It was that time again. Thursday evening, eight o'clock. Time for the Morris Musings podcast, live on Radio 1, to listen to on the radio, or even to watch on the Radio 1 page on the MLBC website.
The camera showed a simple setup. A relatively small room, a curved table, two comfortable chairs. In one corner, an upright piano. A low stand holding an upright microphone with a pop screen on the table, by the chair directly facing the camera. A laptop sitting near it on one side; on the other side sat a mug with a picture of several quadruped cats with horrified expressions and the text "Lesbians eat WHAT?!" printed on it. By the other chair, a similar stand with microphone and pop screen sat on the table, and a mug with a picture of a rainbow-colored cartoon unicorn with long eyelashes and the text "Born THIS Gay" printed on it. On the back wall, the MLBC and Radio 1 logos.
In the chair facing the camera was the podcast hostess, Catrin Morris. A very pretty Burmilla cat woman of average size, with a light milk-chocolate-brown fur that darkened to a deeper milk-chocolate-brown over her arms and her legs, all the way down to the tips of her fingers and toes, and it also covered her entire face. Her long, sleek tail was a tint or two darker brown yet, and her long hair, coming all the way down to the base of her tail, was yet darker brown, as were her long and graceful whiskers. She had a pair of warm golden eyes, and the top two buttons of her button-down shirt being undone showed just enough of her chest to reveal the top part of a light beige-colored heart shape over her chest.
In the other chair was a guest. A rabbit woman who was well-known, indeed famous, throughout the country of Minnaluna as the lead singer/songwriter and lead pianist of the band Virgin Snow. White of fur, with a rare form of heterochromia which caused her eyes to be albino-pink on the top half of the iris, and pale blue on the bottom half of the iris. Those same colors, adopted as part of her image, showing in several small heart-shaped fur tattoos across her hips, as light pink heart-shapes dyed over the ends of her long ears that were kinked over forwards from halfway up, on her small pointy poof of a tail which was dyed entirely in the light pink color, and in two heart-shaped fur tattoos on her right cheek. Also her shoulder-length hair, dyed pale blue, with a few light pink locks on the inside around her neck. And of course there was the row of five rainbow-colored small hoop earrings in the outer rim of her left ear, near the bottom in the upright part of the ear, and there were the numbers of colorful bangles around both her wrists, jingling and jangling away with every motion she made with her paws. Yes, this was the one and only Charlene Matthewson, better known as Snowy.
They were calmly talking a bit, although the microphones were muted so nothing was heard. The only thing that was heard was the eight o'clock newscast. Once that had ended, there were a few commercials. Catrin already turned to her laptop, tapping some keys and sliding a finger over the mousepad. Another tap of a key, and the commercials were followed by the Morris Musings jingle.
When the jingle had also ended, a tap on another key un-muted the microphones, and Catrin leaned towards the microphone in front of her a bit.
"A-a-and good evening, Minnaluna! The time is eleven minutes past eight, the date is Thursday, the thirteenth of August twenty twenty-six, the weather has been disrespectfully warm today, but right now it's a much more pleasant, and bearable, twenty-five C, or seventy-seven F for those of you who may prefer that. Thank you, Phil and Silvia, for the past two hours of entertainment with your Sil and Phil Show, but now it's my turn! That's right folks, it's your considerate and calm Catrin here, ready to fill your ears with some more Morris Musings. Right here on Radio One through the airwaves, and for those of you who use the app or the website to watch online..." She cheerily waved at the camera. "Heya folks! You have a one-up over the listeners, because you can already see; I have a guest, and not just any guest! Sitting here next to me, and boy oh boy does it make my heart twitterpated, is the one, the only, the lovely Charlene Matthewson, founder, lead singer, songwriter, lead pianist and guitarist of that amazing group, Virgin Show! Hooo!" She turned to the rabbit woman a bit. "Is that the right word? Twitterpated?"
"Well, it means infatuated or obsessed," the white-furred rabbit woman chortled. "So it may be correct? Are you obsessed with me? Should I worry? Heehee!"
"Ah, well, obsessed is rather strong, but I certainly am infatuated!" Catrin chortled as well. "Thank you so much for joining us tonight, Charlene; it's truly an honour, especially considering how busy you are. Aside from what we're supposed to be talking about tonight, aren't you also working on a new album?"
"That's correct," Charlene nodded with a smile. "We're working on our eighth album at the moment, and our agent is already hard at work securing tour dates for the promotional tour. Some of the venues have to be locked in almost a year ahead of time, you know. But we have already done a few small gigs at our steady joints in Fillamy to try out some of the new stuff."
"Any hints on when we can expect the new album to be released?"
