(insects chirping) (birds cawing, squawking) (serene electronic music) (electronic music pulsates) (faint overlapping chatter) (electronic music continues) (car whirs by) (soft acoustic music) (door creaks) - Okay, there's like a few things I feel like we needed to bring outside.

- It was probably around '82, '81 the first time I came here.

I can't remember.

I'm suffering from CRS.

- What's that?

- Can't remember.

(both laughing) (upbeat music) (train whirs and rattles) - Oh, it was a railroad station here.

You're standing in where the tickets were sold.

- [Lee-Ann] I did not know that.

- This binder, I have started for Owen and Jesse down at Babes to show the railroad building as it was through the years of its changes.

At one point in time, they would have people ride the train from Randolph to another train that went over to Rochester.

(muffled voice from nearby) They're doing something upstairs.

- [Director] What is it, do you know?

(muffled rock music) - They've got some party going on upstairs, which I didn't know about when I said this.

- Oh, that's fine.

(buoyant blues guitar) (overlapping chatter) - I can't remember what year the last train was outta here, but I was in the Cub Scouts and we were the last ones on, I believe.

(swingin' blues music) And then there was a barbershop in the back here also.

- It's been a bar since I can remember, but when I was younger, my uncle Mike ran the barbershop here.

- In the early days, yeah, it was (chuckles), it was crazy.

(fast-paced rock music) - Can I say that, cocaine days?

That's all right?

(sniffs) It was the cocaine era.

You know, and there was a lot of it.

I don't know if you remember that- - I wasn't coming in too much- - But there was a lot of it going around, and um, I must say I did partake, bartending.

(singing indistinctly) - Karaoke is coming up.

That may be my segment in the show.

- Ah, Griz is a karaoke hound.

- My Nickname's Griz, and I attained that in 1980 when I shot a bear with my bow and arrow.

- I like whiskey.

I don't know what else to say, you know?

Some people go, "Buh-b-buh-b-buh-buh!"

I go, "Thank you!"

- [Chris] Nick is my dad, but he's my stepdad.

- [Nick] His mother actually married my best friend.

After a while, don't you know, it's one of those Vermont things, long winter nights and all that, and things switched around.

(melancholy blues guitar) - That mirror is where my mother told my father that she was pregnant with me.

(gruff blues guitar) I have sat on this bar in a car seat.

- Most everybody that comes to happy hour are the regulars from long ago.

Nick, Drake, Church- - Helen.

- Chuck, Helen.

- Helen, Helen always got the first drink of the day.

- She did.

- Yep.

- Everybody called Helen "funnel."

And David- - What a horrible name.

Isn't that horrible?

I hated that for her.

- David Dartt said that to her one day and she turned around and slapped him.

I mean, hard.

- What were we thinking?

- [Owen] Uhh, we weren't thinking.

(mellow acoustic music) (amp feedback rings out) - I know for myself, I was just in a place where it almost felt like I needed to force quit.

Um, a total 180.

(calm melodic guitar) Jesse's brother and our sister-in-law moved to Bethel, and they had a kid and we came to visit that kid when he was a newborn.

There'd always been this idea, like a joking idea in the back of our minds whenever a cool bar closed in Chicago, and it was like, "Ah, we should buy that bar."

And when we walked into this bar, we just started dreaming and scheming.

You know, just looking around and saying, "What about this?"

Or, "What if we had dance parties in this space," you know?

- "What if we turned the lights on?"

- What if we turned the lights on?

What if we mopped the floor?

So suddenly, we were thinking about moving to Bethel.

(acoustic guitar strums) (car whirs by) - It was a factory town.

People were not making large incomes.

- Yeah, there's not so many jobs around here.

There really aren't any jobs around here.

- Bethel was part of New Hampshire and New York because both states wanted Vermont.

- Oh, God.

When I heard that two gay guys were gonna open a bar here, I thought, "Oh God, please."

- [Lenny] There was some articles in the newspapers, and it said, "It wouldn't be a gay bar.

It would be a bar for everybody."

- Hello, hello.

How you doing, friend?

- Not too bad, how are you?

- [Owen] If you walk in here smelling like cow because you just came from milking all day, that's okay.

- You again?

- You are welcome here.

I think it's like a modeling of we respect you, whoever you are.

That's the vision.

- Welcome to Babes.

