You Can Only Be Young and Dumb for So Long (Ep. 89 - Mama Tits)

November 24, 2016 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Mama Tits

This year's Thanksgiving seems like a particularly important time to reflect back on the good things in our lives, the positive advances we've made, and the people we love and trust -- in fact, times given what they are, our very sanity may depend on it.

Life's a balance of good and bad, and there's never so much of one that there's none of the other. My guest this week has certainly had his share of ups and down, going from an opera prodigy to Idaho's foremost producer of raves to living in a tiny room just upstairs from the off-Broadway debut of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Throughout his adventures, Brian -- aka Mama Tits -- has always been a survivor, toughening himself through the bad news so he could be ready for good news.

This Week's Recommendation: Party Girl

Thanks again to Mama Tits for joining me. And if you'd like to join her, pack your bags for Mexico: Mama now winters in Puetro Vallarta from November to May. Her new show Sweet Like Candy is every Monday and Thursday at Act II Stages. And while she's away, her drag troupe holds down the fort in Seattle every weekend with the show Mimosas Cabaret. Now through the end of the year, they're performing the fabulous original show A Boob Job for Christmas.

It sure is tempting to escape from real life into a fantasy world, now more than ever. And I love an escape as much as anyone, but as tempting as those fantasies may be, eventually real life has a way of intruding since it is, after all, where we actually reside.

For my recommendation this week, check out the movie Party Girl, a 1995 film starring Parker Posey as a free spirt named Mary who'll do anything she can to live her own life. She throws parties, takes drugs, and avoids work of any kind, just barely keeping everything from crashing down around her. But crash things must, and when they do, she finds herself evicted, jobless, and alienated from her friends.

And that forces Mary to take a long hard, painful look in the mirror at a woman she's been refusing to see: a woman capable of being responsible, taking care of herself, worthy of self-respect.

Taking a long hard look at yourself can be tough, a lot tougher than looking away. But if you're constantly looking away into some escape, that often means there's something wrong, a problem that only you can fix, a problem that'll keep chasing you in real life until it catches up and your fantasy can no longer provide a place to hide.

So as tough as it is, we all need to pop out of our escapes now and then, whether they're parties or movies or roles that we play. Look around, look at yourself, look at your real life -- and if there's something you've been avoiding, deal with it. So that way, when you disappear back into whatever your escape may be, you're doing it for fun instead of self-preservation.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

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

Put on Your Lipstick, Make a Martini, and Go (Ep. 87 - Paul Curran)

November 17, 2016 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Paul Curran

At this point, we're all very familiar with the foundational queer story that many of us have lived: feeling like outcasts, fleeing from small towns to big cities, and searching for our tribe.

But what happens once you get to that big city? What can you create once you're free to create the life you've always wanted? My guest this week is Paul Curran, who hitchhiked from Glasgow to London in search of something better at the age of sixteen. There he trained as a ballet dancer until an injury ended his career on stage, and launched a whole new career as a director.

By the way, I've made my book Defining Marriage free to download as an ebook this week through November 18th. The book's full of personal stories from people who fought for marriage equality over the last forty years, and some lessons that might be particularly relevant today about how queer people stood up for themselves in the face of cruel leaders and unjust laws. Just head to DefiningMarriage.com to download a copy -- it's free through Friday, November 18th.

Also, you might've heard that my partner and I broadcast a livestream last weekend of our queer gamer video project, Playing with Pride. If you missed it, don't worry -- we're keeping the recorded livestream up at PlayingWithPride.com through November 19th. If you like the stories on Sewers of Paris, I think you'll enjoy the stories and interviews with LGBT gamers and allies in Playing With Pride. And because it's a work in progress, your input can really help us shape this project. The presentation's about an hour long, and then there's a feedback form that takes just a minute or two to fill out. Head over to PlayingWithPride.com to watch the video and let us know your thoughts.

This Week's Recommendation: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat

Thanks again to Paul for joining me. Keep an eye out for the show he directed with the Dallas Opera, Becoming Santa Claus, coming soon to DVD. And he'll be directing the Golden Cockerel this coming summer at the Santa Fe opera.

I'll confess I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to opera. But the times that my guests on the show have brought it up, it's not hard to see the appeal in shows that create a heightened reality, an imaginary world, a place where voices become surreal. The extremity of the opera provides the same sense of escape that many of us get from explosive special effects in movies, or steamy love scenes in a novel.

That escape is at the heart of great art and culture, and sometimes, great art and culture is about the escape itself. For my recommendation this week, check out the music video for the song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Even though I've seen it countless times, I watched it right before editing this episode and it still has the power to move me. The video follows a young man as he makes the difficult decision to leave home and strike out in search of something better -- someONE better -- and its ambiguous ending lets you write your own ending for the main character after the final freeze frame.

