The Joke of Being Gay (Ep. 45 - Polyester & Arrested Development)

The Joke of Being Gay (Ep. 45 - Polyester & Arrested Development)
Matt Baume & Richard Day
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So many of us grew up in a sub to some city's urb. Close enough to know that there's life beyond the split-level ranches and strip malls, but not close enough to know what that life actually is.

My guest this week is Richard Day. Even as a kid, he could detect a mismatch between himself and the nice, normal, heterosexual world he'd grown up in. It's a gay cliche to find the suburbs boring, or oppressive, or hostile. But Richard discovered that they can also be funny. You just have to pull back the veneer -- sometimes way back, as he learned to do as a writer on shows like It's Gary Shandling Show, Ellen, and Arrested Development, and with his films, Girls will be Girls and Straight Jacket.

It was in projects like these that Richard discovered a rich vein of comedy runs directly through normal.



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

The Person I was in Namibia and the Person I am Now (Ep. 44 - Desperate Housewives)

The Person I was in Namibia and the Person I am Now (Ep. 44 - Desperate Housewives)
Matt Baume & Fabian Igiraneza
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Suburban housewives, high school glee club, moving away to college -- these are all icons of normalcy. Nothing could be more ordinary and boring and familiar. But what if things were flipped, and the things that Americans take for granted as mundane became unfamiliar, explored, a source of constant strangeness and discovery?

My guest this week is Fabian Igiraneza, who became a refugee at the age of three when his family fled the Rwandan Civil War. He grew up in the relative peace of Namibia, but as he grew older, the culture's emphasis on masculine ideals became harder and harder for him to uphold. He knew that he belonged somewhere else -- somewhere more like the foreign TV shows he saw with strong female characters and sensitive boys. He knew he didn't belong where he was. And so he formulated a plan to get out.

 

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

The Best Smut You'll Ever Read (Ep. 43 - Anais Nin)

The Best Smut You'll Ever Read (Ep. 43 - Anais Nin)
Matt Baume and Steven Reigns
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Steven Reigns by Jenny Walters

Steven Reigns by Jenny Walters

On any average day, how many people are you? There's morning-you, when your eyes are just barely open and your mood is grumpy. There's work-you, proficient and capable. There's going-out-you, relaxed and maybe a little reckless. There might be family-you, and artist-you, and shy-you and brave-you. So many yous in just one body!

My guest this week is Steven Reigns. Among his many yous is the first city poet of West Hollywood. There's one writer who's had a profound impact on Steven's artistic identity, his personal identity, and even his sexual identity. He discovered Anais Nin work at a pivotal time in his life, when he felt pulled in multiple directions and was unsure what direction his life could take. It was thanks to a lucky loan of a book that Anais appeared to point the way.

And hey -- I'd love it if you would join me for a live online videochat this weekend. I know there are a bunch of folks listening, and I'd really like to get to know you. It's going to be this Saturday, January 16, at noon Pacific Time on my YouTube channel. You can follow me on Twitter @mattbaume to get the link. Hope to see you there!

And if you'd like to see my guest Steven Reigns, he's performing with four other artists at the show "The Allure of Anais Nin" on January 29 at 7pm, at Antioch Community Hall in Santa Barbara.

By the way, you might've noticed that unlike most episodes of Sewers Of Paris, this episode is flagged as "explicit." Just a heads up that our conversation starts off tasteful, but we really earn that rating by the end.

And here are some delightful photos of Anais, courtesy of Steven:

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

I'm not an Expert, Except that I Have a Heart (Ep. 42 - Captain Kirk)

I'm not an Expert, Except that I Have a Heart (Ep. 42 - Captain Kirk)
Matt Baume and Michael Schneider
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What's the biggest chance you ever took? In a perfect world, risk would be unnecessary, and we'd know the outcome of every action before we took it. But as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained -- and sometimes we find ourselves leaping before we look.

My guest this week is Michael Schneider, a Portland writer and artist whose work you can find at Blcksmth.com -- that's spelled with no vowels -- and whose photos you should absolutely be following on Instagram. 

Michael's always been drawn to the security of sure things, known quantities, and predictable patterns. But lately he's been experimenting with the idea that when life gets chaotic, sometimes you can respond with a little chaos of your own.

A few clips from this week's episode:

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