81
Pandem Buckner
How is that asking for it?
00:12:24.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm so asking for it. um
00:12:26.40
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:12:28.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, and it's, I mean, I know part of that is that there's a certain stripe of man for whom attractive women are meant to bolster their reputations among other men, you know?
00:12:32.14
Pandem Buckner
Hmm.
00:12:42.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so that's really what it's about more so. Because, I mean, I can tell you from my own experience, I've been fat my whole life. And I've had lots and lots of boyfriends.
00:12:53.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And because I'm autistic and I didn't know for a long time, i didn't pick up on things like, oh, he's taking me to a restaurant way, way out of town. He must really like this restaurant.
00:13:06.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not occurring to me that he didn't want to be seen with me in any of the places that we would normally go. You know, when we were just friends.
00:13:12.51
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:13:13.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
If we're going out romantically, then suddenly it's this, like, secret thing. I mean, I was engaged to a guy who dropped my hand at the mall because we ran into some girl that he went to high school with and wanted to date.
00:13:27.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
He just straight up dropped my hand like he wasn't even with me. And even then, i was like...
00:13:31.39
Pandem Buckner
Like, am I allowed to curse on this show? Because I'm about to in response to that.
00:13:37.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah I'll get you map after the episode. Um...
00:13:40.14
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
00:13:42.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, he and he is a child now, too, which is also just awful.
00:13:42.55
Pandem Buckner
Wow.
00:13:45.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Well, the bitch of it is after he and I broke up, he started dating a girl that like. Was basically my same size and attractiveness level. So it it was it was never about that. It was about what other people thought of him about that.
00:14:02.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know.
00:14:03.20
Pandem Buckner
That's an interesting perspective. I hadn't thought about that, about the the reputation thing. um My reasons as to why older women or larger women tend to be invisible are like patriarchy and societal beauty standards.
00:14:17.90
Pandem Buckner
And I think a big one is can't get pregnant, can't have children. Who are you providing for other than your wife, who you should be you know helping provide for anyway?
00:14:28.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Well, that all ties together. Absolutely. Because, I mean, that's what patriarchy is. Patriarchy is like a beer commercial. Every man, even the dumbest, homeless homeliest, laziest man, deserves a super hot whi woman. And if he doesn't have one, then he's like, you know, if if she's flawed in any way, then he's settling and she should be grateful.
00:14:49.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and we see that reinforced on TV over and over and over again.
00:14:50.62
Pandem Buckner
right
00:14:54.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson, you know, every TV dad, some like wonderful suffering wife, mean, we grew up watching All in the Family, and that is the quintessential dad has a ah job, he comes home, and that's all. And the wife is going to do literally everything else.
00:15:13.47
Pandem Buckner
right
00:15:14.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which, you know, is especially telling on All in the Family because she literally kills herself for him doing work when she has phlebitis and it isn't supposed to be on her feet. And she doesn't even say, like, hey, I'm not allowed to do this thing that you want me to do. She just does it because that's who she is and was.
00:15:32.80
Pandem Buckner
But I feel like that show based on how Archie Bunker acted is not supposed to be like a role model. You're not supposed to look up to this guy and this relationship.
00:15:40.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Exactly. Exactly.
00:15:44.76
Pandem Buckner
I think that point got lost somewhere.
00:15:47.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, even as Archie, like, grew and came to understand things... You know, like when the the trans character, the drag I guess she was a drag queen, Beverly LaSalle.
00:15:58.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
When her character was killed on the show in a hate crime, i mean, Edith took it terribly. Like, she stopped going to church and stopped believing in God for a while.
00:16:08.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
But even Archie was like, yeah, but that's not okay. That's not cool. You know, whereas he had up to that point, like... use Beverly in a practical joke to like trick his friend and just, you know, all these ridiculous bigoted things. But then when it came down to it, it's like when Archie was asked to join the clan, because they thought he was on their side because he said a lot of fucked up things.
00:16:33.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
But then he was like, well, no, that's, that's no, that's not who I am.
00:16:33.64
Pandem Buckner
right
00:16:38.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not professionally hateful like you guys.
00:16:43.29
Pandem Buckner
right right I feel like a lot of that show needs to be on a cable channel somewhere on loop from people to watch and learn from because
00:16:53.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, that should be. Like, I always wished when judges were giving out, like, crazy sentences for people that that's one of the things that they did was just subject people to specific media.
00:17:04.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh, go ahead and sit down and watch both versions of Roots and then we'll discuss racist views in America again. and You know, stuff like that.
00:17:11.54
Pandem Buckner
right
00:17:12.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Some of the really prominent, like, you obviously need perspective you don't have.
00:17:16.99
Pandem Buckner
right right let's do that buts let's build like a hate crime prison and put progressive shows on loop in the prison and nothing else and maybe it'll happen to think get creative with it judges that's all i'm saying
00:17:19.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Let's you use art to get that to you. But
00:17:34.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, I mean, the thing is that, like, we want to say, oh, well, watching TV doesn't impact people, but anybody whose parents started watching Fox News, you know, their their family can tell you that, yes, it absolutely does influence people.
00:17:44.88
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
00:17:49.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Disney knows that.
00:17:50.15
Pandem Buckner
Oh, they love that.
00:17:50.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, how many people think Pocahontas and John Smith got married at the end of their story because that's what Disney said? I mean, yeah.
00:17:59.15
Pandem Buckner
It's a little ridiculous how much influence CV could have.
00:18:02.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, very much so. Which is why it's really important that it it be sending good messages over and above like what the profit is. But alas, it's a business, so that's not how it works.
00:18:17.43
Pandem Buckner
um I didn't get to watch a lot of Archie Bunker when I was growing up, but I did watch a lot of the Golden Girls and I still watch a lot of the Golden Girls.
00:18:17.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm trying to...
00:18:26.96
Pandem Buckner
And as much as I love the show and it has its problematic parts, of course, everything from the 80s to us. But it's also kind of sad that we're still dealing with a lot of the same issues that they were dealing with 40 years ago.
00:18:43.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:18:43.11
Pandem Buckner
The same society issues still pop up like we learn nothing like what what why are we still dealing with this issue
00:18:50.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that team that did Golden Girls is mostly the same production and writing team that did the show Soap.
00:18:59.30
Pandem Buckner
which i love that though too
00:19:01.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's the first gay character ever on primetime. And it was problematic the way that it was handled because the show didn't seem to know the difference between a gay person and a trans person. and So they talked about Billy Crystal's character like, you know, shaving his legs as a child and stuff that's like, that's not universal.
00:19:24.80
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
00:19:25.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Maybe let's not pretend it is. but But they also, i mean, they really tried to tackle issues. In a way that like outside of Rod Serling and Star Trek wasn't really happening with a lot of frequency like in the 60s and 70s.
00:19:43.88
Pandem Buckner
Agreed. So I appreciate them trying, even if they didn't do that well with it. At least they tried.
00:19:48.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and it seems like now there's even more, the resistance to that kind of programming is even louder because of the internet, which is why you have people online thinking they're justified and being pissed off that Superman is woke.
00:20:01.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, how do you live in the world and think comic books are not political or shouldn't be political?
00:20:09.35
Pandem Buckner
and largely progressive.
00:20:12.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. I wish Stan Lee was alive so he could say that to more people's face.
00:20:13.18
Pandem Buckner
um
00:20:18.05
Pandem Buckner
Like speaking of Stanley, when people complained in the 60s that there weren't enough white people in the Black Panther comics, Stanley and Jack Kirby next issue had him beating up the Klan.
00:20:27.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
00:20:31.39
Pandem Buckner
I was like, there you go. There's a bunch of white people.
00:20:34.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, there they are.
00:20:34.32
Pandem Buckner
And was like, that is brilliant. And we need more of that.
00:20:39.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. And that's another thing that is very frustrating as as fascism rises in America is how many people sort of like concede in advance.
00:20:44.09
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:20:52.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like Disney has been so disappointing in a lot of their decision making over the last couple of years, you know, because there were supposed to be an Okoye show and they decided not to do it.
00:21:04.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there was ah supposed to be Princess Tiana show. Which they also were like, and that show was supposed to have a black female director. And I'm not familiar with the woman that they hired, but that alone is like, really? really And then the Lilo and Stitch, that was that that second movie, I guess, was supposed to be a whole show. It was supposed to be a series. you know So they had a first season planned with an option for a second.
00:21:32.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then they were like, ah no, no. And then the thing they did with Inside Out, which was that, or not Inside Out, what's the name of the show? It was a ah new show they did with girls ah playing softball.
00:21:45.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one of the girls was trans. And they hired a trans actress to play the character and then decided against making them trans. So they didn't recast, but there's not a trans storyline.
00:21:55.95
Pandem Buckner
I had not heard about that.
00:21:59.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not only did they take out the trans storyline, I covered this for Culturist. That's like the only reason that I know about it, because I'm not a big Disney person, really. But instead of having the trans storyline, they they have put in a scene where a girl is seen praying to Heavenly Father.
00:22:20.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which, I don't know, man. That's, mean, there's so many things wrong with that, it's hard to know where to start. Probably with...
00:22:28.43
Pandem Buckner
um
00:22:31.49
Pandem Buckner
With Disney, like I feel like they did in some ways concede in advance but they also put out the acolyte and ironheart which i don't know if you've watched either of those shows yet okay ironheart has one white ironheart has one white dude the main cast that's it so i respected them for that and shakoula was on it as the main character and i like okay i respect that as well and shakily was awesome
00:22:42.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
We just finished Ironheart.
00:22:45.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
I did watch for The Acolyte as well.
00:23:00.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah that That whole season, like it I guess we're not getting another season. Which is a shame, because there's so much going on with that that character. I liked...
00:23:12.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
the i like I mean, like when Disney does something and I sit down as a middle-aged white lady and say, okay, this was definitely not directed to me.
00:23:18.97
Pandem Buckner
um
00:23:23.19
Pandem Buckner
right
00:23:24.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
is directed to a different demographic. I am learning so much. Like watching Ms.
00:23:29.33
Pandem Buckner
work
00:23:29.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Marvel, I learned so much about Muslim culture and that's not what I had showed up for. I showed up to see a teenage hero and I got to learn all this other stuff.
00:23:35.42
Pandem Buckner
right
00:23:40.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I love that. But we know in the world that there are people that are offended by the idea that they should learn something.
00:23:48.73
Pandem Buckner
or that their culture isn't the only culture in the world and people do live by other cultures.
00:23:54.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. And you'll hear things like, oh, well, why doesn't anyone ever talk about white culture? Like, because we don't call it white culture. We call it culture. And then every other culture that isn't white culture gets a label on it.
00:24:07.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's how otherizing works.
00:24:07.55
Pandem Buckner
Right, right.
00:24:09.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the whole concept of it.
