Sign me up to be Stupid (Ep. 157 - Professional Wrestling)

This Week's Guest: Pollo Del Mar

For most of us, it's fun to speculate about the drag character we have hidden within. But what do you do if you've got multiple characters kicking around inside you -- and you suspect they might not get along with each other? This week's guest is Pollo Del Mar, who is both a drag queen and a professional wrestler. It took a long time for her to get comfortable making those worlds overlap -- and there were times that she had to call out other wrestlers for their homophobia. But now Pollo's happy to strut out in front of audiences in high drag -- whether it's at a gay bar or in a wrestling ring.

So if you're in San Francisco, you can see this week's guest Pollo playing a Dungeons & Dragons adventure live onstage with me, as well as Erika Klash from Dragula, Kitty Powers of the game Kitty Powers Love Life, and local star KaiKai Bee Michaels. It's drag queens playing an epic D&D quest with lots of twists and surprises at Oasis on March 20th. Tickets for Queens of Adventure: San Francisco Edition are now on sale now at DungeonDrag.com.

And if you can't make it to the live show, don't worry -- we've just launched a Kickstarter for a podcast featuring our Seattle queens playing Dungeons & Dragons! If you've enjoyed the D&D bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, it'll be like that -- but more. And better. We're expanding the leg-and-dairy journeys into an ongoing game featuring death drops and death saves. There are some amazing backer rewards, like bonus episodes, an activity book, and a gorgeous foil-printed postcard by celebrated drag artist Chad Sell. Visit QueensOfAdventure.com to join us in bringing this new show to life.

Also, listeners, I hope you'll join me for another Sewers of Paris livestream on March 10! Last month's stream was a real delight, and I loved chatting live with Sewers listeners about the entertainment that changed your life. This time we'll be talking about queer role-playing games with past Sewers guests Carlos Maza and Josh Trujillo! Mark your calendar for March 10 at 2pm pacific. I've pinned a link to the livestream at the top of the SewersOfParis Twitter feed. You can head over there now to RSVP and get a reminder when we go live.

A huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are rewards for patrons who support the show, including early access to content, a signed copy of my book, and Sewers of Paris buttons. It's easy to sign up -- just head to SewersOfParis.com and click "support the show on Patreon." 

This Week's Recommendation: The Cream Always Rises to the Top

Thanks again to Pollo for joining me. And I hope to see you at our Queens of Adventure live show in San Francisco -- it's March 20th at Oasis and features Pollo, Erika Klash, Kitty Powers, and KaiKai Bee Michaels playing an epic D&D campaign before a live audience. Tickets are now on sale at DungeonDrag.com.

For my recommendation this week, I hope you'll become as obsessed as I am with this one clip of Randy Savage that I want you to look up on YouTube. Look for a video entitled "The Cream Rises to the Top." I've probably watched it about a hundred times: it starts with a very serious announcer named Gene who looks a bit like the blue-headed Muppet that Grover harasses in the restaurant on Sesame Street. 

With great dignity and professionalism, he approaches Randy Savage, who is wearing a lavender t-shirt and bandana, gigantic sunglasses, multiple hankies, and is for some reason carrying creamer packets. Randy launches into a growling manifesto about how he is the cream and will rise to the top, accompanied with some sleight-of-hand that produces additional creamer packets. 

Throughout this, Gene is completely unflappable, asking sensible questions about Randy's professional intentions. And Randy is completely flapped, staring and spinning and distributing creamers as he makes apocalyptic declarations regarding his skill.

It's an absolute delight. We have two professionals working in extremely different genres and yet perfectly complementing each others' performances. And although it's not what you would consider a drag show, I'd be willing to consider it one given that Randy is engaged in a hilarious and clearly intentional performance of gender. His nickname is "Macho Man" -- it's written in giant letters on his pink shirt -- and he is serving an extravagant critique of what it means to be macho. He's frantic, grasping, snarling, a trembling cloud of muscle and beard. It's as over-the-top masculine as Trixie Mattel is over-the-top feminine. And I'm enchanted by the idea that this fantastic joke about gender roles came from, of all places, 80s professional wrestling.