Of course, the ending that you write will probably reflect your own experience, your own escape. It's a heightened reality that, it turns out, was a mirror all along.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

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

Jesus Wants You to Find a Nice Man (Ep. 86 - Final Fantasy)

November 10, 2016 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Andrew Slade

If you're like me, right now you're searching for something -- anything -- to lend you comfort. We've just ended a horrifying election season, and are about to embark on four years that will likely be even worse. How do we even start to recover from this, how do we get out of bed for the next four years, what can we do to move forward?

Well the future, good or bad, starts with us. We can shape it. The world in which we live begins in our imaginations, and then through our work we bring it to life. And that's why art and culture and ideas and entertainment and daydreaming are all so important, particularly at moments like these.

I spoke to this week's guest, Andrew Slade, before the election about his passion for escape, whether it's into a video game or a drag character. We talked about how imaginary worlds can become real, how a fantasy can become reality, and how one person's late-night idea can blossom into a collaboration and then into a performance that changes lives. Back when we recorded our chat, we weren't thinking about politics. But as you listen this week, I hope you will.

This week's Recommendation: Chaka Corn

Thanks again to Andrew for joining me. I cannot recommend highly enough that you go to YouTube and type in his drag name -- Chaka Corn -- and watch him perform. His acts are even more strange and geeky and fun than you can imagine, and half the pleasure is listening to the audience roar with approval.

It's not easy to connect to a room full of people, especially when your references are to 8-bit videogame characters that may be older than some of the people watching. But Chaka corn isn't just referencing culture -- she's making something new, from love stories to revenge fantasies to declarations of queer power. And even if you don't exactly know who Megaman is, or which Pokemon does what, the story they're telling is clear. And seeing the pleasure of the show spreading from the stage to the far corners of the room is magic. Pure magic.

If you, like me, feel like any hope of recovery from this election is so far away as to be imperceptible, remember we have magic. We tell stories, we make art, we share the books and music and movies and shows that have moved us. And in so doing we have the power to transmute ideas into messages and messages into movements.

So my recommendation this week is also to make stuff, watch stuff, go to stuff, share stuff. And make that stuff count. Don't squander your magic.

Stuff We Talked About

Music

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

Things You Thought Were Evil (Ep. 85 - PJ Harvey)

November 3, 2016 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Austin Bull

My guest this week is Austin Bull, also known as the performance artist The Bearded Femme. His stage persona is eye-catching and weird, from vibrant green beards to dressing up as sexualized religious figures. Creating creatures onstage is his way of making sense of a darkness that once threatened to overwhelm him -- and standing up to his own fears.

By the way, this Saturday, November 5th, you can catch me and my partner James livestreaming video games for 24 hours straight. It's a fundraiser for Seattle Children's Hospital, and you can watch and chat and donate as we play Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Smash Brothers, and lots more. While we play, we're asking viewers to chip in a few bucks to support research into childhood diseases. Just go bit.ly/extralifeseattle to watch and donate. We're starting at 9am pacific on November 5 and going straight through to 9am on November 6th. Wish us luck.

Also, James and I are working on a documentary project about queer gamers, and on November 12th we're going to be livestreaming a sneak peek and responding to viewers' questions and comments. If you enjoy the storytelling on Sewers of Paris, you'll want to join us live for Playing with Pride. It's a work in progress, so feedback at this stage can have a huge impact on its future. Just visit PlayingWithPride.com to watch, and to sign up for the latest news on the project as it evolves.

This Week's Recommendation: Dragula

I have seen a lot of drag, and it takes a lot to make me turn my head at this point. So I'm 100% in support of any artist who's embarking on something daring and weird. That's why my cautious recommendation this week is Dragula, a brand new drag-queen elimination show that's kind of Drag Race plus Addams Family plus Marilyn Manson. It's pretty rough around the edges -- but that's kind of the point.

The show just premiered online, and it's the work of LA nightlife creatures The Boulet Brothers and upcoming Sewers of Paris guest Johnny McGovern. Each half-hour episode brings together drag queens of a sort you're unlikely to see on Logo: messy, scary, upsetting, and downright baffling. The show is set in a cemetery, and on the premiere they're challenged to present their best witch looks. The performers come out on stage cackling with skulls, fangs, and spikes, and they're then doused in water to demonstrate their best death.

The judgement begins with a Boulet brother reminding them that "In the Dragula family, we pride ourselves on being outcasts and losers." And there is therefore no winner. There is, however, an extermination, with a few queens called out for their unacceptable use of items like sensible black pumps. Three contestants are then buried alive in coffins and showered through a tube with live insects in pitch blackness until one actually urinates on camera.

If the bright lights and beauty of Drag Race have always rubbed you the wrong way, you'll probably love the catacombs and creatures on Dragula. After being showered in mealworms, one of the contestants explains why she enjoyed herself: "the only thing to do was what I've done my whole life, take something shitty and nightmarish and make it something to laugh about."

That line reminded me of something I once read by Annie Proulx, the author of Brokeback Mountain. Explaining the message of the story, she said, "if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it."

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

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

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.