Welcome to the Wallop, a sort of Wyoming history/Wyoming what the fuck podcast. My name is Jeff Victor, I'm a journalist and graduate student living in Laramie, Wyoming, and this is my first attempt at a podcast.
Calling it "the Wallop" probably brings to mind another podcast you might have heard of: the Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds. You could call this a loving, local ripoff of that much funnier podcast. But we'll do things a little differently here, and a little drunker. Imagine that the Dollop, Behind the Bastards, and a pickup truck hauling several crates of moonshine became horribly mangled in a horrific crash on a remote country road. This podcast is basically the lifeless wreckage of that collision.
The first couple of episodes will feature my friend and former roommate, Ryan Foley, who has a deep understanding of progressive politics in the state. But he won't always be my guest. I'm hoping to pull in others and feature a variety of voices here. We'll explore the people, events, and themes that built our fucked up little state. And oh yeah, we'll probably curse quite a bit.
The topics will vary greatly. Sometimes, we'll dig into the distant past to tug on threads still present in our politics, education system, or culture today. Sometimes, we'll highlight a contemporary rich asshole who treats the Wyoming governorship as if it's something he's owed. We'll travel from the sometimes bitter legislative politics in Cheyenne to the deadly and wild expanses of Yellowstone. Sometimes, our subject will be admirable. Sometimes, they'll be monstrous.
And the only thing my guests will know before sitting down to learn and laugh and groan and occasionally scream is that their state is about to get a lot weirder, and they are about to get a bit drunker.
I hope you'll tune in.