00:24:13.95
Pandem Buckner
That is exactly it. And people don't seem to understand that. I don't know why. The lack of critical potential skills.
00:24:18.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, they don't want to.
00:24:22.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think, I mean, it's just like the Epstein list. People know. They're just pretending they don't know. They have plausible deniability, they think, and that's enough.
00:24:33.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, okay.
00:24:34.26
Pandem Buckner
That's took a depressing turn.
00:24:35.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah It really did. And the thing is that you actually live with depression and anxiety.
00:24:41.91
Pandem Buckner
Yes.
00:24:42.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and it's it's even possible that you, like me, are looking at a late-life diagnosis of autism and maybe ADHD. So what's going on with that? When were you first diagnosed?
00:24:54.46
Pandem Buckner
um I was first diagnosed with depression, I want to say 1998.
00:25:01.00
Pandem Buckner
And it scared me a lot because at that time, the only person i openly knew was dealing with mental health issues was a friend of mine.
00:25:01.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:25:14.85
Pandem Buckner
And I remember having to sit with him when he switched medications because, you know, you have to wait for one to wear off before you start the next one.
00:25:26.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:25:26.84
Pandem Buckner
And in that like three day period. He turned very, very suicidal, and I sat with him, took all the sharp objects out of the house and decided to keep them going until they could start the new medication.
00:25:41.14
Pandem Buckner
But when I was told, oh, you have depression, too, that scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to end up that way.
00:25:49.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. Well, first of all, you're a really good friend.
00:25:49.88
Pandem Buckner
I didn't do anything about it.
00:25:52.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Let me say that first, because I have had that friend for me as well. Um, cause yeah, I mean, switching medications is such a dangerous time or like anytime you have to start or stop because people Don't realize that going on medication when you've been severely depressed is also a very dangerous time because if you're unmotivated and depressed, you don't do anything. But if you start to get your motivation back, it's a really dangerous time for potential suicide.
00:26:26.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you're feeling like doing something, and the only thing you've been thinking about is ending it.
00:26:26.91
Pandem Buckner
right
00:26:31.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah, that's it's awesome that you were there for your friend, but it sucks that that experience made you more frightened of your own diagnosis.
00:26:42.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
so So what happened next?
00:26:45.19
Pandem Buckner
um I just didn't do anything about it.
00:26:48.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
00:26:48.64
Pandem Buckner
um As for that friend,
00:26:49.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh...
00:26:52.73
Pandem Buckner
i'm sorry um he survived. The new medication worked. He went on. I'm not going to say his name because don't have his permission to say his name on the air.
00:27:03.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, please don't.
00:27:05.44
Pandem Buckner
But he is now a he a doctorate in African-American history studies. And he teaches at a university in the south.
00:27:13.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
00:27:15.05
Pandem Buckner
And I'm really, really proud of him. Great guy. Great with how far he's come. Glad I was able to keep him going through those three days. And I likewise had a friend do the same for me after that depression diagnosis.
00:27:30.29
Pandem Buckner
When I had written, you know, my goodbye notes, I'd picked the knife, I had started running water in the bathtub.
00:27:42.25
Pandem Buckner
And this friend showed up unannounced at my house and got the feeling something was on. It was like, what are you doing?
00:27:49.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
know
00:27:50.32
Pandem Buckner
I'm like, nothing. Can you leave? Like, why are you even even here? But he wouldn't leave to the until he until he talked me out of it.
00:28:00.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn.
00:28:03.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's amazing.
00:28:03.16
Pandem Buckner
Again, not saying his name. I still keep in touch with him. He's still around, still back in my home state. So But yeah, he is one of the people I created with genuinely saving my life.
00:28:16.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and you know, i think that that kind of thing gets downplayed a lot. That people don't think that they're literally saving someone's life when they reach out, when people are depressed, or they're having grief, or they're dealing with trauma.
00:28:32.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I want to go on record as saying that it 100% can be and often is life-saving, because suicide... I mean, there are a lot of different ways that a suicidal ideation can present.
00:28:47.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
But a lot of times it comes down to a day or an afternoon or... You know, even less time than that, that there's just this little hump that you need to get over but things seem clear again.
00:28:58.52
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:29:01.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
And having a support network, just where people check in on each other on a regular basis, is so important. Like, I have a short list of people that if I know they're in crisis, I will call them, like, every day or every other day.
00:29:16.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, you don't have to talk to me. Just let me know you're okay. If you do need me, I'm right here. You know, because it really, I mean, on the one hand, we don't want to tell people, oh, you could have saved their life.
00:29:25.03
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
00:29:30.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why didn't you? Of course. But at the same time, if they're still around, reach out. Even if they tell you go fuck you yourself, it's still better to reach out and hear that from an alive person than to not and have to experience the alternatives.
00:29:37.54
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:29:44.10
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:29:46.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:29:47.93
Pandem Buckner
Right. There's a lot of, a lot of why didn't they reach out? Why didn't they reach out? Well, why didn't you reach in?
00:29:55.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep, very much so. Because you just can't.
00:29:58.14
Pandem Buckner
Check on people you're worried about.
00:30:00.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
When you're depressed, not only do you find yourself unable to reach out, but you are convinced that it doesn't matter whether you live or die, and that everyone else would be better off without you, without having to deal with your sadness, with your depression.
00:30:14.14
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:30:14.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, you get to feeling that everybody hates you, and it doesn't matter, and they'll be annoyed if you call, and it just turns into this huge thing that You just can't always see your way out of it yourself. And if you don't have that support structure, if you can't, I mean, you know how sometimes you're on Facebook in the middle of the night and you'll just hear that, you'll see that one sentence posed from somebody that's like, I can't take it.
00:30:41.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
I can't stand it. I'm done. You know?
00:30:44.02
Pandem Buckner
Right. Yeah, I've been there.
00:30:44.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they're begging for someone to reach out to them.
00:30:45.75
Pandem Buckner
Definitely.
00:30:48.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it always makes me so happy when I reach out to someone like that and they're like, oh my God, 25 people are emailing me right now. I can't talk. Like, good. That is awesome.
00:31:01.00
Pandem Buckner
Good.
00:31:01.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
You should be inundated with...
00:31:01.08
Pandem Buckner
People are letting you know that they're there.
00:31:03.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because when you're feeling shitty having 25 of your closest friends and somebody that always likes those pictures of your dinner just hitting you up and saying, I want you to be okay.
00:31:16.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
The world is better with you in it.
00:31:20.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you can say that most people who aren't named Trump and it'll be true.
00:31:21.35
Pandem Buckner
I'd
00:31:24.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
The world is better with you in it.
00:31:29.35
Pandem Buckner
widen that net to Republican voters, but that's just me.
00:31:35.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, if you're still supporting them at this late date, then that means you're okay with a lot of things that decent people are just not okay with. And we don't have to go into that at length, because I think most people that listen to this show, or were we're all on the same yeah page here.
00:31:54.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Fascism, bad.
00:31:54.62
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:31:55.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Hurting other people on purpose, bad.
00:32:00.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I'm sure after this airs, I'll get one of those emails from somebody that's like, oh, it's not up to you to say who's allowed to be treated bad. No, no, it is. It is.
00:32:09.73
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
00:32:11.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Decent people should be treated good. Not decent people should be treated worse until they're decent. That's, i mean, come on. Just just be nice.
00:32:19.91
Pandem Buckner
It's not that hard to do.
00:32:20.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:32:21.33
Pandem Buckner
Also, hang on. There's a lawn care crew, I guess, walking around the neighborhood, so I'm going to move inside.
00:32:26.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:32:29.02
Pandem Buckner
It won't take long. I just keep talking while I'm doing this. I just pick up my laptop and move.
00:32:34.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. I thought I heard like music or something.
00:32:39.38
Pandem Buckner
Nope, that's a weed whacker.
00:32:41.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, weed whacker. How funny. People have to take care of yards. One of the best things about apartment dwelling and there are not many, but but no yard work.
00:32:47.42
Pandem Buckner
I don't like it.
00:32:53.95
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, I don't think I could do that. I don't think I could live in an apartment.
00:32:57.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
It sucks.
00:32:57.82
Pandem Buckner
I've tried.
00:32:58.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
It ain't great. And i'm I'm sad that i can't I can't have a cat. I can't have a garden. I can't have a dog. Like, I would love to have all of those things. Maybe it'd be hard to have a dog and a garden. It's probably more expensive to have to keep those things separate. But, you know, I'd risk it.
00:33:18.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
So...
00:33:18.74
Pandem Buckner
A garden is nice to have. OK, so I am indoors now.
00:33:21.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool. Now, we did bring up politics, and I do want to kind of talk about one thing in particular, which is that before this most recent rise of fascism, we kind of were at a pendulum swing where, like...
00:33:39.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Gay people were starting to be treated like full citizens and, and you know, trans people had like rights and and some legal protections. You know, women could do a lot of the things that men could do We started putting our foot down about certain kinds of harassment and men started having to listen.
00:33:59.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, oh my gosh, the next thing you know, fascism is here. Like a certain stripe of person who has always benefited from the white supremacist patriarchy lost their goddamn minds at the fact that women didn't need men anymore to function in the world and that they had to compete with everyone and not just other rich white people.
00:34:23.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I bet you have a take on that.
00:34:28.53
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, the overly loud social minority of people who just started speaking up and started, I don't want to say bullying, but started having an outsized influence on the overall social landscape was insane.
00:34:52.49
Pandem Buckner
I don't know where they all came from. I wish they'd go back.
00:34:58.26
Pandem Buckner
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
00:34:58.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
It seems...
00:35:01.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I mean, fundamentalist Christianity, I don't know if it's always been like this. Has it always been like really white supremacist-y and super male-dominated?
00:35:15.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean, that's kind of the point, right?
00:35:15.55
Pandem Buckner
I don't know.
00:35:17.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because the book is about how women screwed us by talking us into eating an apple of being smart or something.
00:35:17.30
Pandem Buckner
Yes.
00:35:24.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
And... mean... Christianity is very much set up as a men good, women bad, just shut up and do what we say kind of book. But it's also open to a lot of different kinds of interpretations.
00:35:38.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I really, I guess I don't know enough about the history in general to know if, if like the more Christian you are, the worse you are about, you know, women and brown people and gays and,
00:35:39.09
Pandem Buckner
It is.
00:35:51.01
Pandem Buckner
Right. But we' get what what gets me about that, about the interpretation of the Bible for the purposes of white supremacy, that white people aren't even in the Bible.
00:36:06.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
We sure aren't.
00:36:07.36
Pandem Buckner
The closest you get is Italians who for a long time were not accepted as being white.
00:36:13.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:36:15.40
Pandem Buckner
So howard how is this book supposed to say white people are supposed to be on top when they're not even in it?
00:36:21.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, that's why Mormonism is a thing, right?
