You Can Only Be Young and Dumb for So Long (Ep. 89 - Mama Tits)

This Week's Guest: Mama Tits

This year's Thanksgiving seems like a particularly important time to reflect back on the good things in our lives, the positive advances we've made, and the people we love and trust -- in fact, times given what they are, our very sanity may depend on it.

Life's a balance of good and bad, and there's never so much of one that there's none of the other. My guest this week has certainly had his share of ups and down, going from an opera prodigy to Idaho's foremost producer of raves to living in a tiny room just upstairs from the off-Broadway debut of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Throughout his adventures, Brian -- aka Mama Tits -- has always been a survivor, toughening himself through the bad news so he could be ready for good news.

This Week's Recommendation: Party Girl

Thanks again to Mama Tits for joining me. And if you'd like to join her, pack your bags for Mexico: Mama now winters in Puetro Vallarta from November to May. Her new show Sweet Like Candy is every Monday and Thursday at Act II Stages. And while she's away, her drag troupe holds down the fort in Seattle every weekend with the show Mimosas Cabaret. Now through the end of the year, they're performing the fabulous original show A Boob Job for Christmas.

It sure is tempting to escape from real life into a fantasy world, now more than ever. And I love an escape as much as anyone, but as tempting as those fantasies may be, eventually real life has a way of intruding since it is, after all, where we actually reside. 

For my recommendation this week, check out the movie Party Girl, a 1995 film starring Parker Posey as a free spirt named Mary who'll do anything she can to live her own life. She throws parties, takes drugs, and avoids work of any kind, just barely keeping everything from crashing down around her. But crash things must, and when they do, she finds herself evicted, jobless, and alienated from her friends.

And that forces Mary to take a long hard, painful look in the mirror at a woman she's been refusing to see: a woman capable of being responsible, taking care of herself, worthy of self-respect.

Taking a long hard look at yourself can be tough, a lot tougher than looking away. But if you're constantly looking away into some escape, that often means there's something wrong, a problem that only you can fix, a problem that'll keep chasing you in real life until it catches up and your fantasy can no longer provide a place to hide.

So as tough as it is, we all need to pop out of our escapes now and then, whether they're parties or movies or roles that we play. Look around, look at yourself, look at your real life -- and if there's something you've been avoiding, deal with it. So that way, when you disappear back into whatever your escape may be, you're doing it for fun instead of self-preservation.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Put on Your Lipstick, Make a Martini, and Go (Ep. 87 - Paul Curran)

This Week's Guest: Paul Curran

Photo: Christopher Bowen

At this point, we're all very familiar with the foundational queer story that many of us have lived: feeling like outcasts, fleeing from small towns to big cities, and searching for our tribe. 

But what happens once you get to that big city? What can you create once you're free to create the life you've always wanted? My guest this week is Paul Curran, who hitchhiked from Glasgow to London in search of something better at the age of sixteen. There he trained as a ballet dancer until an injury ended his career on stage, and launched a whole new career as a director.

By the way, I've made my book Defining Marriage free to download as an ebook this week through November 18th. The book's full of personal stories from people who fought for marriage equality over the last forty years, and some lessons that might be particularly relevant today about how queer people stood up for themselves in the face of cruel leaders and unjust laws. Just head to DefiningMarriage.com to download a copy -- it's free through Friday, November 18th.

Also, you might've heard that my partner and I broadcast a livestream last weekend of our queer gamer video project, Playing with Pride. If you missed it, don't worry -- we're keeping the recorded livestream up at PlayingWithPride.com through November 19th. If you like the stories on Sewers of Paris, I think you'll enjoy the stories and interviews with LGBT gamers and allies in Playing With Pride. And because it's a work in progress, your input can really help us shape this project. The presentation's about an hour long, and then there's a feedback form that takes just a minute or two to fill out. Head over to PlayingWithPride.com to watch the video and let us know your thoughts.

This Week's Recommendation: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat

Thanks again to Paul for joining me. Keep an eye out for the show he directed with the Dallas Opera, Becoming Santa Claus, coming soon to DVD. And he'll be directing the Golden Cockerel this coming summer at the Santa Fe opera.

I'll confess I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to opera. But the times that my guests on the show have brought it up, it's not hard to see the appeal in shows that create a heightened reality, an imaginary world, a place where voices become surreal. The extremity of the opera provides the same sense of escape that many of us get from explosive special effects in movies, or steamy love scenes in a novel.