Stuff We Talked About

The Moment Where I Lost It (Ep. 156 - E.T.)

This week's guest: Andrew Putschoegl

Were you a free range kid? If you were lucky enough to survive growing up pre-2000, you were probably allowed to spend a lot of time outdoors on your own with little to no structured time. My guest this week is Andrew Putschoegl, whose childhood mirrored that of 80s movies where groups of weird neighborhood kids are thrown together by simply because they live in the same suburb. In those film, each kid tends to have one strange trait that sets them apart, and marks them as one of the outcasts. And for Andrew, it was that at the age of 9 he suddenly and for unknown reasons woke up to find his hair falling out. It was a medical mystery that made the already-awkward teenage years even more difficult.

Big thanks to everyone who helps keep the show independent and add free. If you're enjoying The Sewers of Paris, help support the show for as little as a dollar a month.

Also, listeners, I hope you'll join me for another Sewers of Paris livestream on March 10! Last month's stream was a real delight, and I loved chatting live with Sewers listeners about the entertainment that changed your life. Mark your calendar for March 10 and 2pm pacific. I've pinned a link to the livestream at the top of the SewersOfParis Twitter feed. You can head over there now to RSVP and get a reminder when we go live.

And! If you enjoyed my bonus episodes where I have guests playing Dungeons and Dragons, you might like my live show where drag queens play a D&D adventure onstage for a live audience. Now for the first time we're taking that show on the road -- it's coming to Oasis in San Francisco on March 20th, featuring Erika Klash from Dragula; Kitty Powers, of the games Matchmaker and Lovelife; and San Francisco stars Pollo Del Mar and KaiKai Bee Michaels. Tickets are now on sale -- head over to DungeonDrag.com for the link. And if you're not in SF or Seattle -- don't worry, we'll be announcing more shows soon. Get on our mailing list at DungeonDrag.com and you'll be the first to know when we're bringing the show to you!

This week's recommendation: Nerdgasm

Thanks again to Andrew for joining me. For this week's recommendation, check out his documentary, Nerdgasm. It's available on Amazon -- free if you've got Amazon Prime -- and it follows the delightful Tom Lenk as he nervously prepares his international one-man comedy show about learning to love being a geek.

Tom's a past Sewers of Paris guest (he's on episode 117) and he's a real delight to spend time with in-person and on-screen. You might remember him playing Andrew on the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that's only the beginning of his long resume of nerdy credentials. In his live show, he reveals his very dorky childhood pursuits, such as the serenade that he wrote in a music theory class for Carrie Fisher; he shows off the elaborate feather-boaed and bejeweled hat that he made to stand out in marching band; and he shares his Beauty and the Beast collage work. 

To be fair, EVERYONE did weird dorky stuff when they were young. But a lot of us do our best to forget, or at least belittle the kids were were. So it's nice to see Tom turning that into a point of pride with Nerdgasm.

When someone confesses their obsessions to a roomfull of people (or to an even broader audience in a documentary) it gives everyone else permission to look a bit more gently on their own mortifying past. We can all forgive our own nerdiness, because at the end of the day enthusiasm is fun and funny.

At one point, Tom visits an enthusiastic collector of Buffy memorabilia, and in another context his collection might seem weird and off-putting. But when it's part of a celebration of geeky obsessions, suddenly weird isn't off-putting -- it's awesome. 

Stuff We Talked About

 

 

Excited and Scared (Ep. 155 - Ari Shapiro of NPR's All Things Considered)

This Week's Guest: Ari Shapiro

My guest this week is Ari Shapiro, host of All Things Considered. These days, he tells other people's stories on NPR, but his own story was considerably is more winding than you might expect -- behind his calm journalistic voice is a man who spent some time as an illegal immigrant, who carried mace for protection in high school, who nearly became an actor, and who might never have found his place on the radio if a gay icon hadn't intervened on his behalf.

Huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are brand new rewards for patrons who support the show, including early access to content, a signed copy of my book, and Sewers of Paris buttons. It's easy to sign up -- just click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can contribute -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And I love to get your feedback on the show -- follow @sewersofparis on Twitter or write to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. 

And if you're in Seattle, I hope you'll join me for another live Dungeons & Drag Queens show, starring four fabulous drag queens role-playing their way through a custom-made, very queer D&D adventure. I'll be hosting the show and leading the queens on their adventure. It's happening March 2nd at 7pm at Kremwerk. You can get tickets at DungeonDrag.com. And you can also get on the mailing list to find out when we're bringing the show to you. 

This Week's Recommendation

Thanks again for listening. Into the Woods does seem to come up a lot on this show, and I don't think it's a surprise that a play about soul-searching and finding one's place in a hostile world speaks to queer people. Steven Sondheim's musicals certainly have a way of letting you know: Life's going to be tough. There are no easy answers. Now let's sing about it.

For this week's recommendation, take a look at another of Sondheim's shows, Assassins. It goes without saying that it's a play about moral gray areas and feeling adrift -- but this time, instead of fairy tales as a framing device, the play tells the story of people who have tried to kill presidents.

There's Leon Czolgosz, who wanted to kill McKinley; and Sam Byck, who had plans to kill Nixon. John Hinckley went after Reagan, and Lynette Fromme wanted to get Gerald Ford. Most of the characters you've never heard of -- when's the last time you thought about Sarah Jane Moore or Giuseppe Zangara? But this play excavates their stories, explores their motives, and turns them into real people driven by madness or desperation or a need to belong or dreams of being heard.

It's a hard show to watch, particularly given the politics under which the country is currently laboring. And there's a beautiful epiphany in the song Something Just Broke, when various Americans sing about where they were when they heard Kennedy had been shot. The violence of the assassination is so far away and to someone so symbolic as to be completely abstract and yet it jolts everyone out of their routine not with meaning but with a flash of ambiguity and bewilderment, confusion about why it happened and what it means and what comes next.

The show sets up a lot of questions that it doesn't answer. -- but it doesn't want to answer those questions. It's not an explanation, just a reflection. It's portrait of a country that, even after 200 years, is still struggling to make sense of its own dream.

Stuff we Talked About

Crazy Pirate Madonna (Ep. 154 - Tori Amos)

Beyond the Sewers of Paris with Cindy Howes

Thanks to everyone supporting The Sewers of Paris on Patreon, I'm able to bring you bonus episodes every month. We're going to go Beyond the Sewers of Paris, with special guests beyond just gay men, and deep-dives on topics I think you're going to love.

This month, I'm bringing you an unusual conversation with a very special guest: radio DJ Cindy Howes. I first interviewed Cindy about a year ago, for what I thought would be a fun, lighthearted chat about Tori Amos and how music empowered a young queer woman's search for herself.

But then after our interview, things unexpectedly changed for Cindy, both in her work and her personal life. A year went by, and when the dust settled we came back for a second interview about how Cindy had changed in that time, how her outlook on life and love had shifted, and how music helped her confront and overcome depression and anxiety.

I always expected that Cindy would have tons of great music suggestions for Sewers of Paris listeners. She's a fantastic resource when it comes to the singers and songwriters you should know. But I was surprised to also get some brilliant suggestions for coping with adversity, recovering from loss, and learning to love yourself.

I hope you enjoy this bonus episode, the first in the Beyond the Sewers of Paris series. Let me know your thoughts at sewerspodcast@gmail.com or @sewersofparis on Twitter. Huge thanks to all the Patreon supporters who help make the show possible. You can join them by  clicking "Support the Show on Patreon."