00:36:21.68
Pandem Buckner
I don't understand that mentality.
00:36:26.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that they could invent a ah white guy that God talked to.
00:36:31.57
Pandem Buckner
But it's a church that even christians that Christians don't seem to like very much.
00:36:35.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yeah. Well, and that's, I mean, the infighting between the different sects of Christianity is kind of one of the most amusing things about it.
00:36:47.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it seems like if there was a God and like what is in the book is is real and true, that God would send all of those people to their rooms to think about what they've done until they can come out and like stop fighting.
00:37:01.38
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:37:03.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
It seems like fighting over the Bible would be the last freaking thing that, I mean, certainly the the Jesus of the Bible that we know, you would not be down with people killing each other over that.
00:37:15.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course, always praying private was also, you know, though they they were always against performative prayer, according to the Bible.
00:37:16.11
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:37:24.42
Pandem Buckner
Very much. And so it's just mind-blowing for people who do oh let's say mega churches and the performative nature of that versus you know keep it to yourself is what the bible says like what how does it make it make sense because it really doesn't
00:37:36.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep.
00:37:42.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, in those giant houses the televangelist has? Like, no, dude. Those should be homeless shelters, according to your book.
00:37:49.88
Pandem Buckner
right we could sell joel austin's mansion right now and provide food and housing for how many people
00:37:58.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. A lot. So, and it it just seems like if there was a God and he was punishing people for things, that's the kind of thing that he would do it and not like, I don't know, gay marriage or you know, books about penguin dads or whatever. Like, the the people, it you ah it just always seems like the worst people are the ones that scream about how God is on their side.
00:38:28.26
Pandem Buckner
Right. And that is, I think, a form of insecurity.
00:38:28.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because
00:38:33.20
Pandem Buckner
Like they know on some level, some deep subconscious psychological level that this isn't right. So they tell themselves, well, God is on my side because nobody else is.
00:38:47.78
Pandem Buckner
And then they find some people of of similar minds and like, okay, well, God and these people are on my side, so I must be right.
00:38:54.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, that's interesting because i always used to think of it in terms of like, okay, I've accepted Jesus into my heart, so now I'm done being good for the day.
00:39:05.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think the reason I came to that conclusion is because when I was a McDonald's breakfast manager, the after church Sunday crowd was the worst, worst people of the week to deal with, you know?
00:39:19.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
mean, it could be Saturday and nothing but Girl Scout troops fresh from the zoo, and they would all be better and kinder and more well-behaved than adults leaving church who felt like they'd just been blessed and now are screaming yeah some 16-year-old cashier over the shade of their pancake.
00:39:29.88
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:39:38.78
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:39:40.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah, I think...
00:39:41.30
Pandem Buckner
You just reminded me. um
00:39:43.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
so please, go ahead.
00:39:44.22
Pandem Buckner
yeah you you just reminded me of a joke from my college days, and I went to a Baptist University, Southern Baptist University.
00:39:51.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:39:52.30
Pandem Buckner
Don't worry, it didn't take.
00:39:54.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, how? I get it.
00:39:56.49
Pandem Buckner
But there was a joke going around. And the joke was, how do you tell the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist?
00:40:05.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay how
00:40:07.86
Pandem Buckner
A Methodist will say hello to you in the liquor store.
00:40:18.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
i get it
00:40:21.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
But a Baptist will look away at the porn store.
00:40:24.38
Pandem Buckner
Exactly.
00:40:25.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:40:26.32
Pandem Buckner
And other i have so many funny stories about that place um what was another oh our student council president got fired when he got caught writing checks to a liquor store because we were in a dry county you had to go to the next county to get liquor
00:40:38.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:40:45.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's so weird. So they don't do communion? In church?
00:40:52.11
Pandem Buckner
baptist no that's a catholic thing well baptists can do it yeah but we didn't do it on campus
00:40:54.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, well, we, I, no. Okay. Well, I mean, it's not just Catholics, because, ah you know, Luther, well, I guess Lutheran is like Catholic light.
00:41:02.11
Pandem Buckner
no
00:41:05.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, I think Lutherans to tet to Catholics is kind of like the difference between a sugar daddy and a Splenda daddy. It's like, okay, we're just going to tone down the opulence and then do the same basic shit.
00:41:19.28
Pandem Buckner
I know missionary Baptist will do it because my home church was a, my family church was missionary Baptist and we did like a communion thing.
00:41:26.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Do you know like why there's a prohibition against alcohol in the church?
00:41:27.01
Pandem Buckner
Um,
00:41:31.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, I mean, it's well known that Jesus drank wine.
00:41:36.26
Pandem Buckner
I am not entirely sure. I've never really looked into it, but there's prohibition on so much that I just didn't bother. Like why the rule the rules against dancing? i don't really understand that.
00:41:48.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, they the nuns told us that Jesus didn't want us to smoke pot. And they one of them told us that it was in the Bible. And that is what occasioned me the first time that I read the entire Bible.
00:42:01.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because I wanted to find it. Because I had seen, i think, Footloose. And was like, oh, you could use the Bible as a weapon. Thinking that it would be so like smart and funny if I used the Bible as a weapon, not realizing that like most churches had been using it that way for centuries.
00:42:21.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
And the thing is, like, i want I should probably say, my husband is a Christian.
00:42:21.49
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:42:25.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
His whole, well, not his whole family, but much of his family are practicing Christians. And I have a guy that I call my spiritual advisor. He's a dude I went to undergrad with who is a Episcopalian minister now.
00:42:39.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if I need to speak about a religious matter and, like, square it up in my head, I know that if I call this guy, he will help me talk through it.
00:42:39.55
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:42:48.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, from a... from a Christian perspective, because even though I myself am not a Christian, I give money to Satanic Temple. that's That's the church that I feel best about supporting because they do so much good political work.
00:43:03.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, socio-political work.
00:43:05.03
Pandem Buckner
right
00:43:05.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
um But I still have like theological and philosophical questions, and when I discuss those, I always want to discuss them with someone that has a very different perspective from my perspective.
00:43:20.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, you know, it's the only way to learn anything. It's the only way I'll learn.
00:43:29.59
Pandem Buckner
I assume you've learned a lot that way.
00:43:29.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
So listen. yeah Yeah. you're a writer as well. And you write erotica. And you have some stories dropping soon. So I want to know all about that.
00:43:44.07
Pandem Buckner
ah Yeah. I have... It's kind of complicated in terminology. I have a series coming out that is titled Jason and the Church Ladies.
00:43:58.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:43:59.22
Pandem Buckner
And it starts with our protagonist, who is 25-year-old half-black, half-white guy living with one of his mother's friends.
00:44:13.26
Pandem Buckner
And he ends up in a and a sexual relationship with his mom's friend and two of her friends,
00:44:23.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my.
00:44:24.97
Pandem Buckner
who are all white, by the way, and all Christians.
00:44:27.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
OK.
00:44:30.03
Pandem Buckner
So it is just navigating and they're all older.
00:44:30.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it sounds like.
00:44:32.42
Pandem Buckner
They're all like late forties, early fifties. I don't give their exact ages ever because it's not polite to ask a lady for her age.
00:44:39.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. No, it is not. Okay.
00:44:44.09
Pandem Buckner
So I don't ever nail it down, but roughly twice his age.
00:44:47.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
00:44:47.72
Pandem Buckner
So it is like an age gap interracial erotic dramedy. There's a lot of drama, but it is also kind of funny.
00:44:56.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
So now i need to I need to ask you then, you're hitting you're hitting some pretty specific beats there that are often fetishized. So is that being done like in a satirical way?
00:45:09.78
Pandem Buckner
um no not really i do acknowledge the fetishization um but it's not where they're coming from like they're all coming from places of genuine affection but they also like real sex with real people they also bring all their own issues to the table and they leave with their own resolutions and their own answers or no resolutions, like they don't find what they're looking for.
00:45:38.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so this isn't like straight porn. these are These people are going to have development and character arcs and things that are going to keep us emotionally invested as well.
00:45:41.74
Pandem Buckner
No.
00:45:47.70
Pandem Buckner
Yes.
00:45:49.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awesome!
00:45:50.45
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, there's a plot.
00:45:51.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
That
00:45:51.55
Pandem Buckner
There's a plot. um There's no gratuitous sex. all Every time there is sex in the story and there's a lot, but it always has a point it's always showing us something about a character showing something how they relate to each other helping them deal with some issue mentally it's it always has a point to it so okay i can't call it pornography because porn is just you know people talking erotica actually has should actually have a point to it
00:46:18.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right. And these distinctions are not only are they important, but they're kind of out of my wheelhouse because in horror, we break things up in very different ways.
00:46:30.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
00:46:31.97
Pandem Buckner
That's fair.
00:46:33.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
I wonder. um So this is this is in the Bible Belt. Is that what I'm hearing? Is that where this takes place?
00:46:41.55
Pandem Buckner
ah
00:46:44.07
Pandem Buckner
I have thus far avoided giving it a specific location, but really thinking more Eastern Washington.
00:46:52.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Well, I ask because i eat well, you know, I'm a sex writer and one of the things that I was doing towards the end is, is stats.
00:46:57.53
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:47:00.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I have a lot of like, you know, Google information about who searches for what. And I'll tell you that perversion in the Bible Belt, and I don't even mean like, I don't mean perversion negatively, but I mean the things that you hear are perverted from people in the Bible Belt the most popular searches in the Bible Belt.
00:47:22.59
Pandem Buckner
yes I I know this from experience yes
00:47:22.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Things, you know, those folks be freaks. And the thing is that I, what I wonder is if,
00:47:28.61
Pandem Buckner
yeah
00:47:33.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's a matter of people were beat were taught young that certain things were like bad or dirty or whatever, or that God didn't want them to do it. And that's why they became so fascinating to them.
00:47:45.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Or if it's a matter of the fact that it's forbidden makes it more erotic because they know they're not supposed to be doing it.
00:47:55.53
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, the taboo nature, i think, really just increases the desire for it.
00:48:03.36
Pandem Buckner
Most people don't like being told no or no, you can't do this. You can't have access to this. So, of course, when they get on their own, they they reach for it.
00:48:11.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:48:15.95
Pandem Buckner
They try to see if they like it. And that taboo nature, i think, adds to the pleasure of it for them.
00:48:25.22
Pandem Buckner
Like when I went to college, as I said, I went to a Baptist University, Southern Baptist University, but a lot of these kids were away from their homes for the first time, like out of their parents' reach for the first time.
00:48:25.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which...
00:48:31.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:48:40.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:48:41.47
Pandem Buckner
And they went off. So much alcohol, so many drugs, wild freaky parties.
00:48:44.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:48:49.86
Pandem Buckner
It was just like, wow. Did y'all not know what the world was like before you left home? They did not because they lived in very sheltered homes.