Charlene showed a playful grin.
"Sometime next year. We're actually not entirely sure when exactly, it will depend a bit on how generous our muses will be. As of today, we have nine new songs, but we're aiming for at least twelve for an album, so we still have some work to do."
"Are you going to sing something for us tonight?" Catrin chortled while playfully batting her eyelashes.
"Oh yes, be glad to." That playful grin showed again. "But it won't be any of the new stuff. There's actually a very lovely tune that goes very well with the new cause I'm currently representing, so I'll do that if you want me to."
"Honestly, anything you sing is amazing, so I'll take it," Catrin chortled. "But of course, you already alluded to it; you're here for a reason! Why don't you tell us a little more about that?"
Charlene sat back in the chair and crossed her legs with a jangle of bangles as she was also wearing a set of them around her left ankle, and took a sip from the mug.
"By all means! See, as you and almost everyone else knows, this entire big country of ours is pretty much one huge nudist colony." She raised a finger with another jangle of bangles. "And a number of people already get offended by that word; colony. Ridiculous! It's just a word, people! And besides, one of the meanings of the word is, a group of people who share the same interest, living together in a way that is separate from other people. So if you look at it objectively; because of the climate in this country, everyone here is a nudist both by choice and by necessity, we all share that interest, and we all live together in this country away from other people in all the other countries around us. That in itself defines this entire country as a nudist colony."
"But it's the more common definition that rubs people the wrong way, isn't it?" Catrin brought up, doing some tapping on her laptop. "It says here, colony; a country or area controlled politically by a more powerful country that is often far away."
"And that makes it even more ridiculous," Charlene nodded. "Everyone in this country knows we're not controlled politically by another country; we're a sovereign nation, we control ourselves with our own politics, and we do a darn good job at it, too! But it's the connotation, you know. The word colony evokes visions of hundreds, even thousands of years ago when large empires sailed the globe, found more land, and took a bunch of it by force to control it, establishing colonies. But come on now, people! Listen to what I just said; hundreds, even thousands of years ago! In other words; way, way, wa-a-ay in the past, in times when our great-great-great-great-great-grandparents weren't even born yet. How could anyone in this day and age possibly feel bad or even guilty about something that happened so ridiculously long ago and they could not possibly have anything to do with? It's stupid! And it should stop! So hear me, people; this country is a nudist colony! A colony, colony, a nudist..." She leaned way over and almost took the microphone into her mouth, making a very loud and deep voice, "...COLONYYY!"
Catrin laughed and cheerfully shook her head.
"Alright, I think they get the point, Charlene!"
Charlene sat back again and brushed a few locks of her pale blue hair out of her face with another jangle of bangles.
"I'm sorry, but people getting all up in arms over something as dumb as a word just rubs me the wrong way. But anyways! That's not what I'm here for, now is it?"
"That's right, so why don't we get back to what you are here for?" Catrin chortled.
"Right! So where was I?" Charlene giggled. "Oh yeah, so as I was saying; pretty much everyone in this country knows that this entire country is pretty much one huge nudist colony, because of the climate. Of course, in everyday life, at work and in shops and everything, people still wear clothes if just for common decency, but there are a number of people who even have to do their work naked and go shopping naked and do everything else naked because they have a very thick or dense fur that isolates and traps a lot of heat, and wearing clothes would actually cause physical harm to them. But in general, nudism is still mainly practiced at home, or at any of the many nudist facilities available throughout the country. Now..!" The slender rabbit woman sat back again amidst a multitude of jangles. "Over the past few years, this country has seen a couple of spikes in immigration; most notably over the period of twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, and a new spike has been forming since the end of twenty twenty-four and is still growing to this day."
"Can we assume that those periods of time are indicative of exactly where all those new immigrants are coming from?" Catrin smiled.
Charlene nodded.
"In a way, we can. Because yes; sixty to eighty percent of the immigrants this country has seen in those periods were from the US, with the rest mainly coming from the eastern parts of Eurasia, and a little bit of the African continent."
"So what is the problem with that?" Catrin smiled. "There has to be some kind of problem with that, otherwise you wouldn't be here to talk about a new cause you're spearheading."
Charlene took a calm sip or two from her mug, jingling and jangling her bangles all over the place as she also made a dismissive gesture with her free paw.
