This week I’m talking to Mayor John Bauters — yes that’s right the actual mayor of Emeryville, which are the words on the sash that was made for him by Pixar studios, just one of the constituencies in his East Bay town. John never planned to become an elected official, and he doesn’t care if people vote him out. Which is maybe what makes him such an unusual leader. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a book coming out next year about queer sitcoms! It’s call...
Oct 20, 2022•52 min•Ep. 406
My guest this week is Professor Paul Baker, a writer and linguist whose work includes some FASCINATING explorations of Polari, the secret 19-century queer language that existed in England a century ago. He’s also delved deep into the history of British don’t-say-gay laws, gay seafarers, and in an upcoming book about campy queer culture. Given his expertise in campy sitcoms, drag stars, and celebrated actresses, I have a feeling that he speaks a language in which listeners of this podcast will be...
Oct 13, 2022•48 min•Ep. 405
Over on YouTube, I just released a new video about the long queer history of vampire lore — from Victorian novels about killer lesbians and undead seamen to early motion pictures and then the groundbreaking novel Interview With the Vampire in the 1970s. A new adaptation of Interview just premiered on AMC this week, and so in honor of that we’re diving into the Sewers archives to revisit my 2015 interview with Levi Hastings. Levi’s an illustrator who grew up feeling like a misfit in his tiny reli...
Oct 06, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 404
For this week’s episode, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run an interview about horror movies, since October’s about to begin — or about romantic comedies, in recognition of Billy Eichner’s new rom-com Bros. So I decided to run an episode about horror AND romance. It’s a revisit of my 2018 interview with Michael Varrati, Hollywood screenwriter responsible for such films as From Hell She Rises, and Seven Dorms of Death … and also A Christmas Reunion and A Christmas in Vermont. Michael's genre-ho...
Sep 29, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 403
My guest this week has two lives — his theater life and his law life. By day, you may know Chris Geidner for his reporting and writing on some of the most pressing legal issues of the day. But he’s just as passionate about musical theater, going all the way back to the time he was enthralled by Phantom of the Opera. In fact, it was one little twist of fate that led him to a legal career instead of a life in the theater — but, as he discovered, the two careers aren’t as different as one might thi...
Sep 22, 2022•55 min•Ep. 402
You might know my guest this week from his saucy art on Twitter, but there’s much more to his work than X-Men in Speedos. Josh Cornillon grew up reading sophisticated graphic novels in his native France, and those books infuse the writing and illustration that he does today. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, hey in case you haven’t heard, I’ve got a book coming out next year about how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom over the last half century! It’s called H...
Sep 15, 2022•43 min•Ep. 401
TJ Klune’s childhood grew up reading books in a forest under the trees, which sounds idyllic … minus the part about how he was mercilessly bullied. Literature and libraries were his safe haven, and in fact a librarian was the first person he ever came out to. In his adult life, TJ found himself working a grueling job in the insurance industry, longing to tell the stories in his head. But nobody was more surprised than he was when, one day, he walked into work and declared the he was quitting so ...
Sep 08, 2022•48 min•Ep. 400
Fifty one years ago this month, a strange and beautiful art film called Pink Narcissus had its San Francisco debut, and went on to forever change the life of my guest Ian MacKinnon. I spoke to Ian back in 2015, and this week we’re revisiting that interview to mark the half-century birthday of one of his favorite films. Growing up in the midwest, Ian 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 st...
Sep 01, 2022•42 min•Ep. 399
Kyle Turner was one of those weird little kids whose tastes were more like those of a middle-aged gay man than those of his peers. He was raised on a steady movie diet of golden-age black-and-white comedies, and the resulting perspective that he gained set him apart from the other kids at his deeply conservative private school. He always believed he was destined to writing about classic film, and though a mix of hard work and good connections, as an adult those dreams have come true. We’ll have ...
Aug 25, 2022•46 min•Ep. 398
My guest this week was present for some of the earliest days of what we now recognize as reality TV — he helped produce Gay Riviera, a 2001 Bravo series about queer dating. Kevin Haddad never expected to find himself behind the scenes of a series that helped developed the rules of reality television — a few months earlier, he was a waiter at a family restaurant in Connecticut, and before he knew it he was staying out all night at New York’s hottest nightclubs and possibly getting picked up by a ...
Aug 18, 2022•38 min•Ep. 397
My guest this week is Chris Steadman , an author and professor and podcaster whose childhood obsession was very grown-up books about disasters. Even as a kid, he took a very serious view of the world, placing on himself the burden of understanding and — hopefully — finding a solution to humanity’s greatest troubles. That led him down some unexpected paths, and now he helps guide other folks who are on similar explorations. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a quick reminder that I’...
Aug 11, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 396
My guest this week — and apologies for the slightly late post, it’s been a busy week! — is Trung le Nguyen, author and illustrator of the award-winning book The Magic Fish, among many other graphic works. Trung’s family made their way to the US from a refugee camp, and he grew up obsessed with cozy picture books. A sensitive boy, Trung could have been the target of a lot of bullying — but he wasn’t, thanks in part to a moment at a birthday party that involved his father, his friends, and a kick ...