♪ Well, you're born with nothin' and you die the same ♪ ♪ All through the middle, there's loss and gain ♪ ♪ Little bit of joy, little bit of pain ♪ ♪ Poignant verse in a dominant range ♪ (speaking indistinctly) - Awwww, all the way down.

(pool balls clack) (lively chatter) - Ahhhhh!

- They thought they had a problem with queer, until they started mingling out of necessity because this is where you come to share your being with the other people in the town.

(ethereal organ music) - You don't have a mascara.

- Hey, who's got a light?

- [Nick] Oh, right here.

- Those are good lighters.

- Yeah.

- [Lenny] Literally, like you spin the dime and you flatten it out on the other side and everything changed.

People started being aware that others exist and can exist together.

(indistinct chatter) - I walk by the window and I'm like, "Son of a *****, who is that?"

And he goes, "You see him every day almost."

(chuckles) - He got me, big time!

- No, you had a rib-cracker going on when you said, "Holy, Dink!

Look at this one we got coming in here!"

- [Speaker] Yeah, that sounds more like Tony.

(all laughing) - It could be.

It could be.

- That's what you say when you saw him workin' the pool table.

Got gold hair and everything!

(group chuckling) - Sounds like you, bro.

- Catch you later, Owen.

- [Owen] All right.

(speaking indistinctly) - [Speaker 1] Thank you, buddy.

- [Griz] He did a hell of a job.

(chuckles) I wouldn't have had a clue.

- [Speaker 2] I could never look that good as a woman.

- [Lenny] You know, some people do things and they just don't know.

Just ignorant.

Other people do things 'cause they want to be ignorant.

- (sighs) This guy.

I didn't serve him another drink.

He very quickly was like, "You should be lucky that I come to your faggot bar."

And then he wouldn't leave.

And he just kept saying that, "Oh, like you faggot, da, da, da.

You probably wanna suck my, you know?"

And I was just like, "Really not.

Like actually, really not.

(laughs) Time to go, time to go."

Yeah, then he wasn't welcome back for, well he didn't come back actually.

We didn't have to have that transformative conversation with him about how that made us feel, (chuckles) 'cause he just never came back.

And then he died.

I think that was the first time I remember somebody overtly to my face.

(train horn blares) - Yeah.

(upbeat music) - There's been some protest of sorts.

We've come here and, you know, there's a dead skunk outside under the deck, and so some not so friendly suggestions to what some people's beliefs are.

(somber music) - I think it was about a year ago, maybe two years now, they started finding these dead animals under the deck because of the stench.

And so to this day, as far as I know, there's been 23, 24, 'cause there was two last week.

(somber music) - [Owen] Our older regulars, they're all pissed about it.

They wanna start like a (laughs) 24-hour watch group.

And at first, it was like, maybe this is an accident, I don't know.

I mean, the first one was a dog's head in a bag.

So that seemed kind of intentional.

But um, this person is not well.

You don't just like chop off a dog's head and leave it somewhere and it's like casual.

(indistinct chatter) (faint music) (handgun popping) - [Griz] Did you hear that, Patty?

- [Patty] No, I didn't hear anything.

- [Chris] There was three little pops.

There was some dude coming up the tracks.

He was firing a handgun down over the bank.

- And he discharged a couple more times since he went down over the bank there.

- You never know.

It could be live, could be blank.

- Kind of disturbing activity.

(popping continues) - [Griz] Seven.

I think he just took a hit of reefer too.

- [Chris] Definitely, Griz, somebody with a little bit of mental health issues.

- Well, there's a lot of that going around these days.

(upbeat music) - You're up.

(country music over speakers) - [Crowd Member] Woooo, Griz!

♪ I'm not gonna lay around ♪ ♪ And whine and moan 'cause somebody ♪ ♪ Done done me wrong ♪ ♪ I ain't here for a long time ♪ ♪ I'm here for a good time ♪ ♪ So bring on the sunshine ♪ ♪ To hell with the red wine ♪ ♪ Pour me some moonshine ♪ (crowd cheering) ♪ When I'm gone, put it in stone ♪ ♪ He left nothing behind ♪ ♪ I ain't here for a long time ♪ ♪ I'm here for a good time ♪ (train horn blares) - Before this, this was a sparse place to come.

I stuck my head in the bar when I first moved here.

I thought, "Ooh, there's a bar."