That escape is at the heart of great art and culture, and sometimes, great art and culture is about the escape itself. For my recommendation this week, check out the music video for the song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Even though I've seen it countless times, I watched it right before editing this episode and it still has the power to move me. The video follows a young man as he makes the difficult decision to leave home and strike out in search of something better -- someONE better -- and its ambiguous ending lets you write your own ending for the main character after the final freeze frame.

Of course, the ending that you write will probably reflect your own experience, your own escape. It's a heightened reality that, it turns out, was a mirror all along.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Jesus Wants You to Find a Nice Man (Ep. 86 - Final Fantasy)

This Week's Guest: Andrew Slade

If you're like me, right now you're searching for something -- anything -- to lend you comfort. We've just ended a horrifying election season, and are about to embark on four years that will likely be even worse. How do we even start to recover from this, how do we get out of bed for the next four years, what can we do to move forward?

Well the future, good or bad, starts with us. We can shape it. The world in which we live begins in our imaginations, and then through our work we bring it to life. And that's why art and culture and ideas and entertainment and daydreaming are all so important, particularly at moments like these.

I spoke to this week's guest, Andrew Slade, before the election about his passion for escape, whether it's into a video game or a drag character. We talked about how imaginary worlds can become real, how a fantasy can become reality, and how one person's late-night idea can blossom into a collaboration and then into a performance that changes lives. Back when we recorded our chat, we weren't thinking about politics. But as you listen this week, I hope you will.

This week's Recommendation: Chaka Corn

Thanks again to Andrew for joining me. I cannot recommend highly enough that you go to YouTube and type in his drag name -- Chaka Corn -- and watch him perform. His acts are even more strange and geeky and fun than you can imagine, and half the pleasure is listening to the audience roar with approval. 

It's not easy to connect to a room full of people, especially when your references are to 8-bit videogame characters that may be older than some of the people watching. But Chaka corn isn't just referencing culture -- she's making something new, from love stories to revenge fantasies to declarations of queer power. And even if you don't exactly know who Megaman is, or which Pokemon does what, the story they're telling is clear. And seeing the pleasure of the show spreading from the stage to the far corners of the room is magic. Pure magic.

If you, like me, feel like any hope of recovery from this election is so far away as to be imperceptible, remember we have magic. We tell stories, we make art, we share the books and music and movies and shows that have moved us. And in so doing we have the power to transmute ideas into messages and messages into movements.

So my recommendation this week is also to make stuff, watch stuff, go to stuff, share stuff. And make that stuff count. Don't squander your magic.

Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Things You Thought Were Evil (Ep. 85 - PJ Harvey)

This Week's Guest: Austin Bull

My guest this week is Austin Bull, also known as the performance artist The Bearded Femme. His stage persona is eye-catching and weird, from vibrant green beards to dressing up as sexualized religious figures. Creating creatures onstage is his way of making sense of a darkness that once threatened to overwhelm him -- and standing up to his own fears.

By the way, this Saturday, November 5th, you can catch me and my partner James livestreaming video games for 24 hours straight. It's a fundraiser for Seattle Children's Hospital, and you can watch and chat and donate as we play Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Smash Brothers, and lots more. While we play, we're asking viewers to chip in a few bucks to support research into childhood diseases. Just go bit.ly/extralifeseattle to watch and donate. We're starting at 9am pacific on November 5 and going straight through to 9am on November 6th. Wish us luck.

Also, James and I are working on a documentary project about queer gamers, and on November 12th we're going to be livestreaming a sneak peek and responding to viewers' questions and comments.  If you enjoy the storytelling on Sewers of Paris, you'll want to join us live for Playing with Pride. It's a work in progress, so feedback at this stage can have a huge impact on its future. Just visit PlayingWithPride.com to watch, and to sign up for the latest news on the project as it evolves.

This Week's Recommendation: Dragula

I have seen a lot of drag, and it takes a lot to make me turn my head at this point. So I'm 100% in support of any artist who's embarking on something daring and weird. That's why my cautious recommendation this week is Dragula, a brand new drag-queen elimination show that's kind of Drag Race plus Addams Family plus Marilyn Manson. It's pretty rough around the edges -- but that's kind of the point.