You can also leave a review of the show, that's a huge help. Or follow on Facebook and Twitter for clips of stuff we talked about.

And by the way, tickets are now on sale for our next Dungeons & Drag Queens live show. It's March 2nd at Kremwerk in Seattle -- a newer, bigger location than before! If you want to see drag queens playing a super queer D&D adventure, over to DungeonDrag.com to get tickets or sign up for the mailing list to find out when we're bringing the show to you.

This Week's Recommendation: The Evening Mix on WYEP

Big thanks to Cindy for joining me. If you didn't get enough suggestions for stuff you should be listening to, you're in luck: you can hear Cindy every Monday to Thursday from 6 to 10pm on WYEP in western PA. And of course you can listen online -- a few minutes before recording this, I checked in and Cindy had just put on the David Bowie song Heroes, a gorgeous lament that Bowie wrote about a doomed love affair. The song rises to a wail by the end because the producer was physically moving the microphone away from him as he recorded it, so he had to wail louder and louder as it went on. 

I'm doing everything in my power to make a metaphor here about how sometimes life demands that we wail louder and louder to be heard. Or a metaphor about how he wrote the song about two lovers kissing against the Berlin wall, with love protecting them however briefly from a war raging overhead. There's also probably a metaphor about how Bowie wrote the song just after he got off of cocaine and was in a period of artistic rebirth and also keenly aware of the hidden reserves of strength within us all.

I will resist ALL of those metaphors because this recommendation is not for that one song but instead for Cindy's show, The Evening Mix on WYEP! Four hours of music you'll love, assembled in a delightful playlist by the absolutely magical Cindy Howes who knows what you need to hear before you do. Give it a listen. You'll love it.

Stuff We Talked About

Encore
Low Country Sound/Elektra
A Deeper Understanding
Atlantic Records

Oracular Garbage Pile (Ep. 153 - James Bond)

This Week's Guest: Andrew Wheeler

How do you awaken your own untapped courage? This week's guest is Andrew Wheeler, writer of adventure and intrigue novels featuring defiantly gay characters. Though his stories are swashbuckling, Andrew tends to live a quiet, more domestic life than his globetrotting heroes. It was through his books that Andrew was able to explore beyond the town where he grew up -- in literature and eventually in real life.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Sewers of Paris livestream last Saturday to share stories of the entertainment that changed YOUR life! If you missed the stream, you can watch it on my YouTube channel -- I've also posted a link to it on Twitter, @sewersofparis. And we'll be back next month for another, so mark your calendars now for our next video livestream on March 10!

A huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are brand new rewards for patrons who support the show, including early access to content, a signed copy of my book, and Sewers of Paris buttons. It's easy to sign up -- just click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can contribute -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And I love to get your feedback on the show -- follow @sewersofparis on Twitter or write to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. 

Thanks to those Patrons supporting the show, I'm able to release new videos and podcast episodes. Check out the video I posted this week about Blanche's gay brother on The Golden Girls. You can find that on the Matt Baume YouTube channel and there's also a link on the SewersOfParis twitter feed.

And I'm going to be sharing some big announcements very soon about our show Dungeons & Drag Queens. If you're into drag queens playing a super-queer Dungeons and Dragons adventure, head over to dungeondrag.com to sign up for the mailing list -- you'll be the first to find out when we're bringing the show to you. 

This Week's Recommendation: Barbarella

Big thanks to Andrew for joining me. Check out his Valentin and the Widow books on Amazon, and his new book The Twilight  Prince on Wattpad. And for even more fantastic adventuring, my recommendation this week is to watch the spellbinding 1968 cinematic masterpiece that is Barbarella.

Jane Fonda plays the extremely titular character, a 5-star double-rated Astro-Navigatrix dispatched by the President of Earth to locate a positronic ray stolen by a scientist named Durand-Durand who is hiding out in a city populated by leathermen, floating above a Matmos, and besieged by a resistance fighter named Dildano.