"It's not so much a problem, really. Let me be very clear; people immigrating into this country is never a problem. Everyone is welcome here! What we are seeing, however, is that naturally, all those new people coming here are bringing along the norms and values and parts of the culture they grew up with. That's normal, but it's also somewhat problematic, as along with the spikes in immigration, we've been seeing spikes in body-shaming and orientation-bashing online. And that has to stop! It's only natural that when people come here from other countries, any other country, they take along the norms and values and parts of the culture they grew up with and grew up in. But please, people, please realize that if you aim to live in another country, with another culture, that you have to adapt to that culture. We've been doing our thing here for thousands of years, we're not gonna change any of that just for you, you're the one who should at least consider changing, and if you can't, at least accept what the norms and values are here, and that they may be quite a bit different from what you've come to know."
"So how do these problems manifest themselves?" Catrin asked.
"As I mentioned, we've been seeing increases in online body-shaming and orientation-bashing," Charlene said. "As well as people being openly shocked at all the open nudism here, and all the open gay relationships and marriages here, and many people being insecure, even being scared, not knowing how to express themselves or being afraid to open themselves to the opportunities that are here."
"Could you maybe clarify that a bit?" Catrin smiled.
"Certainly," Charlene nodded. "See, a lot if not most of what we're seeing is reactions from people, be it online, or in person, or in answer to talkshows on the radio or TV, and the majority of those reactions are along the lines of "I see so many nudist facilities around where I now live, but I don't dare to go to any of them even though I want to" or "I would really like to be a nudist, but I'm so ugly, I'm afraid people will be disgusted when they see me". That can be a really serious problem, you know! A bad self-image or low self-esteem can be quite detrimental to a person. Especially with the shift there's been in the past couple of decades to a much softer language because suddenly many people started deciding that certain words are offensive. Bullshit! I say again; they are just words! There's nothing offensive about a word; it's the way words are used that adds the offensive intentions."
"Can you give an example?" Catrin smiled.
"I certainly can," Charlene nodded again. "Take the drummer of my band, Flo. She's a sand cat, and therefore her natural build is very compact, and she has a quite thick and dense fur. Some years ago, in an interview, I referred to her as our 'deliciously chubby short-stack', and hoo boy did I get a ton of hate for that! People were all in a tizzy; "chubby is offensive! You can't call someone chubby!" and "short-stack is offensive and derogative! How dare you call anyone a short-stack!" Well heck, that's what Flo calls herself! She says it all the time; "I'm such a chubby short-stack!" And she's damn proud of it, too! It was only because of her saying that, that I referred to her like that. Or take our guitarist, Michelle. One time when we were rehearsing for a concert, she was doing a bunch of twirling moves and got the cable of her guitar wrapped around her feet which caused her to stumble. If it hadn't been for a stack of amps she could catch herself on, she would have faceplanted the stage. And what did she say? She laughed and said "oh damn, I'm so derpy!" Well, about half of the venue crew just about fainted with shock over her using that word. You can't sayyy that!" The rabbit woman threw up her arms with a myriad of jangles. "Please tell me what the heck is wrong with the word 'derpy'! Because I sure as heck don't understand that!"
"Derpy is a very cute word, if you ask me, it sounds endearing," Catrin nodded. "My daughter uses it all the time, she's had lots of 'derpy-moments' as she calls them."
"Exactly!" Charlene nodded as well. "There is no offense or shame in words, they're just words. For instance, if someone is a hundred pounds overweight, they're fat, and it should still be absolutely fine to call them fat. There's no shame in that, it's just observation of a fact. But unfortunately, that is one of the things we keep seeing, along with those other things I mentioned; people are afraid to open themselves to nudism because they're apprehensive or even afraid of what other people might think because of what they look like. Too many people still think that because they are fat or even just a bit chubby, or because they're very tall or gangly, or have unusual proportions, that automatically means they're ugly."
"And that is what your new cause aims to contradict?" Catrin smiled.
"It's not my cause, but yes," Charlene nodded. "I chose to represent it because it's one of the things I stand up for."
"Right. So how did this get started, what is the name of it, and how does it work?" Catrin asked with another smile.
"The movement was born out of the nudist club I'm a member of," Charlene smiled. "We call it BE; Beautiful Everybody. We've joined with several other nudist clubs in the region, as the one I'm a member of is female-only, and we aim to include everyone. And what we do is approach the subject with humor, we're being jocular about it."
"In what way?" Catrin chortled.
"For instance, we invite everyone who has been voicing such concerns to come to one of our club's meetings," Charlene explained with a smile. "Clothing optional, and we do point out that for those first meetings, to put these new people at ease, we'll all be clothed and they can be as well. And we all bring some of our most embarrassing pictures with us, from our childhoods and even recent ones."
Catrin tilted her head and let go a short laugh.
"That sounds kind of amusing, but how does that help?"
