Here’s a feeling many of us can relate to: You’re in traffic, or at the grocery store, or at the coffee spot and someone who doesn’t look quite like a Hudson Valley native does something that might seem at first glance a little rude, or a little pushy or maybe just a little out of place for the situation. You look at them, your brows furrow, your blood pressure rises, and the word, often modified by other words unfit for a family website, seems to come to you out of nowhere — “Cidiot!”

The not-too-complimentary term, also sometimes spelled "Citiot," for a person originating from south of the northern borders of Rockland and Westchester counties, a.k.a. “downstate” New York, has become common in recent years as more city people have taken up residence here. To say that there’s been some cultural friction between old-timers and newcomers is perhaps understating things, but to say that newcomers have ruined the place is perhaps overstating things. But once people from different backgrounds get to know each other on a personal basis, understanding and affinity usually rises on both ends of the equation. Because it’s always a lot easier to be pissed off at a one-dimensional category than a multidimensional human being.

Toward the goal of more understanding between newcomers and natives, Mat Zucker, host of the podcast “Cidiot” and an eight-year Red Hook resident, has put out a song. Also called “Cidiot,” the number, described as a "little pop, a little hip hop, a little soul, a little sarcastic and very truthful," chronicles the pitfalls and foibles of the newly arrived as they try to navigate life in their new and radically different environment.

“What I wanted to create wasn’t just music,” said Zucker, who said he originally conceived “Cidiot” as a theme for his podcast, which explores Hudson Valley life from a newcomer's perspective, but then realized it had the potential to be more. “I wanted to create a standalone song in the spirit of what it’s like to learn how to live up here.”

Being not musically inclined personally, Zucker reached out to friends El Seuco and the Don, a musical duo working out of Space Studios in Red Hook. One of the two, Paul Rivers Bailey, has lived in Kingston for several years. (Ben Senterfit is the other member of the duo.)

“So we set out to create a little ballad about the spirit of Cidiot,” Zucker said. “They knew how to turn the concept into an original song.”

After they finished the track, they thought it might get more attention as a video, so the three put together an animation to accompany it. “It would be great if it attracts more people to the podcast, but even if it doesn't, music and video are another great way to get the story of something out there to other people,” said Zucker.

The song’s a catchy tale of a newbie just come up from the city and their struggles adapting to a new life where you stand out, things close much earlier and, no, you can’t always get an Uber when you need one. (This reporter can personally relate to the part of taking an unplanned stroll down Route 9G in the middle of the night, but an Uber or lack thereof had nothing to do with it.)

So what’s the message behind the music? “It’s an encouragement and a cheerleader for adjusting to a new place … a less urban environment,” Zucker said. “It’s all the foibles and the challenges, with a wink and a smile, of learning to live somewhere differently … It was a very humbling experience for me and I think it would be for anybody. I wanted to tell it with a smile.”

A longer-term goal is to foster the knitting together of the two camps into a unified community. “I’m hoping that the podcast and the song will do a little bit of the work to bring the two together,” Zucker said. “I’m hoping that people who are local … that are from here will see that we’re poking fun at ourselves — I hope they get a laugh out of it. I’m hoping the folks who move up here, like me, whether they become a weekender or full-time like we have, get coached, because I think they need some coaching on how to better behave and be acclimated to life up here. So I think there’s a little more onus on the folks moving up here.”

To check out Cidiot the podcast, click here. To watch “Cidiot” the video, click here.