The show just premiered online, and it's the work of LA nightlife creatures The Boulet Brothers and upcoming Sewers of Paris guest Johnny McGovern. Each half-hour episode brings together drag queens of a sort you're unlikely to see on Logo: messy, scary, upsetting, and downright baffling. The show is set in a cemetery, and on the premiere they're challenged to present their best witch looks. The performers come out on stage cackling with skulls, fangs, and spikes, and they're then doused in water to demonstrate their best death.

The judgement begins with a Boulet brother reminding them that "In the Dragula family, we pride ourselves on being outcasts and losers." And there is therefore no winner. There is, however, an extermination, with a few queens called out for their unacceptable use of items like sensible black pumps. Three contestants are then buried alive in coffins and showered through a tube with live insects in pitch blackness until one actually urinates on camera.

If the bright lights and beauty of Drag Race have always rubbed you the wrong way, you'll probably love the catacombs and creatures on Dragula. After being showered in mealworms, one of the contestants explains why she enjoyed herself: "the only thing to do was what I've done my whole life, take something shitty and nightmarish and make it something to laugh about."

That line reminded me of something I once read by Annie Proulx, the author of Brokeback Mountain. Explaining the message of the story, she said, "if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it."

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Nicest Debt Collector Around (Ep. 84 - Great British Bake Off)

This Week's Guest: Edd Kimber

Why is food so important? I mean, other than the whole keeping-you-alive thing. My guest this week found his life forever changed by food when he won the first season of The Great British Bake-Off. Edd Kimber was a shy, unhappy banker when his cakes, cookies, and pies catapulted him to national fame. It was all a bit much for a young man who once dreaded attention -- but it also meant a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him to pursue his dreams of baking for a living.

This Week's Recommendation: Stirring the Pot

Thanks again to Edd for joining me. If you liked hearing from him, check out his new podcast, Stirring the Pot, where every episode he talks to a different chef, food writer, or celebrity about how food has touched their lives. It's kind of The Sewers of Paris, but with food.

Edd's conversations on Stirring the Pot are lovely and heartwarming and funny and familiar. Like the entertainment we talk about on this show, meals are something we craft and consume for each other.

And maybe I'm giving away too much by telling you this, but the truth is that this show, The Sewers of Paris, isn't really about entertainment. It's about people, and the ways that we connect. Often, it can be difficult for us mostly-hairless apes to relate to each other, but our shared experiences can provide a universal language where words fail. Whether those experiences are a book that two people loved, or a dessert that they shared, they provide nourishment and inspiration.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Vagabonds Like Me (Ep. 83 - Stand by Me)

This Week's Guest: Robert Roth

How do you know when it's time to stop wandering and put down roots? This week's guest is Robert Roth, who spent years looking for the right place to call home. After he ran away from home, his journey took him to some dark, dangerous places. It took a lot of work to pull himself back up to where he could create a home not only for himself, but for those on a similar journey.

By the way, if you're in Seattle, a semi-autobigraphical play written by Robert is debuting in November. It's called When There Were Angels, and it runs from November 10 to 13 at the Calamus Auditorium at Gay City.

Also my partner and I are working on a documentary project about queer gamers, and this November we'll be livestreaming some highlights of the stories we gathered. If you enjoy the storytelling on Sewers of Paris, you'll want to see our project Playing with Pride. Just visit PlayingWithPride.com to sign up for updates -- you'll be the first to know about some exciting news we're about to announce.

This Week's Recommendation: A Supermarket in California

In his travels, there are a lot of places that Robert could have settled down, so I'm grateful that Seattle was able to claim him. And for this week's recommendation, take a look at the Allen Ginsberg poem "A Supermarket in California," in which the Ginsberg, seeking inspiration, wanders into a supermarket where he encounters gay poets of the past: Walt Whitman, from the 1800s, and Garcia Lorca, from the early 20th century. In the poem, Ginsberg wanders the store with Whitman, then contemplates a stroll through America, a country unrecognizable to those with whom he shares a spiritual bond.

It's a poem about walking, and exploring, traveling together with a kindred sprit to what Ginsberg calls "our silent cottage." He asks Whitman "what America did you have?" and "where are we going, Walt Whitman?" and "which way does your beard point tonight?" He notes Whitman's eyeing of the grocery boys and dreams of lost love.

If you like, you can join their rambling journey, picking up from where Ginsberg left off, and where Lorca left it, and where Whitman left it to him. We recognize something of ourselves in them, even though we can't understand the times in which they lived. And reading the poem sixty years after it was written means that Ginsberg would today be as out of place as Whitman was to him.

