How do you deal with the past when it hurts too much to spend time there? My guest this week is writer and journalist Daniel Villareal, who found himself questioning his purpose in life when the authorities he’d always trusted, like he church and his father, revealed themselves not to have his best interests at heart. He managed to cut himself free from harmful relationships, but he was still left with the question of how to move on — a process he’s still in the process of mastering. And just a ...
Jun 11, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 290
Hello and welcome to the Sewers of Paris. Fifty-one years ago, a riot against police brutality helped kick off the modern Pride movement, and on this episode we’ll hear from one of the people who were there. 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 H...
Jun 04, 2020•51 min•Ep. 289
My guest this week is Steven Capsuto, whose book Alternate Channels documents the history of queer images on television across the twentieth century. An updated edition was released last year and it’s absolutely vital reading for anyone interested in LGBTQ culture — which I suspect is you. Steven’s work as a historian began as a personal project, videotaping gay episodes of TV in the 80s because it helped him feel less alone — but before long that personal project turned into a vital record. Als...
May 29, 2020•58 min•Ep. 288
My guest this week is comic book author Marc Andreyko, who’s written for Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Dr. Strange, and more. You might know him for his work on Love is Love, an anthology to benefit the victims of the Pulse shooting. Mark got his big break in comics at a young age, almost entirely by accident, and since then he’s been peppering queer stories into comics wherever he can. Also, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris is on Twitter and Facebook — I post clips of the stuff that we talk about ...
May 21, 2020•50 min•Ep. 287
My guest this week is Dee Michel, author of the book “Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love the Wizard of Oz.” Dee grew up in the 1950s with the threat of the red scare looming over his family — his parents met at a Communist Party meeting, and there was the constant threat that the family would be exposed. Added to the general chaos of the time was the discovery that his father was gay, and Dee’s own struggle to find his place in the world. Also, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris ...
May 15, 2020•59 min•Ep. 286
My guest this week is Amos Mac, one of the founders of the magazine Original Plumbing a decade ago, and more recently one of the writers on the reboot of the show Gossip Girl. Amos was working in queer nightlife when he started the magazine as a fun sexy side project, but it was a runaway hit and took on a life of its own, giving him a foot in the door to launch his career in television. Also, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris is on Twitter and Facebook — I post clips of the stuff that we talk...
May 07, 2020•46 min•Ep. 285
My guest this week is Broadway’s Seth Rudetsky, writer singer actor and radio host among his many many jobs. You may know him from his Sirius XM shows On Broadway and Seth Speaks, or from the show Disaster which he co-wrote with Jack Plotnick, or from his brand new podcast Seth Rudetsky’s Back to School. Seth is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm for entertainment, and it’s impossible to listen to him talk without getting swept up in his absolute glee for showbiz. We’ll have that conversation in ...
Apr 30, 2020•57 min•Ep. 284
I’m very excited to bring you this week’s guest — the fabulous actor and playwright Charles Busch, who first rose to prominence in the 1980s with the show Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and followed up with such hits as Die Mommy Die, Psycho Beach Party, and The Allergist’s Wife, for which he earned a Tony nomination. For the first decade of his career, Charles was a struggling writer who traveled the country with exhausting one-man shows, but his big break came when he wrote a just-for-fun skit with...
Apr 23, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 283
Some of the most groundbreaking queer moments on television happened on a show that if you’re American, you’ve probably never heard of. Number 96 is one of the most popular TV shows in Australia’s history, but it never managed to successfully make the jump to the US — maybe because its content, in the mid 1970s, was way too risqué for American audiences. My guest this week is a scholar of Australian TV. Ever since he was a kid, Andrew Mercado was devoted to Aussie soap operas, and as an adult he...
Apr 16, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 282
My guest this week is Trystan Reese, who starred as Yitzhak in the original LA production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. From an early age, Trystan was laser focused on going to Broadway and becoming a famous actor. But the experience of being an actor, it turns out, helped him learn about passions he never knew he had, and shaped him into the advocate and dad that he is today. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris is on Twitter and Facebook — I post...
Apr 09, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 281
Last week I chatted with comic book author Dale Lazarov, and this week we’ll hear from a comic artist — Joe Phillips. Jos images were some of the first glimpses of gay life I ever saw, back in the 90s as a teenager. His art was simultaneously sexy and wholesome, depicting smiling scantily clad young muscle men in tenet romantic scenes. It wasn’t until a few years later that I learned about his more erotic endeavors. Joe’s work touches on a wide variety of settings and themes, not unlike his chil...