00:49:00.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, i I hear that. I went to a religious college as well. It was a congregational church, so a little more progressive.
00:49:06.93
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
00:49:08.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
But still, lot of churchy types, people who had ah didn't have TVs at their house or they were only allowed to watch PBS, you know, had no concept of, like, network TV. you You'd bring up Happy Days and they'd have no idea what you meant.
00:49:25.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yeah, so there was a lot of, like, and I'm not saying, like, teach kids how to drink when they're young, but no concept of the fact of, like, what
00:49:25.89
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:49:36.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
four alcoholic drinks would do to you if you had them in an hour. You know?
00:49:40.88
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:49:41.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no idea that, like, no idea why you shouldn't let a person that you've never seen before walk you back to your room. You know? Things that, like, you shouldn't have to be aware of that.
00:49:50.36
Pandem Buckner
right
00:49:53.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, it's a shame that you have to tell, for example, young women that a strange man who offers to help you may in fact not be trying to help you.
00:50:04.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it's it's a drag, but it that makes it all so much more dangerous. And that's I think you and I are in agreement on that, that like providing information to people about, you know, not just about sex and birds and bees stuff, but things like consent, like what it means, you know, and when you can give it and how to tell if someone is like too young or too drunk to give consent.
00:50:23.30
Pandem Buckner
yes
00:50:31.51
Pandem Buckner
yes for boys and for girls and for everybody that should be part of at least the teenage experience learning about these things before you go out into the world before you leave the desk you should definitely know about these things
00:50:34.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:50:46.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
And when people prevent sex ed being taught in public schools, that's part of what isn't being taught are things like consent. And, you know, and and again, and you're you're so right when you say it.
00:50:59.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Girls and boys need to learn that because girls are told that smiling is consent, that wearing something or trying to look pretty is consent, that you're like asking for this or that.
00:51:02.82
Pandem Buckner
All right.
00:51:13.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it needs to be really clear. to To everyone That you know because Because remember when they First started suggesting that if you're making out with someone for the first time that you get permission for every stage, you know, you ask someone if it's okay to kiss them, you ask them, you know, about touching in specific places or removal of clothing or reaching into clothing, like anything like that.
00:51:31.78
Pandem Buckner
yeah
00:51:39.88
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:51:42.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And even people, and this is kind of gross now when you think about it, but like Bill Cosby had a whole routine about how unromantic that was. And the thing is, first of all, I think it's super hot to be like, do you like that?
00:51:53.47
Pandem Buckner
bit
00:51:56.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do you want me to do this? Do you want me to do that? Like, I think it's way hot. And if you can't think of a way to make it hot, you're probably bad at foreplay and sex. I mean, let's let's let's be honest about that.
00:52:06.92
Pandem Buckner
Yeah. Yeah, there are ways to make that entertaining and amusing and arousing.
00:52:08.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
00:52:12.11
Pandem Buckner
There's there's ways. You just got to work at it.
00:52:15.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Well, and that's true of most relationship things.
00:52:15.86
Pandem Buckner
You got figure it out. It's not that difficult.
00:52:18.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's all, it's, it's usually workaroundable, but everybody has to try. And that's so much of the problem that we get into, not just with sex things, but with just general like acceptance and equality and equity things, just like,
00:52:33.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Listen to people when they tell you about their experience and try not to be a dick. you know Learn something new once in a while.
00:52:39.07
Pandem Buckner
That is true.
00:52:41.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because even though you're an adult, there's still plenty of things you don't know.
00:52:47.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And people you know people don't like to be caught out because there's a ah certain psychological thing, and and I don't know like all the terms for it offhand, but where people...
00:52:47.76
Pandem Buckner
that is true
00:53:00.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, especially people that have been like heavily criticized as children. That anytime you are wrong about anything, it feels like you did something bad and you're about to get a punishment.
00:53:11.93
Pandem Buckner
Thank
00:53:12.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so people will do anything to avoid that feeling. And I get that. Because I grew up in a house full of violence. But because I'm an adult and I wanted to be better, you know? i'd like, work through it.
00:53:24.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I developed tools. and And, you know, not always 100% with it, but that's the whole point, is to do the best you can all the time. And if you hurt people, you know, do something about it. Don't, like, blame the people for being hurt.
00:53:42.49
Pandem Buckner
Right. But I think that I think everyone could stand to be better. There's all we're all flawed. We all have things we should work on. But I also can understand how some people hear that that be better or you can do better and take it as an insult as if they're not already the best them that they can be or they're not already doing their best. And it's not really meant as a an implication that you're not perfect. You're not perfect anyway.
00:54:06.80
Pandem Buckner
Nobody is.
00:54:09.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, my husband is, but...
00:54:09.53
Pandem Buckner
But it's I have not met your husband so I don't know I don't know he might be again haven't met him uh but I think people take it as an insult or an offense when they really should take it as a chance to learn
00:54:15.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
and So...
00:54:25.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. yep
00:54:27.86
Pandem Buckner
there's nothing wrong with learning no matter what age you are age does not automatically confer wisdom
00:54:35.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
True. Well, and I mean, if that, I think honestly, that's like one of the best things about being alive is getting to know new stuff. As long as I'm here, I want to know more than I knew yesterday.
00:54:48.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause that's why people like read and watch nature shows and talk to new people.
00:54:48.57
Pandem Buckner
Right.
00:54:55.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
So getting back to your work, like we'll have a link tree in the description, but if someone is unfamiliar with you and your work, where do they start?
00:55:07.76
Pandem Buckner
I would say the best starting place for familiarization with me and my work is my first published novel, which is called The Burial.
00:55:18.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:55:19.63
Pandem Buckner
it's about a young man whose estranged father passes away and no one wants to deal with him, so it falls to him to come back to his Mississippi home and hometown and make the funeral or arrangements and all that and deal with the damage his father has done to their whole family.
00:55:47.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay
00:55:47.72
Pandem Buckner
or at least try to deal with it
00:55:52.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
And is that, does that reflect something in your life?
00:55:52.72
Pandem Buckner
um reflect a lot actually um a lot of it is based on things that actually happened in my life um I didn't when my father died I didn't have to take care of funeral arrangements but we were restrained had not talked in years um it had never been close before so
00:56:17.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:56:18.09
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, there's a lot of issues me working out issues in that boat. 2015.
00:56:23.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Okay, well that's pretty common for first novels. I know my first novel is like a hardcore Mary Sue. Like just super, ah almost embarrassingly so at this date.
00:56:35.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
um But, um so that's that's your first novel. When was that originally published?
00:56:42.20
Pandem Buckner
twenty fifteen
00:56:43.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Alright. And then, so so your erotica would be separate from your noveling then?
00:56:52.22
Pandem Buckner
Yes. um The erotica, which is the lot of I have publishing I'm coming out with this year was like my first erotica. This is a series of short stories publishing at one a month for nine months.
00:57:10.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:57:12.99
Pandem Buckner
Then at the end of that, I'm calling them seasons. And then at the end of that, I'll do like a collection of all the seasons in one book. but in addition to these nine episodes publishing again once a month for my patreon people there will be interleads that you don't have to read to get the main story they just show they provide a bigger picture of things happening in the background or off camera
00:57:41.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice. Nice.
00:57:44.28
Pandem Buckner
yeah so you have to join my patreon for those and there'll be three of those season
00:57:47.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, I guess I do. Okay. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:57:51.63
Pandem Buckner
So each season ends up being a total of 12 stories.
00:57:56.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. All right. And so are you writing those like as you go? or do you Because like when I write, i have to always go back. and like put things in because I think of things later. But when you write and publish in a serial format, you don't get to do that.
00:58:14.07
Pandem Buckner
No, you don't. You really have to have it all planned out in advance. And I do have most of it planned in advance. There's some small details here and there i want to go fill in. I have an outline of the whole series from beginning to end.
00:58:29.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Okay.
00:58:29.78
Pandem Buckner
I did 75 pages long.
00:58:33.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Your outline is 75 pages long
00:58:35.65
Pandem Buckner
Yes, a lot
00:58:38.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn. Okay.
00:58:43.70
Pandem Buckner
The first 12 episodes are already written. They just have to be edited. Because I didn't want to start publishing until I had enough that I had enough time to write all the stories afterwards.
00:58:55.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sure. Yeah.
00:58:56.38
Pandem Buckner
And now I've gotten it down to it takes me about three weeks to a month to write a story. think it's good enough time for me to proceed.
00:59:02.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:59:05.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:59:07.09
Pandem Buckner
Like I said, already have most of it planned out. Maybe some details that change in like second or third season.
00:59:14.99
Pandem Buckner
But yeah, it's planned out.
00:59:15.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Oh.
00:59:16.09
Pandem Buckner
It's ready to go. It touches on a lot of social issues. Like I said, the age gap thing, the invisibility of older women, the invisibility of plus-size women, fetishization of black men. There's an my episode where Jason deals with that from someone else.
00:59:34.36
Pandem Buckner
Abuse. One of the women is in a isn't an abusive marriage, so there is lightly touching on that. Not getting you too deep into it, but lightly touching on that.
00:59:46.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:59:46.88
Pandem Buckner
and how she gets out of that situation. One
00:59:51.67
Pandem Buckner
one of the women is a widow, and he's still dealing with things that are coming out about her husband now that he's gone.
01:00:03.72
Pandem Buckner
like
01:00:04.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. So there's a ton going on there.
01:00:07.32
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
01:00:07.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
what What I'm curious about is that, like, you were saying earlier that it's possible that you will have we have a ah an ADHD diagnosis or possibly autism.
01:00:18.51
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
01:00:18.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
And what I'm wondering is if that is related to going from long-form noveling to writing in a format where everything is broken up into into much smaller pieces.
01:00:33.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, if that's a way of of compensating... for the symptoms of ADHD. Because I'll tell you, i used to write novels, and now that I know that I'm having, like, that I know that I have ADHD and that I'm i'm autistic, it it it makes so much more sense to me that now I'm writing mostly novellas and short stories.
01:00:56.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
So is that kind of what you're going through or no?
01:00:57.22
Pandem Buckner
ah I hadn't thought of that, honestly.
01:01:01.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ah. Yeah.
01:01:02.30
Pandem Buckner
When I start writing a story, when I have an idea and I actually sit down and start writing the story, I'm not thinking about length. I'm not thinking about publication. I'm just thinking about telling the whole story.
01:01:13.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:01:15.36
Pandem Buckner
And I do have other books I want to work on once I get further along with this that may end up being novels or novellas. I don't know. just want to tell the story, including a possible horror novel.
01:01:27.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:01:29.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ooh.
01:01:32.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
We'll have to come back when that... and And we know it won't be derivative because you hardly ever watch horror movies. So that's that's exciting.
01:01:38.65
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:01:39.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's something to look forward to.
