Lifestyle
Kacey Musgraves says a past boyfriend helped her become more accepting : Wild Card with Rachel Martin
A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity lately. That word is thrown around so much right now that I’m afraid it’s losing some of its power. But regardless, we all seem to be craving it, right? Real interactions with people. Authentic connections. The rough, messy truth of things. It’s definitely one of the big reasons I started Wild Card, and it’s what I want in my own life. I want it in my relationships, but I also want it in the music, the films and the books I consume, all the things.
Every artist is after authenticity in some way, but the thing I love about Kacey Musgraves is that she just is it. From the beginning of her career, the songs she wrote were just about the life she was living and how she saw the world. She sang about falling in love with fellow country musician Ruston Kelly and getting married to him. And then later on, she sang about falling out of love with him and getting divorced. But she also sings about smoking pot and queer relationships. And she’s the kind of artist who will put a disco song on one of her albums and not give two hoots if you think she’s not country enough, thank you very much.
Musgraves is making her art her way and she’s making it for herself. That other people dig it, that’s some sort of major fringe benefit that has put her at the top of the charts and won her album of the year at the Grammys in 2019 (and it was only the fourth country album to ever get that honor). Musgraves’ latest album is Deeper Well and she’s on tour now.
Kacey Musgraves — “Deeper Well” music video.
YouTube
This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly-selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.
Question 1: What’s something about the place you grew up that you couldn’t wait to leave behind?
Kacey Musgraves: First of all, I’m going to say that I had a wonderful childhood, but I did grow up in a very conservative part of East Texas.
Rachel Martin: Tell me the name of the town.
Musgraves: Golden. It’s really small. There is a post office, but there’s not a school. It’s not big enough for a school. So I think growing up there, it’s different than growing up in a city where there’s, like, a million different viewpoints and there’s a million different religions and a million different cultures and languages. There’s a lack of diversity where I grew up. And I just had this urge to see the world and travel – that’s when I started really understanding that everyone is the same, you know? And I wouldn’t have gotten that if I would have stayed there.

Martin: I get that. I came from a small town in Idaho. I totally felt that too. And I can’t figure out how I knew any different, you know? Because it was just my whole world and my family had been, like, from the same place for five, six generations.
Musgraves: Right.
Martin: Did you have family who lived in other places? Like, how did it come into your imagination that there was a different way to live?
Musgraves: I think it’s just a natural curiosity. And thinking that really anything is possible. And that I don’t have to do it the same way as everyone else.
Question 2: Was there a bedrock truth in your life that you came to find out wasn’t true?
Musgraves: This also gets to where I grew up and preconceived notions about certain things. For instance, the acceptance of people in the queer community was kind of nonexistent where I grew up. I could count on one hand the amount of times I encountered an openly gay person. That’s not to say that I encountered people who weren’t closeted. But, there was a majority view of, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” That kind of mentality.
So I left Texas with this kind of idea that, “Well, people choose to be that way.” And when I moved to Nashville, I started making friends in that community. And I had a boyfriend at the time who did me a huge favor. He was from a completely different upbringing than me, a liberal family in upstate New York. He had a ton of gay friends and he just sat me down one day and we had a real hard and honest conversation about it.
Musgraves performs in Nashville in March.
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA
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Jason Kempin/Getty Images for ABA
He was like, “Listen, you do not have the right perspective on this.” He just helped me completely open up my eyes and see and I was just like, “Damn, I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to get out of where I came from, and to have my eyes and my heart open to this really wonderful community, and they’ve made me way more well rounded.”
Martin: You talk about queer relationships in your art. I mean, that’s clearly intentional. Do you feel sort of an obligation to use your platform that way?
Musgraves: Well, one of the best compliments that I’ve ever received in terms of my music and who I am in the world is that occasionally people will come up to me and say, “Hey, I grew up in a really small town like you did, and I’ve always loved country music, but I’ve never felt invited to that party.” Honestly, it really wasn’t about ever pushing buttons. It just was me observing what was happening around me and doing my job as a songwriter to put that in the form of a song.
And to me, country music is always about real people, real stories. And why wouldn’t it continue to evolve?
Question 3: Does time feel like a positive or negative force in your life right now?
Musgraves: Honestly, the passage of time is something that like, really f***s me up.
Martin: Really?

Musgraves: Yeah. There’s something so melancholy about it. Just seeing your grandparents get older, your parents get older, relationships changing. Looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles that weren’t there before. It’s really trippy, like how it moves and bends.
I’m just thankful. I’m thankful for it. I’m thankful for the time I have. And I do feel like life keeps getting better as I get older. That’s something that everyone that’s older than you tells you, and you’re like, “Yeah, whatever.” But, I do feel that.
I’m in a period of time where this chapter is not defined by anyone else but me. And I don’t know what’s going to come next. And that’s rare for me. I feel like I’m usually jumping to the next relationship because I love companionship and it’s just been really nice to like, slow down time and enjoy exactly where I’m at. And enjoy the not-knowing of what or who might be next, you know?
Martin: That’s such a lovely answer. Because it’ll come.
Kacey Musgraves’ acceptance speech after winning Album Of The Year at the 2019 GRAMMYs.
YouTube
Musgraves: Yeah, and it’s funny, even in terms of looks, you know, we see pictures of ourselves five years ago and we’re like, “Damn, I wish I would’ve known how great or how in shape I was then. I was so down on myself.”
Rachel: Kacey, we are the youngest we will ever be right now!
Musgraves: Right now! I know. I hate it. I’m just kidding. When I kick off my shows I’m like, “Hey, everybody, we’re existing right now at the same exact time on this crazy planet in the middle of this crazy universe. It’s a miracle that we are here at the same time. And this moment right now, who you’re with tonight, what you’re going through in your life, what I’m going through in my life, is never going to be the same as it is right now. So, let’s just be as present as possible.”
It’s just a nice reminder, like, let’s put our phones down. I mean, you know, take some cute pictures, get the good angles, tag me [laughs]. But let’s be present.
Lifestyle
In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping
Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.
NEON
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NEON
In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:
Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!
Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.
I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.
Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)
He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.
So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.
Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.
It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”
Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.
There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.
Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.
Lifestyle
Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade
AUSTIN, Texas – Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade.
The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates.
What they’re saying:
Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion.
“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.
Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.
“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.
“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.
Dig deeper:
The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.
“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.
The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction.
There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.
City officials say these projects will bring more jobs.
The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.
“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen
Lifestyle
After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’
Wyle, who spent 11 seasons on ER, returns to the hospital in The Pitt. Now in Season 2, the HBO series has earned praise for its depiction of the medical field. Originally broadcast April 21, 2025.
Hear The Original Interview
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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’
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