Based on a comic book, the film is extremely stupid, and I love it with all my heart. Barbarella careens through her voyages with more extravagant outfits than an entire season of drag race, and her approach to adventure is to greet the unexpected with an unconditional "yes." Despite facing dangers too bizarre and convoluted to comprehend, she charges into action with little more than her wits, her charm, her fantastic costumes, and legs that appear to be longer than her entire body.

As a role model, you could not ask for better: Barbarella is brave, compassionate, curious, and above all eager to share pleasures of the flesh. In other words, she embodies that values to which, as far as I'm concerned, all gays -- whether at home or in space -- should aspire.

Stuff we Talked About

It Was Deeply Weird (Ep. 152 - Cats)

This Week's Guest: Tyler Coates

Have you ever found a monster beautiful? It's rare that something can be both gorgeous and grotesque, but when those two qualities overlap it can be hard to look away -- and hard to resist following it wherever it wants to take you, no matter how dangerous. This week's guest is Tyler Coates, Culture Editor at Esquire.com. He felt the allure of the arts emanating from what seemed like a threat: phantoms in an opera house, clawing cat people, and David Bowie in a massive codpiece. From the tiny town where he grew up, he couldn't say no to their pull -- though when he finally ventured out into the world, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

We'll have that conversation in a minute -- but first a quick reminder that we're doing a Sewers of Paris video livestream this weekend, on Saturday, February 10th at 2pm Pacific. I hope you'll join us and share stories about the entertainment that changed your life. We'll also have some special guests joining us throughout the stream. Hope to see you there.

A huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are brand new rewards for patrons who support the show, including early access to content, a signed copy of my book, and Sewers of Paris buttons. It's easy to sign up -- just click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can contribute -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And I love to get your feedback on the show -- follow @sewersofparis on Twitter or write to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. 

And we're going to be sharing some big announcements about our show Dungeons and Drag Queens very soon. If you're into drag queens playing a super-queer Dungeons and Dragons adventure, sign up for the mailing list to find out when we're bringing the show to you. That's at dungeondrag.com.

This Week's Recommendation: Beetlejuice

Big thanks to Tyler for joining me. I love talking about beautiful seductive monsters like Jareth, Elvira, and dancers with teased 80s hair and cat bodysuits. Villains always seem to be having more fun than heroes, and it's so hard to resist an invitation to join them. For this week's recommendation, take a look at the movie Beetlejuice, starring Wynona Rider, Michael Keaton, and a bunch of Tim Burton stripes. 

The film concerns the justifiable haunting of an insufferable couple of yuppies with too much money and not enough taste. The couple's daughter Lydia, played by Winona, is in the midst of a gothic phase that is only heightened when she makes the acquaintance of the ghost who inhabit her new home. The ghosts are pleasant enough, certainly more tolerable than her annoying parents. But there's another more malevolent spirit in the home who wants to take the entertaining haunts to a dangerous place. 

Lydia faces a tough choice in the weird mayhem of the movie: how much haunting is too much haunting, and when does spooky stop being fun and become downright evil. It is of course a delight to see a sullen teenage girl brighten with enthusiasm when given the opportunity to summon the forces of darkness, even as the movie's moral pendulum swings between the two unpleasant extremes of the banal living and the horrifying dead.

By the end, we've settled someplace far more appealing: a sort of conscientious ghoulishness, macabre with a heart -- a sweet spot where people may die, but they can still go on dancing.

Stuff We Talked About

The Kentucky Derby for People (Ep. 151 - Drag Race)

This Week's Guest: Alberto Davalos

What would you do if your life's work turned out to be killing you? My guest this week is Alberto Davalos, a horse boy. His whole life he expected to work with horses. And fresh out of college, he was on a farm in Kentucky, wearing gloves up to his shoulders and helping multi-million-dollar animals give birth. But working his dream job came with a price he wasn't ready to pay.