It's like, and the bar stopped.

Everybody stared and I left.

- [JoAnne] I'm sure there were some looks at him and I in here together, you know?

- I had a few stares, but it wasn't the type of stare-troubling, shall I say.

Not to me anyway.

(slow blues guitar) - [JoAnne] Yeah, I don't like to get into the racism part of it, but it's alive here.

Bethel is more accepting I think now to our gay and lesbian people than they are to Black people.

Now, and that's odd to me.

Only because the Black people have been here forever, as far as we know, where our gays and lesbians stayed in closets for so long.

- [Owen] Vermont is intensely white.

Predominantly white.

And like that doesn't happen by accident anywhere in the country.

There's still a lot of families that, like, the way it all happened is from actual colonial land grants.

Yeah, it's just, it feels very complex.

(light acoustic guitar) - [Chris] I grew up on a dairy farm.

Family milked cows for a living.

So I've witnessed a lot of farms go out of business in the region since I've grown up.

- [Nick] They couldn't produce their milk at the prices that they can out west.

- [Chris] It's a lot of factory farms.

That's what's coming.

(distant small plane roars) ♪ Oh I have lost ♪ ♪ My one true lover ♪ ♪ I'm afraid ♪ ♪ It's for all time ♪ - There's lots of young families moving here and out of state folks can come in, just start off and have the equipment and get the nice greenhouses and just like make a business plan that works.

You kind of have to have money.

(distant hammering) - [Owen] We want to have respect for what came before and for the people that are here.

And that's just, I think, it's just part of the tension.

(faint upbeat blues music) - It was a while where young people weren't staying, so the call was like, "Bring young people here!"

And now they're coming.

(upbeat guitar music) - We started live trapping the groundhogs.

Rita would spray paint the side of the groundhog a different color, each groundhog.

- Oh my god, how would she- - And then we'd drive it, then we'd drive it over the mountain into Rochester- - Nah-uh.

- And we'd drop it off.

(laughs) - [Speaker] And so, wait, did some of the same ones come back?

- No.

- [Speaker] No, you never saw that?

- [Caiius] Two gluten-free, mustard.

The buns did not hold up as well as I wanted them to.

- Oh, that's gluten-free life.

- Classic gluten free.

- [Caiius] Yeah, okay, there we go.

- I enjoy the young people that come in here.

I can't always relate to them, but- - [Tom] Mom's pushing 94, coming right up.

- Oh lordy.

- [Tom] You don't even have a chance.

- [Dennis] The only thing worse than gettin' old is not gettin' old.

- What time's the dance party start?

- Eight o'clock.

- Eight?

- [Caiius] Yeah, I don't know why they blocked the driveway off so early.

- Early, yeah.

- Some things are getting lost, but I feel like there's a communication happening in ways that I don't always see.

♪ And they were singing ♪ ♪ Bye, bye, Miss American Pie ♪ ♪ Drove my Chevy to the levee ♪ ♪ But the levee was dry ♪ ♪ Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey 'n rye ♪ ♪ Singin' this'll be the day that I die ♪ ♪ This'll be the day ♪ - As far as sniper rifles and being accurate, I think the Weatherby 270 has it.

- Yeah, eight pounds, nine ounces or something.

- It's a heavy gun.

- [Speaker] The heavy gun absorbs some of the- - It does.

- Recoil.

- I just got chills thinking about the Weatherby, shootin' that.

(group laughing) - Yeah.

- It's so exciting.

- I think Karen actually rubbed his back for a second.

(all laughing) - My great Uncle Charles Jr., he was trying to load his Weatherby inside the kitchen.

Yeah, he shot it into the floor.

(group laughing) He lived on hearing aids after that.

(laughter continues) - [Owen] Hey, Smidgers!

- [Kel] She's sneaking out back there.

- [Owen] One of our QDP DJs, Kel, just like loves so much that it is a space where all these people are interacting with each other because I think that is the work that we need to do as queer folks is like, interact.

(chuckles) (soft acoustic guitar) (overlapping chatter) - You know, I'm 52 years old.

I'm going through one of the most challenging times of my life and Owen and Jesse, if this place wasn't here, I'd be living in a car or a tent or.

- [Chuck] They've been, uh, very inspiring to me at times and becoming such good friends With all of us.

(overlapping chatter) - You know, even growing up here, I've had a kind of a confusing relationship with locals.