Still, the act of wandering hasn't changed, the search for home, the search for love.

Clips of Stuff we Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Moon's About to Fall (Ep. 82 - Majora's Mask)

This Week's Guest: Enrique Quintero

This week's guest has seen the end of the world. Enrique's favorite game growing up gave players a choice about who they could save before an impending apocalypse -- and of course, you can't save everyone. It was a dark obsession for a little kid, but playing through the end of the world got him through some tough times as a kid -- and even tougher times as an adult.

This Week's Recommendation: Fragments of Him

I'm so grateful to all my Sewers of Paris guests who open up and share their pasts -- I know it's not always an easy thing to do, especially when the past hurts.

For my recommendation this week, take a look at the game Fragments of Him. At least, I think it's a game -- Fragments of Him is one of those genre-bending experiences that pokes at the rules at what's a game, what's art, what's a story, and what's a presentation. I played it a few months ago with my partner, and though there are no puzzles to solve or enemies to shoot, I still found myself immersed in whatever it is you want to call it.

In the ... game, you navigate through the memories of the people who loved and lost someone they cared for, reflecting with melancholy on the ways that their lives intersected. The whole thing is about two hours long, and very somber. Your experience, and indeed everyone's experience, will be different, layered with whatever history with with loss and grief you bring. I found myself grateful to be playing it alongside someone I loved, and grateful that he was there to share it with me. But it was also a reminder that even though none of us will be around forever, those around us will go on after we're gone. Death and loss and grief aren't an end -- they're just steps in a process that loops continuously, and always has been, and always will.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Where's the Pazow? (Ep. 81 - HR Pufnstuff)

This Week's Guest: Sam Pancake

For many of us, going home to the place where you grew up can be, at best, stressful. But what if you could recreate just the good parts of your childhood home -- the TV shows that kept you company and helped you shut out the rest of the world?

My guest this week is Sam Pancake, who you may know from Arrested Development, Legally Blond 2, Where the Bears Are, Last Will and Testicle, and the fantastic film You're Killing Me.

Sam grew up on a steady media diet of 70s cheese that had, by the time he moved to LA to be an actor, grown a bit stale. So imagine his shock when he discovered a troupe of actors who'd found a way to remix the schlock of his childhood into something new and absolutely insane.

By the way, Sam's doing a one-man show in LA on Wednesday, October 19 -- it's called Hot Sweet and Sticky at the Cavern Club Theater, and you can get tickets at BrownPaperTickets.com. You can also see him on Season 3 of Transparent, and coming soon on Documentary Now, Bajillion Dollar Properties, and Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life.

This Week's Recommendation

Thanks again to Sam for joining me. You can currently see him on Season 3 of Transparent, and coming soon on Documentary Now, Bajillion Dollar Properties, and Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life. He's also doing his one-man show, Hot Sweet & Sticky, at the Cavern Club Theater in LA on October 19.

My recommendation this week isn't necessarily gay, but it is deeply queer: a 1980s children's safety video called Strong Kids Safe Kids, starring our old friend Henry Winkler. It is completely well-intentioned and sincere, but unfortunately the whole thing is deeply troubling and bizarre due to a combination of weird dialogue, dream-like editing, disastrous advice, and guests that range from John Ritter to Yogi Bear. The result feels more like an art film than a public service announcement.

If I had to guess how this strange project happened, it would be that a group of adults thought that it would be an effective way to talk to children. That's why, for example, Henry Winkler cautions characters from Pac Man not to follow strangers into the woods, and a man in childish overalls sings a song about penises and vulvas.

But in trying to overcome the language barrier between kids and adults, somehow Strong Kids Safe Kids manages to become gibberish to everyone, advising children to make honking sounds at abductors and giving lines about disclosing abuse to Baby Smurf. And this is why grown-up attempts to talk to kids so often go wrong -- our memories of what it was like to be young are often wildly inaccurate. That can turn into something fun when it's a campy adaptation of The Brady Bunch, and everyone's on board with it being a silly tribute. But Strong Kids Safe Kids is exactly the opposite -- sincere and earnest and utterly clueless about what a non-stop train wreck it is from beginning to end.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

I Have To Tell You Something Really Bad (Ep. 80 - Howard's End)

This Week's Guest: Jason Merrell

My guest this week is Jason Merrell, who was desperate to leave his repressive religious community. Finally, he thought he'd found a way -- it just required that he make a deal with his parents. That seemed easy enough. But it was a deal that wound up nearly costing him his life.