We'll have that conversation in a minute -- but first, a reminder that as of this month February, I'm making monthly bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, with livestreams and new YouTube videos about LGBT entertainment. Our first livestream is on Saturday, February 10th at 2pm Pacific. And I want to invite you, Sewers of Paris listeners to join me and share stories about entertainment that changed your life. Head over to @sewersofparis on Twitter -- the link to the livestream is pinned to the top of the feed. Hope to see you there.

A huge thanks to everyone supporting The Sewers of Paris on Patreon. Your pledges, starting at a dollar a month, make this show possible, as well as the livestreams, videos, and bonus episodes. As of February first, Patreon pledges are per-month, rather than per-episode. That means you'll always be charged the same amount, no matter how much stuff I put out each month. If you haven't pledged yet, now is a great time to start. Just click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can help -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And you can also write in to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. 

We're going to be talking about Drag Race this episode -- if you're looking for more conversations about the show, don't miss last week's conversation with Chi Chi DeVayne, and also Robbie Turner on episode 58 and Ben DeLaCreme on episode 63.

This Week's Recommendation: The Last Unicorn

Big thanks to Alberto for joining me. You can find a link to the essay he wrote about his mother and Drag Race on the @sewersofparis twitter, and on his, @albertodavalo.

My recommendation this week is the enchanting equine adventure The Last Unicorn, an animated feature made in the 70s by Rankin Bass -- that's the team behind Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and various other classics. The cast is amazing: Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Christopher Lee, Rene Auberjonois (that's Odo from Deep Space 9), Jeff Bridges, and many more. It is visually gorgeous, showcasing the work of artists who would go on to found Studio Ghibli. And the story is beautiful and melancholy and very very queer.

The film follows a unicorn who fears that she is the last of her kind. Alone in the world, she wanders disguised as a horse, searching for others like her. As usually happens in fantasy adventures, she encounters a gang of misfits and they eventually find their way to a palace where terrible danger seeks to enslave and corrupt her pure beauty.

As the unicorn hunts for her kind, she discovers the pleasure of giving herself over to love in the mundane world of humans. But that's not where she belongs, and so accepting her true nature means leaving the work of ordinary, non-magical men.

That's a tough choice for anyone -- to maintain something comforting and familiar, or to give it up so you can be true to yourself. The Last Unicorn hinges on a tension between love and regret -- and ultimately finds that both can exist together, and may in fact require each other to exist. 

Stuff We Talked About

Hot Glue and Rhinestones (Ep. 150 - Chi Chi DeVayne)

This Week's Guest: Chi Chi DeVayne

My guest this week is Chi Chi Devayne, who competed on Season 8 of Drag Race and is appearing now on All Stars Season 3. Despite having competed -- twice, now -- on the world's most prestigious drag show, there was a time when Chi Chi hated drag. That was before she realized that everything in life had prepared her to perform in heels -- from church to getting in fights to military training.

We'll have that conversation in a minute -- but first, a reminder that starting in February, I'm going to be making monthly bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, with bonus livestreams and new YouTube videos about LGBT entertainment. Mark your calendars now for the kickoff livestream on February 10th -- I want to invite you, Sewers of Paris listeners to join us and share the stories about entertainment that changed your life -- I'll be announcing the details on how you can join us for that soon, just follow @sewersofparis on Twitter.

To everyone already supporting The Sewers of Paris on Patreon: huge thanks. And to everyone who hasn't pledged yet, February is going to be a great time to start. Just click "support the show on Patreon."

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can help -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And you can also write in to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. 

RockLobster52 wrote this review: "lovingly crafted show with an unique and fascinating concept." Thanks RockLobster for that very sweet review, and for not being a rock.