01:01:42.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Now, I am aware that you work with nonprofits that help victims of family violence and intimate partner violence, and I want to hear more about that.
01:01:53.76
Pandem Buckner
Okay. I can tell you more again, I'm leaving out the names of the agencies that don't have their approval for this. Um, I started working with an online nonprofit back in 2013, want to say.
01:02:10.01
Pandem Buckner
mostly doing their social media stuff.
01:02:12.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
And did you have specific training for that kind of work? mean, not social media per se, but okay.
01:02:17.74
Pandem Buckner
I did receive some training for it.
01:02:21.61
Pandem Buckner
One of the women on the staff was or is or was I haven't talked to her in years, but she was actually an advocate at a shelter in Florida. And so she sent me the training material so I'd be familiar and know what to deal with with it.
01:02:35.01
Pandem Buckner
And that stuff was very helpful. um I was there for a few years. until how to put it until the owner got red pilled and then then i took my leave
01:02:47.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no.
01:02:51.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
What a shame.
01:02:53.70
Pandem Buckner
really was she was a really nice person up until that but once 2016 hit and the the nationalistic fascist fascist wave started going she jumped on it and it was time for me to go
01:03:08.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn.
01:03:12.59
Pandem Buckner
After that, I went back to work in security, and I ended up working – man, have to leave so many names now.
01:03:13.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn.
01:03:20.34
Pandem Buckner
I was working at a warehouse that provided a lot of goods, but also sometimes I'd get rid of a lot of stuff. And one of the managers has said, hey, do you know of any charities that could use some of this stuff we need to get rid of?
01:03:34.36
Pandem Buckner
was like, well, let me look around. So I called a local DV shelter and asked them. They said, oh, sure, we'll be glad to take it. So they came and did that, and then it ended up being a recurring program. Like every couple of weeks, they would come pick up donations and stuff from the warehouse.
01:03:50.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awesome.
01:03:53.07
Pandem Buckner
And then
01:03:53.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, a lot of times in shelters, they're like helping residents get back on their feet. So sometimes when you leave a shelter, it's like you get to leave and also you get a couch, you know, and they they give people things just to kind of start out in their new home because it's it's depressing.
01:03:59.65
Pandem Buckner
yes.
01:04:04.74
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
01:04:09.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's It can be like really demoralizing when you have literally nothing, even if you have space suddenly.
01:04:14.92
Pandem Buckner
It, yeah, it very much is. it but so It's an emptiness. You feel an emptiness and we shouldn't be so part of in material possessions, but it does matter when you don't have anything.
01:04:27.93
Pandem Buckner
Uh, but that led to me leaving the warehouse to work for this shelter.
01:04:29.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean...
01:04:36.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
wow.
01:04:36.32
Pandem Buckner
Like they liked what I was doing. They liked that I cared. Uh, they liked my organization, I guess, and setting up that whole deal. So when I left security, I went to work for that shelter.
01:04:50.11
Pandem Buckner
And that was very rewarding, but also very traumatizing.
01:04:55.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:04:58.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, but I was a volunteer at both a homeless shelter and for a while at a domestic violence shelter.
01:04:59.05
Pandem Buckner
I.
01:05:03.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i also stayed at a DV shelter as a client for a short time in my 20s, long before I met my husband.
01:05:03.68
Pandem Buckner
hmm.
01:05:10.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that it's one of those places where it's very, like, empathy has such a cost because you really want to
01:05:21.03
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:05:23.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, it's impossible not to feel for these people's stories because, you know, people say a lot of nasty things that are presumed about homeless people and and people that, you know, are in abusive relationships.
01:05:38.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why did you choose that? Why did you stay? Why did you, you know, this and this and that? And... talking to these people for a very short amount of time makes it clear that it's not... you you don't always get a good choice.
01:05:52.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sometimes you're just choosing the most survivable of your bad choices.
01:05:53.09
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:05:58.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's... those are the only options you have. And so to...
01:06:03.09
Pandem Buckner
I think that's not understood enough in society.
01:06:05.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Totally. And and to to be reminded of that and have that demonstrated to you again and again and again. And then you go home and Fox News is telling people about, you know, single moms buying lobster with their WIC money and whatever bullshit they're spewing.
01:06:22.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
that it it doesn't take very much time with a person that is truly disadvantaged to see that they didn't do anything to get where they were.
01:06:34.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's system failures over and over and over.
01:06:34.78
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:06:38.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
as As we can both attest, since we're both adults that have mental health issues that were never addressed and we just lived our whole lives. And, you know, without treatment, without accommodations, without, you know, meaningful support in a lot of ways.
01:06:56.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, you know, when the homelessness becomes imminent, people are like, well, guess you should have made ah better choices. Huh? Tough luck. Why should we pay for you?
01:07:05.90
Pandem Buckner
Right, and it's...
01:07:06.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
This and that. And so part of being in the shelter system and and helping people out, I mean, it it is so rewarding because you know you're making a ah good difference in people's lives.
01:07:19.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
But there's so much like anger and frustration that you take with you at the end of the day.
01:07:26.76
Pandem Buckner
There really is.
01:07:30.55
Pandem Buckner
And I worked...
01:07:30.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
How did you cope with that?
01:07:31.42
Pandem Buckner
i
01:07:35.59
Pandem Buckner
I just got up and kept going. Like I didn't know what else to do. the One of the most traumatizing parts of it to me was we had a crisis line and I was on the crisis line most of the time I was at work when I wasn't dealing with clients.
01:07:51.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh wow
01:07:53.28
Pandem Buckner
And it's so horrible. And again, traumatizing is the only word I have for it. When you have to tell people you can't help them.
01:08:04.74
Pandem Buckner
You don't have the resources.
01:08:05.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah yep mm-hmm
01:08:05.86
Pandem Buckner
You don't have the food. You don't have the shelter space, especially shelter space. We only had. think 12 rooms in the shelter.
01:08:15.91
Pandem Buckner
And there was a waiting list month long for people to get in. is And all the other shelters, because we don't have enough shelter space in this country.
01:08:28.41
Pandem Buckner
We've never had enough shelter to space in this country.
01:08:30.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:08:31.60
Pandem Buckner
I see more posts complaining about lack of animal shelter space than I do DV shelter space. I'm like, I believe in you know saving the animals. I believe in taking care of animals as well. But can we also look at this too?
01:08:47.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:08:47.41
Pandem Buckner
Can we look at like more low income housing? Because that would help a lot.
01:08:52.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
would Yeah. Just making things affordable would keep a lot of people from having to be trapped with abusers.
01:08:58.85
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:09:00.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, disabled people in particular, because you're not even allowed to save money to escape. If you're on disability, the amount of money that you're allowed to have in your possession is not enough to escape an abusive relationship.
01:09:14.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you would need at least first and last on your own apartment for that. And you you would not be legally allowed to save it.
01:09:18.62
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:09:22.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
They would cut you off. So there are a lot of ways that...
01:09:24.66
Pandem Buckner
Right. That whole system needs an overhaul.
01:09:28.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
up tell me about it, man.
01:09:29.99
Pandem Buckner
It was massive overhaul.
01:09:30.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know You know why I can't get on disability? I mean, I'm very clearly disabled. And I can't get on disability because I am married.
01:09:35.22
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:09:39.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
that That's it. Like, if I explained our finances, you would not think that we were opulent living at all.
01:09:40.84
Pandem Buckner
Okay, that was
01:09:45.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, yeah, like,
01:09:47.54
Pandem Buckner
that was a question i had actually i was going to ask is that true that when you get married you lose disability okay
01:09:52.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, wasn't on it before, but yes, that is true. that ah If you're married and your spouse works, like if your spouse is also on disability, then you can get it.
01:10:04.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
But if they have an income, it is just presumed that they will support you with it and that they can support you with it. um
01:10:11.43
Pandem Buckner
okay but you're not less disabled just because you're married like
01:10:14.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I'm sure not. In fact, I'm more disabled now than I was when I got married. Because I was in my 30s then. And I am in my 50s now.
01:10:22.14
Pandem Buckner
Like, like, it really needs to be on a scale.
01:10:23.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
So.
01:10:25.78
Pandem Buckner
Like if your spouse makes a certain amount of income enough to support two people on their own, okay, maybe then we start dialing back the disability benefits.
01:10:36.88
Pandem Buckner
But if they don't, if they're not above a certain level, then you should be able to keep those full benefits.
01:10:42.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well and you know.
01:10:42.45
Pandem Buckner
Like, why you politicians taking a look at this?
01:10:45.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I've met people. And I'm sure you have too. who were told that they couldn't get help because they had too many possessions. For example, they're living in their car. They needed to sell the car so that they had a small enough amount of assets that they could get help. And it's just it's just not reasonable that people have to put their themselves into straits that dire.
01:11:11.21
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:11:11.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
just to get assistance. Because again, we're the richest country in the world. And now the people in charge are making it pretty obvious why the government doesn't want to help citizens because they want the rich guys to hoard all the money.
01:11:26.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, uh... I mean, it's it's been bad for a long time. I mean, I think that really started with Reagan. like And it's it's the same thing. It's the pendulum swing.
01:11:37.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, once we started reasonably saying, we need to do something to help underprivileged people, people that need more help, we need to have a better social safety net, that's when people like Reagan started coming along talking about welfare queens and people having babies on purpose to get more stuff.
01:11:54.59
Pandem Buckner
I was going to bring that up, yes.
01:11:59.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's it's pretty outrageous.
01:11:59.48
Pandem Buckner
the
01:12:03.99
Pandem Buckner
It's just astounding to me how that that Black welfare queen myth, complete myth,
01:12:13.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:12:13.96
Pandem Buckner
came along and caught on and stayed stuck in the american consciousness meanwhile how much are we giving out in corporate welfare every year it's the ultimate distraction and it worked so well that i almost have to begrudgingly respect it for success
01:12:21.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:12:30.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, everything else you could say about the Alt-Reich, we have to admit that their messaging is exquisite. It is so effective because I look at it and I say, my God, what fucking idiot would believe something that, oh, look, it's a third of the country that it just takes it all at face value.
01:12:55.55
Pandem Buckner
And I understand it's basically playing on prejudices, preconceived notions, and biases that already exist within these people.
01:13:04.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I think the fear of victimization, like it like it's that victimized victim blaming thing that says, you must have done something to deserve this because I can't go through life knowing that this could happen to me at any moment. So I need to pretend that you made some error that I would never make that brought this on in you.
01:13:27.18
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, but I think that could be a big part of it.
01:13:28.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because Because I've heard that a lot. Like, my mom was that sort of person. Well, I say was. She's only dead to me. She's alive in a life and death kind of way. But um that was one of her things, was that, like, if any of my friends were getting free lunch, she would explain to us, like, what their parents probably did to make them have to need that.
01:13:50.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it was never nice.
