Evil Glamour (Ep. 161 - Anime & Maleficent)

March 29, 2018 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Justin Saint

Is there some secret to turning pain into art? My guest this week is Justin Saint, whose artistic expression takes the form of makeup and cosplay. Justin's chosen medium involves costumes and disguises, but behind those beautiful facades are some struggles that are still pretty tender: periods of homelessness, his father setting his creative works on fire, and a relationship that nearly drove him past a point of no return. Now he's back on his feet and leading a community of like-minded creatives, charting a course by channeling his past experiences into artistic expression with his body a canvass.

Big thanks to everyone who helps keep the show independent and add free. If you're enjoying The Sewers of Paris, you can help keep the show going. Click "support the show on Patreon" to pledge a dollar or more a month.

And I hope you'll join us this Saturday, March 31, for a Dungeons & Dragons livestream! We're reuniting Bryan Safi (of the podcast Throwing Shade), Carlos Maza from Vox.com, Anthony Oliveira (aka Meakoopa, and also of the brand new podcast The Devil's Party), and LGBT film scholar Bryan Wuest, for an all-new D&D adventure played live. It starts at 1pm this Saturday, the 31st. Head over to Twitch to set a reminder for when we go live.

And speaking of D&D, we're in the last few days of our crowdfunding for Queens of Adventure, a new podcast featuring drag queens on an epic role-playing adventure. Thanks to folks like you, the first season of the podcast is fully funded and now we're reaching for stretch goals that include livestreams with the queens and a fully illustrated adventure that you can download and play. Head over to QueensOfAdventure.com to join us in bringing the show to life -- crowdfunding ends this Saturday, March 31, so if you've been waiting to join the campaign, it's now or never.

This Week's Recommendation: The Legend of Korra

For my recommendation this week, check out a show that Justin mentioned in passing: The Legend of Korra. It is a gorgeous, smart, and very fun show -- and don't let the fact that it aired on Nickelodeon fool you into thinking that it's just for kids, though they'd like it too.

The show is set in a sort of magical version of the 1920s, where new technology like rattling cars and silent films exists side-by-side with ancient supernatural creatures and powers. Korra is a teenager with the power to manipulate the elements, and along with her friends she fights to protect the downtrodden and vulnerable in a bustling and often dangerous metropolis. As with any teen, she has her share of romances, some that feel a little predictable and others that might sneak up on you -- as they seem to sneak up on her.

Since it premiered, fans did their usual thing of imagining various romantic pairings. And marvelously, the series culminates in a connection between characters that validates those fan theories. After the series finale aired, showrunner Michael Dante DiMartino confirmed (on Tumblr, appropriately) that the romance was, in fact, real. It was an incredible gesture, given that the show aired on a children's TV network. It confirmed the existence of relationships that would have been considered completely taboo just a few years ago -- and in fact, in many contexts, still are -- and it was a revolutionary moment in television.

But that's not the only reason to watch, of course. It's a gorgeous show with wonderful characters and exciting adventures and inspiring ideas. The fact that it has a moment of powerful validation just adds to the appeal.

Stuff We Talked About

Return To Oz

Starring Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh

Dragon Ball Z: Season 1 [Blu-ray]

Starring Sean Schemmel, Christopher R. Sabat

Maleficent

Starring Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton

People Who Have Real Magic (Ep. 160 - Dune)

March 22, 2018 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Ryan Kendall

We often talk on this show about escape, and it’s usually with the assumption that having an escape is a good thing. But there can be consequences to leaving the world you've always known behind -- even when that world is actively causing you harm. My guest this week is Ryan Kendall, whose parents subjected him to devastating homophobia, and dangerous "ex-gay" abuse. After Ryan legally emancipated himself from his parents, what followed was a period of homelessness and addiction that took years for him to overcome.

I first met Ryan after he testified in the trial to overturn Proposition 8. As a witness, Ryan was called to provide evidence that sexual orientation isn’t something you can deliberately change. And as you’ll hear, he was able to provide particularly vivid testimony to that effect.

We recorded this week's episode during a thunderstorm in Colorado, so you'll hear some noise of rain in the background and a few rolls of thunder that were oddly perfect additions to Ryan's story.

And I hope you'll join me for two exciting livestreams coming up. One is a Sewers of Paris livestream on March 25, and the other is a Dungeons and Dragons livestream on March 31.

That Sewers Of Paris livestream is happening this Sunday, March 25th, at 2pm pacific. It has been such a delight to chat with Sewers of Paris listeners about your favorite media and what you're watching and reading and listening to right now. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday, the 25th — you can find a link to the livestream in the show notes (it's at https://youtu.be/Xp5u9rMSvW4 ) and on the @Sewersofparis twitter feed.