This Week's Recommendation: J-Setting

Big thanks to Chi Chi for joining me. You can catch her on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 3, along with past Sewers of Paris guest Ben DeLaCreme (that's episode 63 of the podcast). And don’t forget that starting in February I’ll be releasing monthly bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, hosting livestreams, making videos about LGBT entertainment, and more. Mark your calendars for the first livestream on Saturday, February 10 -- you're invited to share your own stories of the entertainment that changed your life. I'll have details soon about how you can join us for that; follow @sewersofparis on Twitter for info.

For my recommendation this week, check out the dance style that Chi Chi mentioned at the start of our interview -- J-Setting. It's a style of dance featuring performers in meticulous formation, usually in tight clothes, moving with precise high-energy gestures that are often constrained to tight spaces. Picture Beyonce's dance in Single Ladies -- and then picture that but bigger, with more dancers, faster music, and a lot of muscle.

It's easy to find examples on YouTube. And after you've watched a few videos, you might notice a familiar overlap with dance styles you've seen elsewhere. The original J-Setters were majorettes at Jackson State University in the late 1970s, but their style was picked up by other historically black universities and also by gay men across the south, who adapted it to gay nightclubs.

Some moves bear a close resemblance to the voguing you can see in Paris is Burning in the 1980s, which eventually showed up in Madonna's work. And the influence can be seen in various communities and styles and media over the years -- including the episode of Glee where Kurt does his interpretation of Single Ladies.

In addition to being a gorgeous and thrilling style of dance, it's a great example of how culture gets shared and referenced between disadvantaged groups -- whether it's women, or people of color, or queer performers.

It's a real pleasure to see how these groups can be allies not just politically, but creatively. And a key component of that collaboration is acknowledging the contributions of creators who laid the foundation of the artwork... whether or not they had a chance to appear on Glee.

Stuff We Talked About

Gay Male Student #1 (Ep. 149 - Carol Burnett)

This Week's Guest: Justin Root

It's a Hollywood cliche -- the pretty young face that moves to LA with no plan other than to get into the motion pictures. And yet it happened to this week's guest, Justin Root. He was a shy Ohio kid who feared the spotlight until he discovered how good it made him feel to be in it. A few weeks after graduating high school, he'd moved to LA. A few weeks after that, he was in movies. And not long after that, he had a recurring role on TV. It didn't take long for the entertainment industry to discover Justin, but it took another decade -- and some terrified cruising in the local video store -- for Justin to find himself.

We'll have that conversation in a minute -- but first, a reminder that starting in February, I'm going to be making monthly bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, with bonus livestreams and new YouTube videos about LGBT entertainment. Mark your calendars now for a kickoff livestream on February 10th, where I'll be chatting live with Sewers of Paris listeners about the entertainment that changed your life -- I'll have more details soon about how you can join that.

To everyone already supporting The Sewers of Paris on Patreon: huge thanks. And to everyone who hasn't pledged yet, February is going to be a great time to start. Just head to SewersOfParis.com and click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can help -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful. And you can also write in to sewerspodcast@gmail.com. Listener Bojan Djordjevic writes that:

"Movies and TV shows have always shaped me, for better or worse, and they have always been a way for me to feel closer to the gay world ... the podcast helps me see how we've always been here and we've always been relevant whether others knew it or not."

Bojan also writes,

"My first idol was Lucille Ball. ... I didn't sleep much as a child and I had a TV in my room so I would watch any sort of old black and white movie on at 4 am. ... I remember a movie with Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance. It was in color and it was about them on the run and that's about all I can remember. I can't find it online."

So, listeners, if you know what movie he might be talking about, get in touch @sewersofparis on twitter or sewerspodcast@gmail.com. Let's reunite Bojan with that movie.

This Week's Recommendation: Two moments from the Carol Burnett Show

Big thanks to Justin for joining me. I cannot endorse his opinions on Judy Garland. But I absolutely agree that there are delights to be found in the Carol Burnett show. For my recommendation this week, take a look at my two favorite moments from her show. The first is the famous "Went with the Wind" sketch, particularly the moment when she enters wearing a dress made out of drapes.