"Better than you'd think," Charlene giggled. "Let's say, for instance, one of our insecure, concerned visitors is a woman who has a bit of a belly, maybe thick glasses, maybe buck teeth or something, and she's afraid to even take off her jacket because she's convinced people will find her ugly. So I approach her, and I ask, am I pretty? Ten to one she says yes. And then I pull out a picture, show it her and say, well, here's how I used to look. And it's a childhood picture of me with all my baby fat on me, a pudgy little poof of a bunny with ears flopping over my face and huge buckteeth sticking out of my face, and the figure of a T-rex with too long legs and too short arms."
Catrin laughed louder.
"That sounds adorable!"
Charlene grinned cheerfully.
"Usually, that's pretty much the same thing said by whoever I show that picture to. So in response I tell them; if this is cute, then you are cute."
"That's amazing!" Catrin laughed. "Although I could see it not working all the time, right?"
"Sure, you don't just erase a lifelong stigma with a single picture and a single positive remark," Charlene nodded with a smile. "It takes time, and it takes work. But it is usually the way to crack open the door a bit, and we have plenty more ways to help these new people to get at ease and become more open and brave."
Catrin made a prompting motion with a paw.
"Such as..?"
"Such as, a large number of the members of our nudist club," Charlene smiled. "Over the consecutive meetings, there's less and less clothes, and we inspire the apprehensive new folks by freely and openly stripping off the clothes right then and there in front of them. And we have members who are overweight in more or lesser degree, we have members who are gangly or wiry, we have members with unusual bodily proportions, we have members who are missing limbs even, and some who have spectacular scars on their body."
"Dare I ask for examples?" Catrin chortled.
Charlene gave a light shrug.
"One of our members is a beautiful wolfess who once got her left arm caught between the toothed rollers of a machine when she tried to unstick a jam. She's missing two fingers on her left hand and her lower left arm is all mangled, with long wavy scars up to above her left elbow. Another one is a lioness who once got struck by a broken cable, and she has a long whip mark from her right side all along her back to her left shoulder."
"Yipes..." Catrin breathed.
Charlene smiled.
"Sounds pretty gruesome, yes, but they're the ones who make the most impact, you know. You should see the faces when women like that freely and openly strip off their clothes and unabashedly reveal their full nudity, along with their scars. "Ohmigosh you're so brave!" And they always give the same response; if I can be brave about the disfigurements of my body, you can be brave about your body." A cheery chortle rolled from Charlene's lips. "And they usually end up challenging our newcomers, in a jocular, tongue-in-cheek manner much like how we all did it as kids, you know; I showed you mine, now you show me yours. Nine out of ten times, that works like a charm."
Catrin let go another laugh.
"I can see that! And I wish I could actually see that as well, hahahee!" She took a sip from her mug to recollect herself and smiled. "So in short, to wrap this up; what is the message you aim to bring forward with this cause, this movement?"
"Don't be afraid, and don't be ashamed," Charlene smiled. "There is no reason anyone should think less of themselves, just because of what they look like. Everyone is beautiful in their own right and in their own manner, so don't be afraid, don't be nervous, don't be apprehensive, just BE."
"A wonderful message," Catrin smiled. "If anyone, immigrant or not, wants more information about this, where can they find it?"
"All local nudist clubs and facilities in the city or town where they live have websites they could visit, and if they want to know specifically about this cause, they can go to justbe dot co dot ml, with justbe as one word," Charlene smiled. "That website also lists all the nudist clubs in the country who participate in this cause, which are, at the moment, eighty-six percent of all the nudist clubs in the country, and more are still signing up as the word is stretching towards the east."
"Fantastic," Catrin smiled. "So you heard it here, folks! If you even have the smallest sliver of doubt about your body, go right on ahead and visit justbe dot co dot ml and get rid of that doubt!" She turned to Charlene with a cheery grin. "So, to wrap up the wrapping up; will you sing something for us? We have a piano right over there, totally coincidentally, honest."
"Of course, every radio studio has a random piano sitting around," Charlene giggled. "But I did promise I would, and a promise is a promise, so here we go."
She got up from her chair and walked over to a piano sitting in a corner of the room.
"Charlene Snowy Matthewson, ladies and gentlemen!" Catrin smiled at her microphone while gesturing at the rabbit woman sitting down behind the piano.
Drawing in a deep breath while resting her paws on the keys, the white-furred rabbit woman smiled quietly and closed her eyes. Her fingers drew a slow tune from the piano, after several bars followed by her clear, gentle voice.
"When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me.
Speaking words of wisdom.
Let it be.
And in my hour of darkness,
she is standing right in front of me.
Speaking words of wisdom.
Let it be.
Let it be,
Let it be,
Let it be,
Let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom,
Let it be."
Well, that was fitting.