Apr 02, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 280
Hello and welcome to the Sewers of Paris. My guest this week is Dale Lazarov, a comic book writer who specializes in sexy character-based stories. Dale grew up in Puerto Rico, amidst a conservative culture of machismo, and as a young adult he was scandalized by anything sexual. His writing helped him overcome the social baggage that kept him in the closet, and now his novels serve as a sort of wish fulfillment — he writes about his dreams, and then miraculously, they seem to come true. We’ll hav...
Mar 27, 2020•58 min•Ep. 279
My guest this week has a had a lot of jobs and a lot of adventures, from working on Broadway shows to producing the news alongside Dan Rather, singing to Angela Lansbury, earning a nickname from Fidel Castro, and writing the biography of Madeline Kahn. William Madison knew he had a passion for creative artists from an early age, but there’s no way he could have predicted how closely he’d work alongside them. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris is ...
Mar 19, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 278
Hello and welcome to the Sewers of Paris. Have you ever been lucky enough to enjoy the sensation of villainy? For this week’s episode, we’re revisiting my interview from three years ago with Anthony Olivera, who you might also know for his incisive tweeting as Meakoopa. We spoke in 2017 about his love for villains, failed mystics, and queer awakenings; and just this month, Harper Collins announced that they’ll be publishing a comic by Anthony featuring all of those things entitled Apocrypha. It’...
Mar 12, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 277
How have you discovered your hidden talents? My guest this week is a former shy kid who, after trying to hide from the spotlight for years, was shocked to discover that he’s actually really good at acting, journalism, and go-go dancing. Growing up in a rougher environment, Mike learned the hard ay that he’d sometimes be challenged to stand up for himself — such as the time he came out as gay, got punched in the face, and then surprised everyone by wheeling around and breaking his assailant’s nos...
Mar 05, 2020•57 min•Ep. 276
My guest this week has a lot of stories to share, both in his role as a filmmaker and as person who’s lived a lot of lives. Dan Steadman’s upbringing in a sheltered religious community found him placed in a lot of unusual circumstances, surreptitiously consuming forbidden entertainment and rebooting his entire identity when his family swapped lives with a family in Brazil. His career in showbiz took him to Los Angeles, where he worked alongside big-time celebrities and also faced a crisis — the ...
Feb 28, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 257
For this week’s episode, we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archive to revisit a chat with the wonderful Carlos Maza. You may know Carlos from the brilliant videos he’s produced, analyzing news and media. Or you might know him from the big queer fuss he caused last year when he shone a spotlight on the rampant harassment and discrimination problem faced by YouTube. Carlos and I spoke back in 2017 about his nerdiest interests — role playing and video games, a medium in which he’s given a lot o...
Feb 20, 2020•58 min•Ep. 274
My guest this week is Lee Gambin, who always knew he had a place in the world of cinema. An obsessive collector of VHS tapes as a kid, he grew up to host raucous film screenings and to write extensively about his great love — classic film and particularly horror. Despite his favorite films being full of frights, he’s never found them scary. Instead, he’s embraced the comforting power of monsters and gore. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First I want to let you know about a whole bunch ...
Feb 13, 2020•54 min•Ep. 273
Hugh Ryan is a writer, researcher, speaker, and also the subject of a recent episode of The Sewers of Paris. You might remember a few weeks ago when my guest Michael mentioned Hugh’s book, When Brooklyn was Queer, and Hugh was kind enough to sit down for a chat about his own favorite books — pulpy sci-fi novels, which filled his middle school days with magic horses. Growing up, be became a sort of explorer — mild mannered academic by day, rowdy party monster by night, after a series of adventure...
Feb 06, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 272
My guest this week moved to New York straight out of college with stars in his eyes and big dreams of making it on stage and screen. David Merten landed in the big city with just a handful of luggage and some change, sleeping on couches, working odd jobs, and feeling totally alone in a city of 8 million. But bit by bit he’s been climbing the acting ladder and now the kid who grew up in a tiny town surrounded by corn and meth is booking gigs — and forming a family of folks like him. Big thanks to...
