THIS IS REVOLUTION>podcast Ep. 55: A Dancer's Diary of a Boomtown: Wildcatting w/ Susan Shepard

About a month ago I had the professor Cedric Johnson on the show.  We were having a great time talking on and off air.  In our conversation, he had remembered me talking about working in North Dakota and recommended I read an article from a journalist named Susan Shepard.  He sent me the link, and I read it right away.  

 

It was a great piece that put you in North Dakota. You could almost taste the dust.  Susan Shepard tells her story of an exotic dancer in a boomtown where fossil fuel extraction through fracking is the main industry.  That industry creates, what many think is a thriving service economy.  Susan vividly tells her story not just from the eyewitness perspective, but she ads a Marxist view of the boomtown economy to show what oil extraction does to an entire community.  Not just one aspect of it.  We had a good talk until...

 

So, as listeners of this show know, I record the episodes at our studio in the Lower Bottoms of West Oakland at Soundwave Studios.  We've had a bit of a rat resurgence in the area, and I don't really want to get into the factors why, but needless to say, there are rats EVERYWHERE! One got in the room and ran out while I was conducting the interview.  I'm not gonna lie, I fucking screamed and ran out the room.   Luckily, you couldn't hear my yell too well, and Susan was able to wrap up her final thought.  Maybe the rat wanted to weigh in on our conversation? I don't know, I do know that shit freaked me the hell out.  I hate rats.  I hate the way the jump out at you, did I mention I hate rats?

 

Read the "Wildcatting" piece here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/susanelizabethshepard/wildcatting-a-strippers-guide-to-the-modern-american-boomtow

 

Susan's Website

susanshepard.com

 

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