It's a funny sight gag, but what's even more pleasurable is the audience reaction. They absolutely lose control, so much so that the show had to edit some of the laughter out because it made the sketch run too long. It's fun to see the dress but what affects me most about that particular moment is how the laughter rolls through the scene like a wave, and even though you can't see them, the unbridled delight of the audience is totally contagious.

My second favorite clip is from a sketch in which Tim Conway tells a story about an elephant. The story is clearly intended to be very short, but Tim Conway takes control of the scene and keeps adding one absurd detail after another. The other actors are clearly ready to move on with the scene, but he just won't end his improvised speech, and the ridiculousness of the entire cast being held hostage in this way becomes increasingly ridiculous as the minutes pass by, and one by one the cast starts doing their best to keep from cracking up. Finally, there's a pause in Tim's monologue, and Vicky Lawrence interjects with a placid yet hostile dig that nobody on stage saw coming, and they all explode in laughter, literally falling on the floor.

Once again, it's a moment of unbridled hilarity, with everyone consumed with laughter that they had no idea was lying in wait for them. Professional comedians know how to craft jokes, wield humor, and control the laughter of those around them. But there's a point at which the laughter takes over, at which point it's really in control. That feeling of pleasure says "I'll take it from here," and for some reason, we always let it. It may not last long, but when it's happening, what a relief it is to relinquish command to that drive to laugh -- it overrides all self-control, and somehow we all trust that exists for only one purpose: To make you feel good. 

Stuff We Talked About

It's Worth it to be Passionate (Ep. 148 - Final Fantasy VII)

This Week's Guest: Johnnie Jungleguts

When you need to get away from it all, how far do you go? My guest this week reached his fill of human interaction and so he did what so many of us have done: flew to South America to wander the forest for weeks while befriending a mountain lion. 

And just a reminder about what's coming up for The Sewers of Paris in 2018. Starting in February, I'm going to be making monthly bonus episodes, with even more personal stories about entertainment that's changed the lives of queer people. And on top of that, I'll be hosting livestreams that you can join, creating new YouTube videos about LGBT entertainment, and more. 

Of course, you'll still get a new episode of The Sewers of Paris every Thursday, just like always. The show's not changing -- there's just going to be more of it.

The Sewers of Paris is possible because of listeners like you who pledge a dollar or more to keep it going. Starting in February, those contributions will support even more content. There's also going to be rewards for people who pledge -- more information on that as we get closer to February.

To everyone already supporting The Sewers of Paris on Patreon: huge thanks. There'll be a few tweaks to the way pledges are charged, and I'll be in touch with you about that. And to everyone who hasn't pledged yet, February is going to be a great time to start. Just click "support the show on Patreon." 

If you're not able to support the show financially, there’s other ways you can help -- just by listening, tweeting about the show, following The Sewers of Paris on Twitter and Facebook, and by writing reviews. All of that is a huge help and I'm very very grateful.

This Week's Recommendation: Freaks and Geeks

This week we talked about outgrowing the safety of the suburbs, and so my recommendation is to check out the show Freaks and Geeks. Produced in the late 90s and set in the early 80s, the show follows the awkward lives of teenagers learning how to be human adults.

Like my recommendation last week, The Doom Generation, Freaks and Geeks leans heavily on the discomfort of living between childhood and adulthood -- the point in a person's life when they have the most freedom to make choices about who they are, and are also the least equipped to make them.

The characters of the show make the wrong decisions far more often than they make the right ones. And unlike My So-Called Life, where the struggles of the kids accompanies the struggles of the parents, the division between teens and adults in Freaks and Geeks is so pronounced they are seldom even able to comprehend each other. The world that they're approaching is befuddling and dangerous and hostile -- and yet they crave entry to it with a fearlessness that many of us lose once we've arrived in adulthood.

So I guess my recommendation here isn't just to watch Freaks and Geeks. It's to remember what it was like to be a freak and geek.

Stuff we Talked About