Learning to be Myself More (Ep 384 - Live drag soap opera/Harold Slazer)

My guest this week is Harold Slazer, an actor-writer-director whose life was changed in an instant after a car crash and ensuing memory problems that left him unable to remember people, places, and his own work. He rebuilt his life and created a popular live show in New York called The Honeysuckles — a comedic hybrid of live soap opera and comedy cabaret — which nearly made its may into millions of American homes when it was adapted into a TV show at Fox. But there were a lot of obstacles to getting such a daring project on the air, which is why one of Harold’s memories from those days was hiding in a closet in full drag so Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t find him.

Watch The Honeysuckles pilot here: https://youtu.be/zTGq-4tn1BI

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. And take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history — I just posted a video about the show Dynasty. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos about super queer pop culture.

Oracular Garbage Pile (Ep 383 - James Bond/Andrew Wheeler)

This week sees the release of Love and War, a new comic book set in the competitive world of varsity tug-of-war and featuring a lovely upbeat queer romance. The author, Andrew Wheeler, was my guest on The Sewers of Paris back in 2018, and for this week’s interview we’re diving into the Sewers archives to revisit our conversation about awakening untapped courage with defiantly gay comic characters. Though his stories are swashbuckling, Andrew tends to live a more quiet and domestic life than his globetrotting heroes. But it was through his books that he was able to explore beyond the town where he grew up -- in literature and eventually in real life.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. And take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history — I just posted a video about the show Dynasty. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos about super queer pop culture.

A Crew of Proto-Queer Boys (Ep 382 - Spice Girls/Little Miss Hot Mess)

My guest this week is the performer, author, and academic known as Lil Miss Hot Mess, who was fortunate enough to grow up with a proto-queer friend group that paved the way for a professional drag career. Over the years, what began as a hobby for Lil Miss Hot Mess gradually morphed into a method for grabbing attention at protests, a full-time job that included an SNL performance with Katy Perry, and then a PhD and academic study into the very nature of drag itself — and now most recently a picture book for kids.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. And take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history — I’ve got a video coming this weekend about the show Dynasty. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos.

Space Ballerinas (Ep 381 - Sailor Moon/Ryan La Salla)

This month marks the 30 year anniversary of the American debut of Sailor Moon, and to celebrate we’re diving back into the Sewers of Paris archives to hear my 2018 chat with author Ryan La Salla. When we last spoke, Ryan was about to publish his first novel — Reverie, a queer adult fantasy. Since then, he’s written a second book, Be Dazzled; and his third, The Honeys, comes out this summer. Ryan’s been an imaginative creator his entire life, but as you’ll hear, he didn’t always use his powers for good.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. And take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos.

Now, here’s my 2018 conversation with Ryan.

It's Petty Drama (Ep 380 - The Hills/Xavier D'Leau)

My guest this week is producer Xavier D’Leau, who always knew that he needed, somehow, to make television shows that tell the stories of black queer lives. That wasn’t going to be easy, considering he went to school for social work, but he was determined — by day he helped people in crisis, and at night he and his friends worked on their own creative projects. That all came to a head one day when he found out he was about to be evicted, and made a tough choice about which career path he wanted to follow.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter.

Also take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos — I just posted one about the late-70s fiasco Supertrain, a show that nearly caused NBC to go bankrupt.

We're All Enjoying the Male Body (Ep 379 - International Male/Buck Jones)

My guest this week left his old life behind to chase dreams of freedom with the love of his life. Buck Jones was working a corporate job with a homophobic boss when he and his then-boyfriend, now-husband sold their home and moved overseas to open a little cafe in Paris. It was the culmination of a lot of childhood dreams, informed by Buck’s love of classic mid-century sitcoms — but it was also the start of a lot of work, and a gigantic culture shock.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter — this week I have a story about the movie Twilight and its connection to squids.

Also take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. I just posted a video about the conflict over the sitcom Soap that engulfed America in the summer of 1977. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos, including an interview with Marsha Posner Williams, producer of The Golden Girls and Soap and many other shows.

Secrets Kill (Ep 378 - Disaster films/Christopher Rice)

My guest this week is New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice, whose new book Sapphire Sunset is a passionate, steamy gay romance. Christopher didn’t think he’d grow up to be a writer, despite coming from a literary family — both his parents are authors, his mother most famously for Interview with the Vampire among many other works, but Christopher was an adult when he discovered that writing fiction gave him the opportunity to tell the stories that he wanted to read — stories informed by his childhood love of chaos and camp.

Check out Christopher’s podcast here.

Also take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. I just posted a video about the conflict over the sitcom Soap that engulfed America in the summer of 1977. Head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos. I just posted an extended interview with Marsha Posner Williams, producer of The Golden Girls and Soap and many other shows.

And don’t forget to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. 

Raised by Hippies (Ep 377 - Room with a View/Michael Bach)

My guest this week is Michael Bach, whose life was changed in a movie theater — or more precisely, just outside of one, when a conversation about the film he’d just seen led to a terrible discovery about the person he was currently dating. Now, three decades later, Michael’s entire career has come to encompass a very particular set of values to which his eyes were opened on that night in 1990.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. Also don’t forget to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. 

Also take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. I just posted a video about the conflict over the sitcom Soap that engulfed America in the summer of 1977. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos about queer pop culture, including an upcoming interview with Golden Girls producer Marsha Posner Williams. 

The Moon's About to Fall (Ep 376 - Majora's Mask/Enrique)

This week sees the re-release of one of the greatest videogames ever made, Majora’s Mask, which is about a young boy trying to stop the end of the world. In commemoration, we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archives yet again for a chat about the game with a man who’s given a lot of thought to impending apocalypses, both as an adult and as a child. That may be a dark obsession for a little kid, but playing through the end of the world in videogames got Enrique through some tough times as a kid -- and even tougher times as an adult.

Also, listeners — I know, we’ve been dipping into the Sewers of Paris archives more than usual lately. That’s because I’ve been working on two new top-secret projects that made it a little difficult to record interviews over the last few weeks. But here’s the good news — after this week, you can look forward to a bunch of brand new Sewers of Paris conversations. AND I’ll be announcing those two exciting new projects very soon. One’s directly connected to Sewers, and the other is a sort of companion to both Sewers and my YouTube channel. Thanks for your patience, and I cannot WAIT for you to see what I’ve been working on these last few weeks. Now, on with the episode and my 2016 conversation with Enrique!

Funny and Salacious and Dangerous (Ep 375: Andrew/Soap)

It's a little unfair that so many gay men adore The Golden Girls, but fewer have heard of the show Soap, without which Blanche, Rose, Sophia and Dorothy wouldn't exist. It is also one of the most controversial sitcom in television history, and I have a new YouTube video coming this weekend all about Soap’s rocky road, and why for one summer in 1977 gay groups and conservatives agreed that the show could not be allowed to air. For this week’s episode of The Sewers of Paris, we’re jumping back to a 2015 interview about Soap, which was something of an obsession for my guest Andrew. That’s thanks in large part to the motherly power of the character of Jessica. Though her family was fractured and weird, her love never wavered. That family loyalty made such an impression on him that he still thinks about -- and aspires to it -- to this day.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. Also don’t forget to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. 

Also take a look at my YouTube channel for videos about film and TV history. My new video about the making of Soap debuts this Sunday, February 20, kicking off with a livestream at 11am pacific. And head over to my Patreon to support The Sewers of Paris and watch hours of bonus videos about queer pop culture.