Aug 06, 2022•43 min•Ep. 395
Last week I spoke with Bret Shuford, one half of the couple known as the Broadway Husbands . This week I’m talking to his husband, Stephen Hanna, about leaving home to pursue a ballet career and discovering just how physically grueling that world could be — not to mention surprisingly hostile to sensitive young guys like him. The work took a heavy toll, and for a time Stephen found himself going down a dark path … until he found a way to change course and find the life he’d been looking for. Fir...
Jul 28, 2022•40 min•Ep. 395
My guest this week is Bret Shuford , one half of the couple that calls themselves the Broadway Husbands . Bret met his husband Steven while they were both working on Broadway, and they started a blog about their lives together before embarking on their latest adventure — raising a kid. I’ll be talking to Bret this week about his childhood in Texas, his viral video career, and a problem that he steadfastly ignored until it threatened to destroy everything — and next week I’ll have his husband Ste...
Jul 21, 2022•41 min•Ep. 394
Before we start this week, I want to thank you for your patience — as you might’ve seen, I’ve been recovering from a balance issue that left me in a state of constant dizziness. As a result I had to cut back on editing for a few weeks, since that involves staring at a screen full of objects constantly scrolling left and right. But the good news is that I’m getting better and will be back to my usual Sewers schedule soon. Thanks again for bearing with me while I get back on my feet and back to ma...
Jul 14, 2022•55 min•Ep. 393
Maybe you’ve seen the new animated series on Netflix entitled Dead End: Paranormal Park, featuring a cast of queer characters working at an amusement park that might be a portal to hell. I spoke to the show’s creator, Hamish Steele, several years ago when his comic book Deadendia was in the early stages of being adapted into a show, and now that Dead End has been completed and released, we’re revisiting that conversation this week to hear about the real-life friends who inspired the story… and a...
Jun 30, 2022•51 min•Ep. 392
My guest this week set himself a goal many years ago — to bring RuPaul’s Drag Race to Sweden, with an all-Swedish production, Swedish queens, and a Swedish host. Now it’s finally happening, thanks to my guest’s decade of work amidst international travel, seeking a country that felt like home, and meeting and falling in love with his husband. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a weekly newsletter where I write stories about queer pop culture and also link to...
Jun 16, 2022•44 min•Ep. 391
Welcome to June, listeners. Every year for Pride month, I like to revisit my conversation with a man whose tales of old queer New York are absolutely captivating. He earned the nickname Tree thanks to his six-foot-five stature, and he’s been a part of New York’s gay community going back to the fifties, when he didn’t even know a community existed. Tree’s been a member of Brooklyn street gangs, worked with the mob, and counted among his friends Buddy Holly, Bea Arthur, and Rock Hudson. We talked ...
Jun 02, 2022•49 min•Ep. 390
My guest this week is the fascinating Terrence Smith, also known as Joan Jett Blakk, a drag performer who ran for mayor of Chicago in the 90s, and after that, President. Terrence has some incredible stories about growing up in Detroit, seeing David Bowie and The Supremes perform live, sneaking onto the floor of the Democratic National Convention, and orchestrating, as he calls it, “quite a lovely revolution.” We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a weekly news...
May 26, 2022•45 min•Ep. 389
There’s a new book out this month about the history of The Women’s House of Detention, a women’s prison that was located just across the street from The Stonewall Inn, that played a role in the 1969 uprising, and that for better or worse shaped queer culture in New York’s iconic gayborhood. The author, Hugh Ryan, was my guest on the Sewers of Paris several years ago, and for this week’s episode we’re revisiting by 2020 interview with him about his previous book, When Brooklyn was Queer. Settle i...
May 19, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 388
We’re in the midst of Eurovision right now, the extravagant celebration of over-the-top music and outrageous costumes and, every now and then, taste. Eurovision is a great big ball of fun, and it was the subject of the very first episode of The Sewers of Paris. This week, we’re revisiting my 2015 interview with Jānis, who on this very show was the first person to introduce me to the joy of Eurovision, along with the German version of American Idol, gay-adjacent Hitchcock movies, and hard-core ca...
May 12, 2022•52 min•Ep. 387
My guest this week is Alejandro Varela , who was a mostly-closeted college student when he left the US for a semester in Spain. There he was able to start fresh, come out, and explore queer culture — with a little inspiration from filmmaker Pedro Almodovar — and to come back to the US a completely changed person. 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 ...
May 06, 2022•46 min•Ep. 386
My guest this week is Oliver Darkshire. As a young adult, he found himself drifting away from his friends, due in part to what turned out to be an undiagnosed illness that made it hard for him to participate in day-to-day activities. It was a fantasy novel that turned things around for him — a book that took an approach to sex that had never occurred to Oliver to seek out. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder to head over to mattbaume.com to subscribe to my newsletter. And...
Apr 28, 2022•40 min•Ep. 384
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 get...
Apr 21, 2022•52 min•Ep. 384
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...
Apr 14, 2022•46 min•Ep. 383
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 pictu...
Apr 07, 2022•42 min•Ep. 382
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 fo...
Mar 31, 2022•54 min•Ep. 381
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 ...
Mar 24, 2022•45 min•Ep. 380
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. Fir...
Mar 17, 2022•45 min•Ep. 379
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 informe...
Mar 10, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 378