01:13:50.88
Pandem Buckner
well
01:13:51.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
It was always like, yeah, you know, I bet so-and-so and those kids don't even have the same dad and blah blah. Just like, gross, like...
01:13:59.84
Pandem Buckner
Okay. that
01:14:02.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, why are you saying that?
01:14:02.34
Pandem Buckner
While we're here, that's the point I want to touch on.
01:14:04.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
But also why to a kid, though?
01:14:08.04
Pandem Buckner
Well, yeah, why are they telling you that? You don't need to know.
01:14:10.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:14:10.78
Pandem Buckner
But also, the way you've described that, and this is just my experience going through like Facebook posts and how people react to things on Reddit and such.
01:14:23.68
Pandem Buckner
I think they have the preconceived notion and then they make up a complete story and assume that story that they've made up is the truth and then speak from there.
01:14:32.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm. hmm.
01:14:35.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, MAGA boys, they tell me who I am every day. That i that i sit home and get disabilities is like one of the main things they say.
01:14:45.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
That I i have 15 cats and they'll talk to me about my cats that I don't have. it just But I mean, in general though, yes, presumptions about, you know, single moms.
01:14:57.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like the whole single moms trap people. They trap people and they trap men and then they live off the government. You know, and they need to keep their legs closed. Like, how often have we heard that? And then when you point out that, like, actually, i could keep my legs open all day long, 24 hours a day.
01:15:08.37
Pandem Buckner
a million times.
01:15:15.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
I could have one orgasm after another for 24 hours straight. And you know what? No pregnancy will occur until some man shows up slopping his man stuff around.
01:15:26.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if that happens, he doesn't get to turn to me and say, why did you trap me? because I was just laying there. So sorry for that visual everyone, but
01:15:38.46
Pandem Buckner
Right. I turned off the middle image as far as my brain. So I'm really glad I did with the man meat slapping around part there. Really glad I turned off the middle of this part.
01:15:44.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
on.
01:15:46.35
Pandem Buckner
Really glad.
01:15:50.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Anywho, so are you still a shelter volunteer?
01:15:57.83
Pandem Buckner
I am not right now. i'm working with a different nonprofit right now that focuses on writers and giving more opportunities and resources to independent writers in the area.
01:16:07.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow, that's fantastic. So you basically, you just go from one thing to another, making the world a better place in a myriad of different ways.
01:16:18.54
Pandem Buckner
Trying to yeah. Oh, there was there was one thing I wanted to say about the shelter experience.
01:16:20.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
I love that.
01:16:25.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Please.
01:16:26.50
Pandem Buckner
And I ended up getting laid off because nonprofits don't always have a stable budget.
01:16:33.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:16:34.85
Pandem Buckner
So I ended up getting laid off from that, which I kind of hated. But before I left, I had one client who had been there a long time.
01:16:38.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
sure
01:16:46.20
Pandem Buckner
And I finally, after a year of trying, I finally managed to get her ah Section 8 grant for housing.
01:16:55.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
01:16:57.62
Pandem Buckner
And she got that. She got out of the shelter. And now she works in the field.
01:17:05.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awesome.
01:17:06.60
Pandem Buckner
And that is, like, I am so proud of her. Like, that is my best story because I know that the help I gave her enables her now to help others. And I just ah just love that.
01:17:18.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, paying it forward in the recovery community, whether it's homelessness or substances.
01:17:21.21
Pandem Buckner
like
01:17:25.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, yeah, I don't know if you know a lot of substance abuse recovery people become ah nurses. They get into nursing and and patient care. Because when you go through something like that, like long-term homelessness, you end up with a lot of gratitude.
01:17:33.33
Pandem Buckner
Oh, I didn't know that.
01:17:39.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And the best thing to do with gratitude is to give it back. So that is so wonderful that you were able to give someone that kind of help and that they they paid it forward in in such a great way. Like, that is dope.
01:17:55.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's the kind of thing that, like, if society would pay more attention to the importance of that, it would just multiply.
01:17:55.30
Pandem Buckner
ah yeah Yeah, it is numerous countries around the world already do this.
01:18:02.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it's already well established that it's less expensive and better for everyone to just give homeless people homes.
01:18:16.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it keeps crime low.
01:18:16.54
Pandem Buckner
But the US s is stupid and refuses to learn.
01:18:19.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, because they want to make, they would rather let houses sit empty than let people live in them. And I learned that when I was a teenager, because I worked for McDonald's. And the food that you throw away at the end of the night, they want you to take it outside, put it in the dumpster, and then pour grease on it.
01:18:37.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that no one would steal it and eat it. like Because homeless people would wait outside the McDonald's. And I was written up twice for just handing them the bag of food at the end of the night.
01:18:44.72
Pandem Buckner
so
01:18:48.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know?
01:18:49.03
Pandem Buckner
Like what?
01:18:49.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no, put it with the garbage! Like, come on. That's stupid. That's just fucking stupid.
01:18:52.87
Pandem Buckner
Like, who does that hurt? Like, who does that hurt giving them this food?
01:18:58.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. it It makes no sense. Like, there is no... And they would lie. And they would say, oh, it's it's for insurance. Because they could sue us. Like, they can't sue you go for...
01:19:07.10
Pandem Buckner
They don't have homes.
01:19:07.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah.
01:19:10.06
Pandem Buckner
How are they going to afford a lawyer?
01:19:12.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, ah it's all just ridiculous. And...
01:19:16.72
Pandem Buckner
Also, if you're pouring grease on the food, is anybody going to notice? Because McDonald's food is already pretty greasy.
01:19:23.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah ah Yeah, I mean, it's it's gross, but you you really wouldn't eat it after that. But but no, it's it's just the the point of the thing is that there is a stripe of person now that is proud of their lack of empathy.
01:19:30.50
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:19:39.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so that permeates every attitude they have in every situation that they're in. And it's infectious. And it is spreading. And so many people are laying down for it instead of fighting. And it just gets more frustrating every day.
01:19:55.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, I mean, that is the way to fight back, man. The way to fight back is to be good to people. And help people. And make art. And spread kindness. And that's, like, the most revolutionary thing we can do right now. And it's kind of the last thing that they expect. Because they're trying really hard...
01:20:13.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
to make us too tired and angry and scared to be kind to each other and to keep making art. So it's kind of the best reason to do it.
01:20:25.76
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, and I think for truly creative people, we're going to make art no matter what, because we have to. It's our drive. It's our passion. We're going to keep doing it.
01:20:35.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:20:37.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep. All right, so it's time for this question. Because we ask our guests if they've ever been in a situation where they were in legitimate fear for their life.
01:20:48.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
And this is something we only ask consent, with consent, and you have given us consent. So please do tell us your story.
01:20:54.03
Pandem Buckner
Yes.
01:20:58.51
Pandem Buckner
Okay, this is a funny one. I think it's funny anyway.
01:21:03.22
Pandem Buckner
I think it was 1997.
01:21:07.03
Pandem Buckner
ninety ninety seven And I didn't have my own car. I was at home on break from college. I borrowed my sister's car to go hang out with my friends. I was on my way home and decided to stop and have a cigarette.
01:21:22.75
Pandem Buckner
Because at this point, my family didn't know I smoked.
01:21:26.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
<unk>
01:21:27.49
Pandem Buckner
So I tried to hide it as best i possible and just cigarettes.
01:21:32.82
Pandem Buckner
So I stopped the car about two miles away from the house, turned the radio on, got out and was smoking. And it's early January, it's the Mississippi, temperatures like five degrees below zero, something like that, or five below freezing.
01:21:48.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yikes.
01:21:49.08
Pandem Buckner
So it's cold, there's ice on the ground, et cetera. But wasn't too bad.
01:21:54.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:21:54.83
Pandem Buckner
I get out, have a couple of cigarettes. and go to get back in and the door is locked.
01:22:03.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh oh.
01:22:04.21
Pandem Buckner
I'm like, wait, no, I did not just lock myself out of this car. cause The car is still running cause the radio is going. like Yeah, the keys are in the ignition and I locked myself out of my sister's car.
01:22:10.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh damn.
01:22:14.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh shit.
01:22:16.84
Pandem Buckner
So
01:22:19.57
Pandem Buckner
my mother's house now was' my grandmother's house, but she passed away. So it's my mother's house now is out in the country.
01:22:28.44
Pandem Buckner
I mean, out, out in the country, it wasn't even on Google maps to like five years ago.
01:22:32.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no.
01:22:35.35
Pandem Buckner
So I was like, okay, um, where can I go? And there was somebody's house that I knew about half a mile from where I was. So first I went there and knocked and half a mile.
01:22:46.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
half a mile?
01:22:50.28
Pandem Buckner
So first I walked to his house and he wasn't home. It was a Saturday night. He wasn't home without doing and whatever dudes do on the Saturday night. I don't know. I didn't get into a business.
01:23:00.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
bret Right, right.
01:23:00.56
Pandem Buckner
Anyway, yeah, but he wasn't at home.
01:23:01.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Saturday night stuff.
01:23:05.85
Pandem Buckner
I'm like, well, there went the only person I knew on this side of my grandmother's house.
01:23:11.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, plus you must have been freezing half to death by that point after walking half a mile. Oh my god. The story's freaking me out, dude. Then what happened?
01:23:22.73
Pandem Buckner
So I looked around. There were other houses sporadically, but all the lights were off.
01:23:29.73
Pandem Buckner
and i saw one house that still has a light on it was about a mile away across cotton fields that were muddy because it had rained but also icy because the rain had frozen i walked the mile so i walked the mile through this cotton field i'm breaking ice on puddles freezing
01:23:40.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my gosh.
01:23:49.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nah, after that, man.
01:24:00.28
Pandem Buckner
again, it was really freaking cold to get to this house. Got to the house, went up to the back door and knocked.
01:24:10.91
Pandem Buckner
Nobody answered, but I said the light was on. So I figured somebody's got to be awake in this house. So I knocked again. Nobody answered. Like, okay, I, at this point, I'm like a mile and a half from my grandmother's house. If I have to, I will try to walk that.
01:24:28.78
Pandem Buckner
But I knocked one more time. and then the curtain drew back on the on the window in the door
01:24:35.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. OK.
01:24:37.37
Pandem Buckner
and when i looked okay i used to study world war ii history and a lot of military history in general so i recognized the gun it it was a mauser c96 from world war two german pistol
01:24:48.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
OK.
01:24:51.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, shit.
01:25:00.41
Pandem Buckner
but like this yeah the world war ii pistol but the man holding it looked like a world war one veteran
01:25:00.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's terrifying.
01:25:10.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Jesus.
01:25:11.30
Pandem Buckner
and his hand was shaking so badly that i was like he's going to shoot me by accident because his hands are shaking that badly so then i would i was genuinely fearful for my life not that i thought this dude this random supremely elderly white dude was going to shoot me on purpose but because he's shaking so badly he might just shoot me on accident
01:25:37.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what happened?