The Dungeons & Dragons livestream is the following Saturday, March 31. I'll be joined by comedian Bryan Safi, writer Anthony Oliveira, critic Carlos Maza, and LGBT film scholar Bryan Wuest -- we’ll be playing an all new D&D adventure at 1pm pacific — head over to twitch.tv/prettyprettypixel to join us for that at 1pm on March 31st.

And we’re in the home stretch on the crowdfunding for our brand new upcoming podcast, Queens of Adventure, starring four drag queens playing an ongoing game of Dungeons and Dragons. Thanks to backers we’ve fully funded the first season of the show, and now we’re reaching for stretch goals, including livestream with the queens. Head over the QueensOfAdventure.com to help bring that show to life.

This Week's Recommendation: But I'm a Cheerleader

Thanks again to Ryan for joining me. For my recommendation this week, check out a movie he mentioned in passing — But I’m a Cheerleader. Just to prepare you, it is a movie that telegraphs intensely that it is a product of the late 90s. And as a low-budget indie film, it has a somewhat hand-made feel. But oh boy, it has a lot of feelings about queer love.

The story of the film is simple enough: a teenage girl exhibits signs of lesbianism, like a predilection for Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, and so her parents send her to an ex-gay camp. In the film, the camp is sort of John-Waters-lite — it’s over-the-top and, well, campy. The authorities are themselves living in a bonkers delusion that sexuality can be manipulated, and in a particularly arresting bit of casting, one of the most strident ex-gay characters is played by RuPaul.

Naturally, the young queers learn to break free from rigid gender stereotypes and accept themselves for who they are. The conclusion of the film is pleasant, not particularly surprising, but gentle and sweet and optimistic. Which is something queer people really needed around the time this movie came out.

But I’m a Cheerleader is a strange artifact from a very particular time. Watching it now feels like an outright fantasy, but when it came out, less then 20 years ago, it was common — even expected — that queer people would be subjected to treatments not too dissimilar from those in the film. At the time, ex-gay camps were just a fact of life.

But over the last two decades, we’ve experienced a sort of emperor’s-new-clothes when it comes to praying away the gay. Thanks to movies like But I’m a Cheerleader, and to real-life survivors like Ryan sharing their ordeals, gradually mainstream culture has come around to recognize just how ridiculous the practice is.

Of course, for many people, ex-gay abuse is still a fact of life. But hopefully not for much longer, with more and more states banning the practice. Those legal reforms simply wouldn’t be possible without the voices that got the ball rolling and kept up the momentum. And a look at how much things have changed in the last 20 years is a reminder of how fortunate we are today.

Stuff We Talked About

Dune

By Frank Herbert

Hellstrom's Hive

By Frank Herbert

The Monster I Have to Beat (Ep. 159 - JP Brammer)

March 15, 2018 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: JP Brammer

How do you forgive someone who won't, or can't, apologize? My guest this week is JP Brammer, who dispenses advice in the column Hola Papi on Grindr's news site Into. JP's made a name for himself by providing thoughtful insights into living your best gay life, but his understanding of life and love didn't just spring into existence fully formed. It's the product of some pain, some forgiveness, and a college club that he really hoped would present more opportunities for making out.

Thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are special rewards for patrons like early ad-free access to content, shoutouts in videos, and a copy of my book mailed to you with some cute Sewers of Paris buttons. If you're enjoying the show, click "Support the Show on Patreon." Or if you can't pledge, you can still help out by leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

And! If you're in San Francisco, I'll be in town to host a live show featuring drag queens playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's on March 20th at Oasis and features Erika Klash from Dragula; Kitty Powers, of the games Matchmaker and Lovelife; San Francisco stars Pollo Del Mar and KaiKai Bee Michaels; and past Sewers guest Pup Amp, the scantily clad co-host of the YouTube series Watt's the Safeword. Tickets are now on sale -- head over to DungeonDrag.com for the link. And if you're not in San Francisco, please pass the word along to anyone who you think might enjoy the show.

Also: I'm about to launch a brand new podcast featuring drag queens playing D&D! It's called Queens of Adventure, and we're crowdfunding throughout the month of March to pay for performers, music, art, and equipment. Visit QueensOfAdventure.com to join us in bringing this new podcast to life.

This Week's Recommendation: I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew

And for my recommendation this week, pick up the Dr. Seuss book I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. It's a quick read, of course, and it's about a young person -- or cat, or dog? Or whatever Dr. Seuss creatures are -- who's beset by troubles and does everything he can to escape from them.

On his way to a promised paradise called Solla Sollew, he endures bad weather, illness, war, cancelled bus routes. Nothing goes his way and the closer he gets to his destination the rougher life becomes. But he'd determined to make it because, he's convinced that all of his troubles will be over if he can just get far enough away from them.