Jan 30, 2020•52 min•Ep. 271
My guest this week is Scott Shoemaker — you heard his partner Freddie on the show last month. Like Freddie, Scott’s great passion is live weird theater, such as his ongoing series where he plays a boozy pill-popping version of Ms Pac Man, or his annual Christmas show where he finds new ways every year to ruin and then hastily repair the holidays. Growing up, Scott dreamed of being a rock star — and as it turns out, dressing his friends in goofy costumes and taking them on the road to sing and da...
Jan 23, 2020•56 min•Ep. 270
You might’ve seen that the show Jeopardy just invited three of its greatest winners of all time to participate in a championship showdown this week. And I thought it would be a good time to dig back into the Sewers of Paris archives for a chat with the contestant I consider the greatest Jeopardy player of all time, Louis Virtel, revisiting our 2016 chat about game shows, Clue, and great actresses of the 1970s. When he was on Jeopardy, Louis captured the nation’s attention with an earth-shatterin...
Jan 16, 2020•57 min•Ep. 269
What kind of gay are you, and how many different kinds have you been? My guest this week is Michael , a San Francisco library-gay who’s also been a ballet gay, a nightclub gay, a rowing gay, and various other flavors with probably many more to come. Michael grew up around queer people, with progressive parents and a childhood passion for dancing in the Pennsylvania ballet, where he had some moments of personal awakenings involving dancers in sailor costumes. But he still wasn’t sure who he was, ...
Jan 10, 2020•57 min•Ep. 268
My guest this week has had a lot of families — some good, some bad. Shawntae Arnette dreamed of being a performer all their life, after seeing a documentary about the famous dancer Josephine Baker. But there were roadblocks to that dream, from unsupportive biological family, to a period of homelessness, to a chosen family that turned toxic. Drifting and aimless, Shawntae joined a job program and was surprised to discover not only a career, but a group of queers that felt like a true family — a f...
Jan 03, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 267
Do clothes cover you up, or reveal who you really are? My guest this week is Jordan Christianson, a Seattle artist and designer who creates incredible one-off costumes for many of your favorite Drag Race stars. He’s also a big nerd, whose work is influenced by the futuristic fashions of Star Trek and Dune, as well as giant anime robots and eye-catching classic cars. Jordan’s always used clothing to express himself, even when he was a strange shy kid who dressed like an Edward Gorey character, bu...
Dec 27, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 266
My guest this week had to figure out a lot on his own. After dropping out of high school and moving across the country at the age of 15, Gus Lanza had no idea how to finish school, how to find a career, or what he was meant to do in life. Figuring that stuff out involved a lot of listening to himself — and also finding others who could help him along the way. As time passed, a unique chosen family grew around him, from childhood friends to neighbors to his partner, a performer many of us would c...
Dec 19, 2019•58 min•Ep. 265
My guest this week has a single-minded determination when it comes to entertaining, parties, and filling everyone’s lives with joy. Freddy Molitch is a Seattle playwright and DJ who also goes by the name DJ King of Pants, and he’s on a mission to bring happiness to audiences through theater and music and very weird nightlife. He came of age in 90s Seattle, when grunge and disaffection were at their peak. Back then he explored the city’s strange counterculture, its blossoming music scene, and adv...
Dec 12, 2019•53 min•Ep. 264
My guest this week is Gregory Maguire, author of the novel Wicked among many other works. Though I’m sure you’re familiar with his book and the Broadway musical adaptation, you may not known the extent to which Gregory’s childhood was infused with elements of fairytale — from the fantasy novels he devoured, to the family tragedy that led to his time in an orphanage. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First a big thanks to everyone who makes the Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of su...
Dec 05, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 263
My guest this week is artist, animator, and globe-traveling adventurer Jackie Wu. He grew up in Hong Kong, playing video games with family and idolizing figures like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. As he grew older, he knew he needed to venture out into the world and explore, seeking treasure of a different kind. And that’s how a quiet, unassuming artist found himself traveling to the UK to reinvent himself, come out, and creating gender-bent Lara Croft cosplay while learning to scale cliff walls. We...
Nov 28, 2019•46 min•Ep. 262
My guest this week is Conor Olmstead, a photographer and video producer, and also my co-adventurer in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. In addition to being an accomplished nerd, Conor is also deeply imaginative, and has a gift not just for noticing beauty in the world around him, but also capturing it through a camera’s lens. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First a big thanks to everyone who makes the Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of support on Patreon! Head over to SewersOf...
Nov 21, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 261