01:25:41.29
Pandem Buckner
he asked who i was and what i was doing there and i said hey i locked my keys and my sister's locked the keys in my sister's car can you help give me a ride home and he asked again who are you i told him my mother's name he didn't recognize that i told him my grandmother's name and he recognized her name.
01:26:00.39
Pandem Buckner
And once he heard her name, he put the gun away.
01:26:05.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:26:05.54
Pandem Buckner
And then went and got his keys and gave me a ride home. And I had explained to my sister that I locked the keys in the car. I think I told her like,
01:26:13.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, surely the battery was dead by the time he got back, right?
01:26:17.69
Pandem Buckner
oh no, it was fine.
01:26:19.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
wow. Okay.
01:26:21.05
Pandem Buckner
It was still going.
01:26:23.65
Pandem Buckner
But yeah, he was nice enough to give me a ride home.
01:26:23.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:26:27.66
Pandem Buckner
Again, after that, I got the car back, told her ah that the car was making a noise and I got out to check it or something like that. sir And that's when I locked the keys in the car.
01:26:39.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
So is it commonplace to answer the door with a gun in some neighborhoods?
01:26:39.62
Pandem Buckner
And yeah, it worked out fine.
01:26:46.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I grew up like around Detroit and I used to hang out there a lot and it was not commonplace in Detroit. Like I, my first job out of undergrad was for acorn and we used to go door to door cause we're community organizers and that's what you do.
01:26:54.46
Pandem Buckner
but
01:26:59.32
Pandem Buckner
Oh, nice.
01:27:01.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, uh, No one ever, I mean, granted, I'm a chubby white lady who didn't look like she could run away from anyone, but no one ever answered a door to be with a gun.
01:27:14.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Day or night.
01:27:14.61
Pandem Buckner
Well, when it's after midnight in the south and you live in the country, it's a sensible precaution.
01:27:15.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
not Not ever. So...
01:27:24.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
See, I would be more much more likely to assume that it was an emergency than that it was nefarious, because I would think that a a burglar wouldn't knock. Maybe that's that's like my own foolishness. Maybe ah five burglars are going to knock on my door by tomorrow now that they know I wouldn't be suspicious.
01:27:43.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
But that's terrifying. It's terrifying. But I learned an awful lot about racism once I started hanging out with my husband because, you know, he's he's a black man over six feet tall and according to Michael Moore, that's the scariest kind of man in the country.
01:28:03.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:28:04.12
Pandem Buckner
really
01:28:05.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah yeah statistically that is that a black man over six feet is is the scariest type of person and
01:28:08.03
Pandem Buckner
ah
01:28:13.07
Pandem Buckner
i'm five seven i will take short king privilege that's fine
01:28:15.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah please do please do um yeah and it's funny because I say this every year on Melania's birthday like hey babe my hundred husband actually is 6'1 2'20 so if you'd like to know what that looks like I can hook you up um
01:28:30.60
Pandem Buckner
nice
01:28:31.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
because Her husband is not 6'1". He may be 6'1". I don't think so, but I suppose it's possible. But 220, he is not. um
01:28:41.78
Pandem Buckner
at this point i don't even think that's his real name i don't trust him so much
01:28:49.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's not, actually. The family name is Drumpf.
01:28:54.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's D-R-U-M-P-F. Drumpf.
01:29:00.33
Pandem Buckner
See, that makes sense. That entire family built on lies.
01:29:01.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
doesn't it?
01:29:04.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, yeah, that's, i it's uncomfortably German, let's say that. um it's It's German in all the ways you'd expect a family of mostly blonde, mostly white supremacists to be named.
01:29:22.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:29:23.55
Pandem Buckner
the The Germany, the kind of Germany is now ashamed of.
01:29:26.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right, wish we were. um so There's one more topic that I know you wanted to talk about because you are also an advocate of ah male sexual assault victims.
01:29:40.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And I know that SA on men are actually more underreported and often more minimized than those of women, which is already pretty bad.
01:29:51.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why are we all so bad about taking sex crime seriously and prosecuting them effectively? Like what is going on there?
01:30:01.57
Pandem Buckner
In general or for men specifically?
01:30:04.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, probably. i mean, I think both are important, obviously, but like, why is this the one area where men are not treated better?
01:30:10.05
Pandem Buckner
Yes.
01:30:16.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, why is this like more shameful for men?
01:30:22.98
Pandem Buckner
the The short answer is patriarchy.
01:30:27.48
Pandem Buckner
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity. um I think in those cultures that being a sexual assault victim means you're weak.
01:30:39.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
because Because rape is something that happens to women So if it happens to you That makes you less of a man That's the thinking
01:30:42.79
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:30:47.12
Pandem Buckner
Right. But it's also something that doesn't happen to women because whenever women make allocations, they're lying.
01:30:54.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right
01:30:54.55
Pandem Buckner
The first offense was patriarchy and toxic masculinity. They must be lying. They wouldn't need to do this, et cetera, et cetera.
01:31:02.15
Pandem Buckner
But with men, I think it is mostly, it's seen as being weak.
01:31:09.07
Pandem Buckner
and But it's not a matter, it's something that could happen to anyone, literally anybody could happen it have could happen to you. Anything you don't consent to is sexual assault.
01:31:21.50
Pandem Buckner
And I don't know, I don't understand why society has such a hard time with that. Other than, know,
01:31:26.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, because, I mean, even famous men with privilege, it often takes years and years for things to come out. Either because they don't, they're like, I mean, it's mostly the same reasons, being afraid of stigma, being afraid of not being believed, making it a big news story that opens you up to the horror that is the public commentary.
01:31:37.41
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:31:52.16
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:31:52.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh
01:31:52.37
Pandem Buckner
And being a afraid of harassment.
01:31:54.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah, yeah. So, so what do we do about it? How how does, how can the average person improve that situation?
01:32:05.12
Pandem Buckner
Okay. for the average person, assuming that this average person genuinely cares about the issue of male sexual assault, the very first thing I recommend is to bring it up on its own, not use it as rebuttal when someone is talking about a woman being sexually assaulted.
01:32:27.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:32:29.47
Pandem Buckner
Let it be a standalone subject or in a conversation where you're talking about sexual assault generally, not as a tool to silence a woman talking about her experiences or someone talking about the experiences of women bring it up as its own topic discuss it for its own impacts and put it out there more which i probably should do i should probably talk about it more but i'm working on
01:32:56.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I think um the show Baby Reindeer had a lot of people talking about that the to the topic. I don't know if you saw it, but it's a it's pretty central part of of the main character's story.
01:33:06.29
Pandem Buckner
I have not seen it yet.
01:33:10.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's based on a true story. And I think one of the things that's very problematic about it is that... He stops just short of naming the public figure who did this to him.
01:33:23.39
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
01:33:24.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's an industry person. Like the story is, is ah like a lightly fictionalized version of, of the main character's life. It's the writer's life, you know, so it's it's a real story.
01:33:36.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he's talking about his own experiences, but he does not name the perpetrator. And I'll tell you, I was pretty torn about it because, yes, if you ask me what my opinion is, um i i definitely believe that ah assault victims
01:33:52.53
Pandem Buckner
more
01:33:56.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, a little background noise there. um thats Assault victims shouldn't be required to come forward if they don't want to.
01:33:58.15
Pandem Buckner
Oh, sorry.
01:34:03.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they shouldn't have to name their attackers. But my god, you can't just tell everyone that there's a predator out there and then not say who it is. You know, it just feels wrong.
01:34:14.32
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:34:15.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's it's been difficult for me to to parse, you know. Because it's not safe for victims to come out and no one should require them to to do so.
01:34:27.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
But we also need to know who these fucking people are.
01:34:27.70
Pandem Buckner
It absolutely isn't.
01:34:30.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, they're they're monsters. they they People need to know to stay away.
01:34:36.37
Pandem Buckner
Exactly. and it's And I'm with you there. I understand the ah difficulty of parsing, the need to protect yourself and stay safe, but also other people need to know.
01:34:52.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, exactly.
01:34:53.70
Pandem Buckner
Like, it honestly, there just should not be that other people.
01:34:54.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
So...
01:35:01.20
Pandem Buckner
There needs to be better protection for victims who seek out.
01:35:07.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:35:07.28
Pandem Buckner
I think we need better protections for them. But how to enact those that I don't have an idea of other than legislature.
01:35:13.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, we're terrible at protecting people. I mean... For example, you know ah the 1-6 terrorists that all got pardoned?
01:35:24.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
A lot of those dudes were turned in by their ex-wives.
01:35:25.08
Pandem Buckner
yes
01:35:28.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then they were just freed. So, I mean, you know, these women can't afford round-the-clock security. So what's happening to these women that did their patriotic duty and got of domestic terrorist locked up and are now, like...
01:35:38.34
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:35:47.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, some of those guys got arrested, again, right away because they're criminals and they like hurting people.
01:35:48.82
Pandem Buckner
In for you for the. Yeah.
01:35:53.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
But a lot of them didn't. you know And it's it's pretty terrifying that a guy can just say...
01:35:58.38
Pandem Buckner
I have to imagine at least some of those women are in fear for their lives. Now as these people have been released.
01:36:04.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I would be.
01:36:06.49
Pandem Buckner
Cause think as far as I know, when it comes to court and you turn someone in that becomes public record.
01:36:15.29
Pandem Buckner
So they know who turned them in.
01:36:15.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:36:19.74
Pandem Buckner
And that's terrifying. Like I, it's terrifying, scary to think of that. They did the right thing and there's no, help or protection for them?
01:36:31.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, we deported people that helped us fight terror and crime in their own country, and then we just sent them back there. So we're we're we're not great right now.
01:36:43.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
i'm not Not feeling a whole lot of pride in in...
01:36:43.83
Pandem Buckner
No.
01:36:46.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not that I was ever a big rah-rah nationalism person, but there were there's there's always been stuff about America that I like and I'm proud of, and right now there's not as much as there used to be.
01:36:58.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:36:59.77
Pandem Buckner
Sadly, no, there is not.
01:37:01.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I want to ask, like, how much of your personal political activism finds its way into your fiction?
01:37:13.18
Pandem Buckner
Hmm.
01:37:17.44
Pandem Buckner
I would say a lot of it does, though I'm not necessarily aware of it.
01:37:22.51
Pandem Buckner
I do tend to write more progressive stories like from looking at the Jason and the church lady series, the church that these women go to was a very progressive church.
01:37:36.15
Pandem Buckner
It's one that's accepting of gay people, trans people, uh, polyamorous people even.
01:37:43.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:37:46.47
Pandem Buckner
it's because of that, the church is looked down on by other churches in the areas being that quote unquote weird church,
01:37:54.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the on-brand.