And maybe that would work, if only Solla Sollew was a bit more accessible. Turns out there's no such thing as a place that's trouble-free, no matter how far you travel. And that leaves our hero with a choice -- keep running from his troubles, or turn back and deal with them... knowing now that troubles never really go away. But you can become trouble for them.

Stuff We Talked About

Like Getting Struck by Lightning (Ep. 158 - The Twist Queer Film Festival)

March 13, 2018 Matthew Baume

Special Guests! Jay Bell, Grant Davis, Carlos Pedraza, Joe Appelbaum, and Stu Maddox

Welcome to a special bonus episode of The Sewers of Paris! On most episodes, I talk to a guest about the entertainment that changed their life. But tonight I'm speaking to five guests who create entertainment that they hope will change the lives of others.

I recorded these interviews at Twist, Seattle's LGBT film festival. You'll hear from folks involved in two projects that screened at the festival: the first is Something Like Summer, a romance based on the novel by Jay Bell; and the second is Queer Ghost Hunters, a docu-series about a group of investigators who believe in life and love after death.

We talk about the books, movies, shows, and songs that touched their lives and inspired them to become creators. A huge thanks to the folks at Twist for helping to arrange these conversations. And thanks to everyone who backs The Sewers of Paris on Patreon, making it possible for me to produce bonus episodes of the show. If you're enjoying The Sewers of Paris, you help keep it going by clicking "support the show on Patreon" to pledge as little as a dollar a month. Or more, more is good too.

And! If you enjoyed my bonus episodes where I have guests playing Dungeons and Dragons, check out our live show where drag queens play D&D onstage for a live audience. The show'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! And if you're not in San Francisco, I hope you'll pass the word along to anyone who you think might enjoy the show.

Also: I'm about to launch a brand new podcast featuring drag queens playing D&D! It's called Queens of Adventure, and we're crowdfunding throughout the month of March to pay for performers, music, art, and equipment. We just hit our first funding goal, and now we're heading towards a stretch goal of doing livestreams with the queens -- Visit QueensOfAdventure.com to join us in bringing this new podcast to life.

Recommendation: Put the Camera on Me

Thanks again to Twist for helping to arrange these interviews, and a huge thanks to Jay Bell, Grant Davis, Carlos Pedraza, Joe Appelbaum, and Stu Maddox for chatting with me about the entertainment that inspired them.

For this week's recommendation, take a look at the 2003 documentary Put the Camera on Me by Darren Stein and Adam Shell. You might know Darren for his narrative films like Jawbreaker and GBF. But Put the Camera on Me is comprised primarily of archival home videos made by him and a group of other kids in the late 80s.

You can see from the videos that even as a kid, Darren was a bit of an Ed Wood, in that he assembled a group of friends and somehow persuaded them to enact his own internal conflict. Stein was clearly had some things to say about homosexuality, and was unprepared to say them himself and so he planted his messages in extremely campy video art projects.

The highlight of his oevre is the short "Gay as a Whistle," a three-ish minute story in which a pre-adolescent boy whispers to the camera about having the power to turn other boys gay. It contains lines of dialogue like "there's that gay guy, shouldn't we beat him up?" and speculation that gay people could end the world.

Those archival shots cut to contemporary interviews in which Stein's friends reflect on just what the hell they thought was going on, and how there's still some lingering awkwardness amongst them. The more you see of Darren's early video work, the clearer the portrait of the artist becomes: a gay kid struggling to express something in a language he hasn't quite learned how to speak.

Stuff We Talked About

Something Like Summer (Volume 1)

By Jay Bell

Buy on Amazon

On a Pale Horse (Incarnations of Immortality, Bk. 1)

By Piers Anthony

Buy on Amazon

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

March 8, 2018 Matthew Baume

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.)

March 1, 2018 Matthew Baume

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

About The Sewers of Paris

The Sewers of Paris is a podcast about how queer lives are shaped by our favorite books, movies, music, and shows. Each week, guests open up about their secret struggles, hidden passions, and surprising triumphs by plucking a piece of entertainment from their past and answering the question: What’s the entertainment that changed your life?

About Defining Marriage

Each week on Defining Marriage, hosts Matt Baume and James Morris chat about what's happening with marriage equality, featuring frequent digressions into pop culture, silly banter, and the jokes and quibbles that have kept them together as a couple for over a decade.

The first eighteen episodes of the podcast contain the complete audiobook version of the book Defining Marriage, which traces the decades-long evolution of marriage through the personal stories of those who lived through it, featuring personal insights from the lives of Evan Wolfson, Dan Savage, Ken Mehlman, Dustin Lance Black, and many more.

About Matt's So-Cast Pod

Revisit the iconic '90s drama My So-Called Life, one episode at a time. Every week, host Matt Baume & his guests delve into the teen angst, the grown-up turmoil, and the endless flannel of the 90s -- and examine the show's impact on television and our lives.