Introducing Brick & Vinyl, Them & Us's new podcast
And our first episode is all about NXIVM, our local, less-than-friendly sex cult!
Brick & Vinyl is a fitting name, we think, for Them & Us Media’s new podcast.
The podcast is about life in the Capital Region. It’s about politics, news, current events, all of the stuff Them & Us regularly reports on. It’s about what it’s really like to live here, in an area that’s in the shadow of so much power, where the benefits of that power are not evenly distributed.
It’s all that, plus Tyler and Jaya having a lot of fun on the air.
Why did we name the podcast Brick & Vinyl? Whole neighborhoods in the Capital Region are constructed of brick brownstone, like South Troy, or Arbor Hill, or the Stockade. Many more neighborhoods are full of GE and Sears’ kit homes; the pre-fabricated, modular homes that were en vogue in the 20th century; notorious for their vinyl siding.
You can check out our first episode here:
In it, Tyler and Jaya interview Shae Fitzgerald, who was, when she was 22, nearly recruited in to notorious sex cult, NXIVM, which was based in Clifton Park, before it was busted up by the feds last year and founder Keith Raniere sent to prison.
Tyler McNeil has been busy.
“We’re not going to sleep on [the petition] because once we fall asleep on it, next thing you know, the park will be named after something or someone else,” Kevin Pryor said. “Even though there could be some other people whose names should be on some things, Geneva Pompey deserves that park.”
But Geneva Pompey didn’t ask for that.
“What my heart said right, I’m going to do it,” the Troy senior said through a facemask, while sitting on a recliner in her living room. “If [the park] is in my name or not, it doesn’t matter to me.”
The now-retired resident has made her presence known in the neighborhood, by admonishing children for playing in the streets, nourishing them, and cleaning up the lot long before it was an established park. At that time, it was the normal, neighborly thing to do, she said.
Tyler also wrote a story on Legacy Casanova’s efforts to keep a #BLM Pride flag flying at Gateway Park in Schenectady, despite the repeated efforts of vandals to tear it down.
The Schenectady social justice activist won’t stop hanging flags, no matter how many are torn down.
This is the fourth LGBTQ+ Black Lives Matter flag replaced in Schenectady’s Gateway Plaza within nearly a month. Should vandalism continue, expect another flag.
And another flag.
And plenty of extra flags on standby.
“I have people contacting me like, ‘you know, if it gets taken down again, I have a flag for you,” said Legacy Casanova, a 24-year-old activist with local social justice group, All of Us.
That’s what we have for this week’s dispatch from Them & Us Media.
See you next week!
Jaya Sundaresh