Like I've never exactly felt like a local.

I also, um, didn't know I was trans for a while, so there just this feeling of being an outsider and not really exactly knowing why.

And it's been really cool seeing how much they really love and accept and embrace Jesse and Owen.

(Intro to "I Got You, Babe" by Sonny and Cher) ♪ They say we're young and we don't know ♪ ♪ We won't find out until we grow ♪ (audience cheering) ♪ Well, I don't know if all that's true ♪ ♪ 'Cause you got me, and baby I got you ♪ (cheering continues) ♪ Babe ♪ ♪ I got you babe ♪ - There's this level navigating the homophobia, particularly 'cause we're perceived as like two men, right, so that's like very specific.

I don't know how many of our regulars know that we're trans, and that feels like the other piece of the puzzle.

- "Oh my god, they're gay.

You know, they're gay and transgender?"

- (scoffs) Ugh, it was- - Who cares?

You know What I mean?

(guitar strums dissonant chords) (lively chatter) - I personally prefer that people know.

And that's part of what informs this space.

But I also don't need to have like conversations with all these people about like my gender journey, you know?

♪ Oh no, not I ♪ ♪ I will survive ♪ (new song thumps over speakers) - We have a big queer dance party happening in the parking lot tonight at the bar.

It's gonna be great.

Dancing under the stars.

Dancing with the stars.

You know, the goal is to share space with each other, grow, heal, but not create an illusion of safety necessarily.

(bluesy guitar music) - [Chris] I'm sick of taking dead animals out of here, and Jesse and Owen put a camera down there and they caught the guy on live feed.

- Did they get a motive?

Just 'cause the guy's not obviously a few fries short of a happy meal, but- - Them being trans, I don't think he's coming after that.

He used to date the bartender here.

- She's worked a bunch of places, you know.

She's worked at a bar in Randolph for years.

He isn't throwing dead animals under that and so god knows.

I'm kind of writing it off to, uh, being real homophobic.

Um, I guess he's been getting a lot of, uh, you know, email or whatever you call it.

(scoffs) I don't know anything about that.

But, uh, yeah.

He'd been getting a lot of bad response.

(train rattles) - It's like really pressing up on my values, 'cause everybody is pretty much like, "You gotta call the cops."

And some people are like, "It's a hate crime!"

And I know how those things play out.

I have a sense of what the criminal legal system would do in this situation, what the punishment would look like.

And I don't think it would actually address why this person is doing this.

Here's the silver lining is like, it's a great opportunity for community accountability and like not using a police model and asking our people in the town that we live in, we all live in this town.

This guy lives right up the road.

Can you help us stop this guy from doing this?

And it's not over yet.

I don't know how it's gonna end, but.

(pop music) - [Griz] I'm gonna take off.

I'm gonna go weed whack and eat.

(door creaks) - Bye, Grizer!

- Enjoy the rest of your very busy evening.

I know it's going to be.

- It's gonna be awesome.

- You're all warmed up for it, and I'm gonna go in my air conditioning and cool down a little bit, you know what I mean?

(music thumps through speakers) (soft music plays) (bell chimes) - [Dennis] They're still comin'.

There's a bunch that ain't, but they're dead.

I'm on the next page of the book of life.

(chuckles) (electronic music) - [Chuck] Every part of your life you're changing without you even realizing, because you're just figuring it's your normal day of life.

But it isn't.

Life circulates as you go through it.

It changes every 10 years no matter how you look at it.

(upbeat music) (indistinct bar chatter) (bar crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (singing indistinctly) (upbeat music) (singing indistinctly) (crowd cheering) (train horn blaring) (indistinct singing) (upbeat music) ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who (who) am I (I) feel so free ♪ ♪ Who, how, what, why ♪ ♪ Who (who), how, what, why ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who (who) am I (I) feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who (who) am I (I) feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I to feel so free ♪ ♪ Who am I ♪ ♪ Who (who) am I (I) feel so free ♪ (insects chirping) ♪ Oooooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ I've been thinking a lot ♪ ♪ About the future ♪ ♪ The future holds a spring I've yet to see ♪ ♪ And I hope you'll all be there ♪ ♪ When we cross over ♪ ♪ I got a lot of friends I'd like to see ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Pretty flowers ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Pretty flowers ♪ (light guitar music)