01:37:56.28
Pandem Buckner
but that's, Yeah, but it's but that's like true Christianity is being loving and accepting of all people.
01:38:05.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright.
01:38:06.00
Pandem Buckner
And that does that comes up more later on in the story.
01:38:06.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, that makes sense.
01:38:11.36
Pandem Buckner
As things expand the first season, not so much, but it does come up again later.
01:38:14.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. Okay.
01:38:17.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. Well, that's good to know.
01:38:19.91
Pandem Buckner
and so So yeah, a lot of my beliefs do come out in this. I wouldn't necessarily call it like woke erotica. but a lot of my beliefs do come out.
01:38:31.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. All right. So was there anything that you wanted to talk about that we did not get to? I feel like we covered a lot of really good ground.
01:38:41.71
Pandem Buckner
Goodness, we have covered so much.
01:38:44.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
01:38:44.49
Pandem Buckner
um
01:38:44.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? This was a good conversation.
01:38:50.51
Pandem Buckner
Okay, this came out of a recent conversation I had with a friend.
01:38:55.68
Pandem Buckner
And I want to say this to
01:38:59.35
Pandem Buckner
To women, trans men, anybody with a vagina, however you define yourself, if you're with a partner, new partner you just started dating, whatever,
01:39:15.03
Pandem Buckner
and your body is not responding the way it normally does to this person, your vagina knows something is up with that person.
01:39:29.20
Pandem Buckner
this is the conversation I have with friend. She was dating someone. Her body wasn't responding quite the usual way. Turns out he was a serial cheater and actually had, ah was in a relationship already never told her and all this, a lot of other stuff came about it to do.
01:39:41.99
Pandem Buckner
But the bottom point of it was the vagina always knows.
01:39:46.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, listening to your body signals in general, you know, if you're around somebody that makes your stomach hurt every time they open their fucking mouth, it's probably not, uh,
01:39:50.15
Pandem Buckner
Yeah.
01:39:56.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
not got your best interest at heart. like
01:39:59.78
Pandem Buckner
Yeah, I think if that happened to me, yeah I would wonder how I ended up at the Republican National Convention.
01:40:00.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yeah.
01:40:05.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Damn that Uber driver. um
01:40:10.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Well, no, I think listening to your body... you know regardless of which part you you pay the most attention to.
01:40:14.65
Pandem Buckner
and Trusting yourself.
01:40:17.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that definitely is central.
01:40:17.69
Pandem Buckner
Right.
01:40:21.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I also ah like to give guests a chance to ask me a question if they have if they ah have one. So if you do, now is the time.
01:40:31.45
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:40:31.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you don't have to. I'm not that interesting.
01:40:35.08
Pandem Buckner
I would not say that. I would disagree with that quite heavily.
01:40:38.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:40:39.49
Pandem Buckner
i think you're a very interesting person. This is this is why we're friends. I think you're a very interesting person. And everyone is interesting in their own way, but you have a definitely, you definitely stand out as an interesting person.
01:40:50.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
01:40:53.22
Pandem Buckner
So here's my question to you. With all you've been through in your life, I know is a lot,
01:41:02.06
Pandem Buckner
if you woke up tomorrow and you were 18 years old, your 18th birthday,
01:41:11.71
Pandem Buckner
would you do anything different?
01:41:13.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, holy fuck. Are you kidding? I would do everything different.
01:41:16.25
Pandem Buckner
okay
01:41:17.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
I would do everything different. Because the thing is, on my 18th birthday, i was already an undergrad. I think I had just had sex for the first time with my first ever boyfriend, who was a nice guy. But if you can believe this, my 19-year-old boyfriend was not emotionally available.
01:41:36.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
um He was not a great communicator.
01:41:37.65
Pandem Buckner
Imagine that. Holy crap.
01:41:39.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
no like, I had no self-esteem. And I had a million mental health problems that I knew nothing about. And i think I had also just gotten eyeglasses because I had started saying I couldn't see right when I was in second grade.
01:41:54.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
My mom didn't want to get me glasses.
01:41:54.85
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
01:41:56.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
So she told all the doctors I couldn't see because I was in the back of the room and people's heads were in the way. It was pretty ridiculous. So, so yeah, um, like knowing what I know now, i would have done everything differently.
01:42:10.18
Pandem Buckner
Mm-hmm.
01:42:10.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I wouldn't have bothered with like any of those men. Um, i probably would have gone right to grad school like I wanted to after graduation.
01:42:21.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, which, which is a drag because it kind of, ah it, it probably means that I would not have met H. And I would not knowingly want to do anything that would have kept me from from meeting H. um But yeah, i think i I think if I had the self-esteem at 18 that I have now, everything would have been different.
01:42:43.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everything. I wouldn't have taken shitty jobs. I would have started writing for publication much earlier. ah Yeah, lots lots and lots of things. Damn, now I'm sad.
01:42:55.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm...
01:42:58.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which is okay, because it's actually time for the Mad Lib.
01:43:02.55
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:43:02.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So you know how Mad Libs work, right?
01:43:06.10
Pandem Buckner
Basically, yeah.
01:43:07.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so first thing I need is one, two, three, four singular nouns.
01:43:17.01
Pandem Buckner
Singular nouns, okay. Foot,
01:43:22.16
Pandem Buckner
fence, cat, house.
01:43:32.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, I think that's all the nouns, but now I need one two, nouns.
01:43:34.80
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:43:40.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
three plural nouns
01:43:44.04
Pandem Buckner
Three plural nouns, okay. Let's have a little fun with it. Vaginas.
01:43:52.40
Pandem Buckner
Mask.
01:43:56.60
Pandem Buckner
Dances.
01:43:59.73
Pandem Buckner
Barnacles.
01:44:10.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, wait, I think I didn't have room for barnacles. That's too bad. That's a good word.
01:44:16.09
Pandem Buckner
Oh.
01:44:17.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
I know, right? Actually, I'm going to change one of these other words to barnacles.
01:44:22.41
Pandem Buckner
ah taking the vaginas out?
01:44:24.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I am not the gynas out.
01:44:25.15
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:44:26.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, maybe for a nice dinner, but um in general...
01:44:32.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, so this one is person in room, so that's always the guest. ah Adjective. I need one, two, three adjectives.
01:44:46.99
Pandem Buckner
Pretty
01:44:50.34
Pandem Buckner
salty
01:44:52.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
What is it?
01:44:53.62
Pandem Buckner
Salty and charismatic.
01:44:54.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:45:02.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, and a verb.
01:45:14.39
Pandem Buckner
Obfuscate.
01:45:19.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
and a verb ending in ing
01:45:24.76
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:45:28.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay there's another person in room so i'll put me and a number and another person in room geez all right um well my lizards are in the room so i'll put the name of one of my lizards and this one i'll put joan jet
01:45:37.32
Pandem Buckner
Oh, nice.
01:45:49.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because ah the lizards are morning geckos. So they're all lesbians.
01:45:52.53
Pandem Buckner
poga
01:45:53.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
So they're named after famous lesbians.
01:45:53.66
Pandem Buckner
so nice
01:45:55.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Okay.
01:45:56.21
Pandem Buckner
Mason.
01:45:57.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
So a part of the body.
01:46:02.20
Pandem Buckner
Your load.
01:46:06.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
An article of clothing.
01:46:11.14
Pandem Buckner
Stockings.
01:46:15.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one more number.
01:46:20.10
Pandem Buckner
Eight.
01:46:22.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so this is called Sporty... Oops, my mic has fallen. Okay, Sporty Superstitions. Our little league foot is on a winning streak, and some of the vaginas on the team are getting superstitious.
01:46:43.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Pandem always puts a four puts four barnacles inside his baseball cap for... Uh, oh, for, wait, see, this sucks. Okay, puts a four barnacles inside a baseball cap for ah prettiness. Okay, see, that they had that, like, wrong. Okay, so it sounds charismatic, but he keeps catching bulky high fly masks.
01:47:15.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wetness is convinced that she needs to obfuscate in a circle three times before stepping up to the cat. It works.
01:47:27.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
She has the best speaking average on the team. Joan Jett's superstitions have gotten out of earlobe. She has worn the same dirty stockings for eight games in a row.
01:47:41.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
I like to win, but if it means sitting in a dugout that smells like rotten dances, that's going beyond the call house.
01:47:52.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. That is like probably one of the...
01:47:54.38
Pandem Buckner
I like the story.
01:47:56.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's not very well written, though. I'm going to to write to the Madlib people. I'm meaning to write to them anyway um to tell them that their stories are too binary and they need to do less ah less binary phrasing, which I think they actually are in their more current books because I use a big compilation book.
01:48:15.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
I've been using the same one since the beginning, and i actually bet that when it gets full, I'm hoping that by the time it gets full that my show will be popular enough that I can auction off the Madlib book for charity.
01:48:27.21
Pandem Buckner
ah that'd be awesome.
01:48:28.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wouldn't it? So I have to get super famous. I don't know how I'm going to do that, though. Because the problem that I have is like, and this is true of like pretty much all my writing and the the magazine too, kind of, is that every time I get it into someone's hands, they're like, wow, this is so great.
01:48:44.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm like, cool, please tell several hundred people about it. Because no one knows that I'm doing anything because I don't have a marketing budget. So... Yeah, that's my little complaint for the day.
01:48:54.90
Pandem Buckner
Oh, I know that train well.
01:48:57.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, dude, I am so glad that you could be here and be on the show. It was great having you, and I think we um gave people a lot of great information. I hope we did.
01:49:10.32
Pandem Buckner
Awesome.
01:49:11.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
So thank you so much for being
01:49:11.70
Pandem Buckner
I hope I didn't say too much.
01:49:14.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, see, the problem I have is I tend to i tend to talk too much. And the best episodes are really the ones so where I talk less and let my guests really like have more to say. So I hope I didn't do too much of that today.
01:49:29.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:49:30.21
Pandem Buckner
don't think so.
01:49:32.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. So we want to remind all our listeners.
01:49:33.33
Pandem Buckner
It's nice for having me here. I'm sorry.
01:49:34.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
01:49:36.95
Pandem Buckner
was say thanks for having me here. It's been great. Hopefully do it again sometime.
01:49:41.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, definitely. Definitely. Well, when ah your series is like all up and you need to hype it again, you should definitely come ah by and so we can let everybody know that it's all up and what you're doing next.
01:49:52.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that's kind of how that goes.
01:49:55.39
Pandem Buckner
Okay.
01:49:55.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um... Yeah, so I want to remind all the listeners that the best way to support the show, aside from listening and telling your friends about it, is to find us on Ko-Fi, that's K-O-F-I, where we are sometimes hilarious horror, because the magazine supports both of the podcasts, this one and Gratis Guignol, which is all short horror stories read by me and friends, and it's awesome.
01:50:22.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, thanks everybody, we'll see you next week.
Comments
Post a Comment