All of a Sudden I had a Gay Icon (Ep. 10: Star Trek)

All of a Sudden I had a Gay Icon (Ep. 10: Star Trek)
Matt Baume and Charlie Logan
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When you think about the science fiction, what comes to mind? Maybe some silvery uniforms, blue guys with antennas, blinking lights. You know, the future. What's great about imaginary futures is that they're places of potential, an escape to a place where where everything's better, or sometimes worse. And whatever problems we have today have all been solved. Or maybe exacerbated.

My guest today is Charlie Logan, founder of the Pink Parties, a regular series of huge queer nerd gatherings that are timed to Seattle's biggest comic and videogame conventions. Charlie started throwing Pink Parties as a way to find other gays who shared his love of anything geeky, and his hope for a better future, and his need to escape.

Because after all, as we'll hear, for a time there was a lot that he needed to escape from

I'm delighted, by the way, to have finally had a reason to talk about Star Trek on the show. Here are those tribbles: 

Here's the song from Bye Bye Birdie that Charlie had to sing about being sincere... while pretending to be heterosexual.

Once Charlie came out, he was introduced to Erasure:

And Wham! Can you believe anyone ever thought that George Michael was straight?

And of course, Charlie's Pink Parties now feature guests like Jennifer Hale, who voiced Dragon Age: Inquisition's Krem, possibly the greatest trans character in video games:

As well as the delightful Ellen McLain character GLaDOS:

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

 

Making Your Outsides Match Your Insides (Ep. 9 - Cabaret Culture)

Making Your Outsides Match Your Insides (Ep. 9: Cabaret Culture)
Matt Baume and Zak the Barber
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Photo: Rachel Robinson, Nark Magazine

What happens when you grow up so fast you become an adult while you're still a kid? My guest this week is Zak, who was wise beyond his years by the time he was 14, thanks in part to a young love triangle and also being raised by a house full of strippers.

Zak had barely entered high school when he felt ready to set out on his own, and start his own life. But he found that while you can grow up fast, you can't rush adulthood. That's how he wound up spending several teenage years drifting across the state, a runaway, in every sense of the word.

We talked about some exceptional music in this week's episode, starting with the Dresden Dolls: 

And also Beats Antique:

And Gogol Bordello's delighteful "Start Wearing Purple":

We also covered the music he grew up hearing, including White Zombie:

And Pantera:

And oh gee whiz you guys, remember No Doubt?

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

Jewels and Gold and Butts (Ep. 8: Pink Narcissus)

Jewels and Gold and Butts (Ep. 8: Pink Narcissus)
Matt Baume and Ian MacKinnon
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Photo: Evans Vestal Ward 

When my guest Ian was growing up in the midwest, he couldn't even picture what life as a gay man even looked like. And he certainly couldn't have pictured what his life would become: parading up on stages as a performance artist, covered in brightly-colored phallic objects, to shout triumphantly in one-man shows about the pride he takes in being a sexual gay being.

When he came out of the closet in college, Ian felt like he'd just been dropped off alone at a gay bar, left to find his own way all by himself. Coming out was just the first step to becoming whatever a gay man is. His next step: exploring homosexuality in full view of the public, on stage.

We talked a lot about Pink Narcissus in this episode, and it's hard to find clips of it online. Here's a little bit: 

A reflection on the work of Peter Berlin:

The mortifying Doing Time on Maple Drive:

There's a brief clip of "Make it Gay" in this week's show:

And here's my recommendation: In Their Room.

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

Jodie Foster Made me a Gay Atheist Polygamist (Ep. 7: Contact)

Jodie Foster Made me a Gay Atheist Polygamist (Ep. 7: Contact)
Matt Baume & Ben Williams
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ben

Okay, to be fair, Jodie Foster isn't singlehandedly to blame for turning Ben from a quiet church boy into a tattooed pierced atheist with a husband and a boyfriend. But her influence didn't hurt.

Ben's family moved a lot, and after a childhood of making and then losing friends, he was starting to feel lonely and sad. At the same time, school were becoming oppressive. When Jodie Foster appeared in Contact, playing an aggressive scientist who challenges the assumptions of everyone around her, he realized that he didn't have to just sit back and keep going to the classes and church services that were slowly eating him away.

These days, his tastes verge toward the decidedly more unusual: music like Loreena McKennitt, which he describes as "hippie folk," or the kind of music you play to set the mood in a Dungeons and Dragons game. He likes weird movies like Titus, The Fifth Element, and Run Lola Run. And he has a soft spot for She-Ra.

His favorite musicians and movies and characters all have a strangeness, an outcast quality, and a willingness to try something new (even She-Ra, a rare female action character who managed to go mainstream). Trying something new is risky, but it can also be just the dizzying nudge you need to break out of a bad routine.

Looking for something different yourself? Look no further than Michel Gondry, whose incredibly bizarre videos you can watch over and over and over and over, never realizing you have become trapped in a recursive loop with Kylie Minogue.

Some of Ben's favorite movies are extremely weird. How about that Titus?

And just try explaining The Fifth Element to someone who's not familiar with it. They'll never believe you.

Even Run Lola Run, which takes place in a familiar universe (well, okay, Europe, but that's not as exotic as whatever The Fifth Element is) is a little hard to wrap your head around.

And although Contact was made for a mass market, it's pretty amazing how daring and unusual the film treats the subject matter.

We also talked about some pretty distinctive music, including Loreena McKennitt:

And the difference between Björk and Joanna Newsom grows difficult to discern:

I asked ben for some musical suggestions, and he provided some excellent pointers:

And finally, here's She-Ra. I couldn't write this post without including She-Ra.

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