This Week's Recommendation: Clueless

Like Jason, I missed a lot of the 90s, not because I was nearly dying in South America but because I was a child shut-in. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered one of my favorite artifacts of the 1990s -- my recommendations this week, the movie Clueless.

Watching it years later, it's hard to believe it was actually made in the 90s, because it's so aggressively of its time that it feels like a postmodern parody of the decade. Of course, if you listened to the recent episode with John Federico, you'll know that the story is actually based on the novel Emma. So it's not just of the 90s, it's also of the eighteen-teens.

This probably tells us something about ourselves -- that although the corsets and hats might change, people themselves really don't. Youthful pride always has been and always will be a thing, as well as stubborn lovers and social awkwardness.

Entertainment can serve as a sort of universal language, a way to talk when you don't know what to say or you don't understand what you're hearing. For instance, it might be hard to get to know someone new, but start a conversation about, say, Ghostbusters and you'll probably learn everything you need to know about each other pretty fast.

Current culture is a rich vein for making those kinds of connections, but there's also value to be found if you mine for pop culture that's no longer popular. Digging down to something old or obscure means you'll be a bit lonely when you bring up the novels of Jane Austen or the contralto of Alison Moyet. But it's all worth it for those moments when you find someone else who's wandered as deeply as you have, following paths dug by explorers decades or even centuries before you were born. 

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

A Kid Who Had Powers in Japan (Ep. 79 - Sailor Moon)

This Week's Guest: DJ Kirkland

Now I don't mean to alarm you but there are evil forces within and without, teaming up to take you down. I'm referring of course to the cruel collaboration between our outer critics and our inner saboteur. DJ Kirkland was an accomplished artist in grad school when some cruel comments from an instructor took up residence in his brain, persuading him to give up on his passions and his dreams. But fortunately, he was able to pull himself out of a years-long spiral, thanks in part to the inspiring power of some very pretty guardians.

By the way, I'm moderating the panel at the upcoming GaymerX convention. It's called "Playing with Pride," and it'll be a one of a kind forum to hear people from very different sectors of the game industry share their experiences as queer fans and creators. Today's guest, DJ, will be on the panel, along with the wonderful Tanya DePass from I Need Diverse Games and Lauren Comp, a producer who works on same-sex romances.  It's on Saturday, October 1 at 2pm at GaymerX. If you're in the San Jose area, I hope you can join us for a fun, enlightening conversation.

And if you can't make it to GaymerX on October 2nd, sign up for updates at PlayingWithPride.com and we'll let you know when you can see the panel online.

This Week's Recommendation: House

Thanks again to DJ for joining me. I'm so excited that he's working a book with Oni Press and I cannot wait to see his work on Black Mage.

But until then, if DJ's love of Sailor Moon has but you in the mood for some schoolgirls and magic from Japan, allow me to recommend the movie House. It's kind of the anti-Sailor Moon: instead of having magic powers and defeating evil, the un-magical girls in House are easily dispatched by evil forces.

The premise of the film is fairly standard haunted-house: a group of high school students trapped in a house in the country with a sinister old woman and a cat that can both open and close doors. There are entertaining ghosts and decapitations and gore and floating heads, as well as my favorite horror trope, a skeleton dancing on strings.

And while the girls are the main characters of the film, it's the villain who's the real treat. No spoilers, but head boss in this movie is having a ball. She's eating eyeballs, floating through the rafters, plunging the girls into a pool of blood, and at every moment she is loving her life.

Last year around Halloween I wrote about gay men's affection for witches, from Ursula to Hermione Gingold. You have never seen a more delighted witch than you will in this film, a strangely compelling aspirational villainess for whom you are solidly rooting by the time the last girl is lamented.

Villains and enemies and saboteurs can't exist by themselves -- they need victims to keep them entertained. At least one victim, but preferably a whole team. And in their tormenting, the bad guys become as much of the team as anyone else, assuming a role in the mayhem alongside their prey. On a well-balanced team, everyone does their job in harmony, but every now and then you get a situation like House, where one person decides they're just taking over, and get out of the way, because this show belongs to them now.

In real life, that's a miserable situation to be in, and you're best off extracting yourself from the team as fast as possible. But in a movie, it's so much fun to sit back and watch just how bloody things can get.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/