My guest this week is Frank Abate, who’s about to open the first shelter and community center for queer youth in the Dominican Republic. He’s been working on this project for a long time, with the help of many fellow activists, and it hasn’t been easy. But Frank’s drawn inspiration from many sources, from moving queer stories in movies like Torch Song Trilogy … and from his travels around the, which were partially inspired, many years ago, by sitcoms. Which is how queer youth in the Dominican Re...
Sep 28, 2023•37 min•Ep. 435
My guest this week is Scott Mainprize, a two-spirit author, lawyer, and instructor based in Ottawa. Scott’s been walking in multiple simultaneous worlds his whole life, and he’s always found himself drawn to stories of characters doing the same — starting with a childhood interest in the movie The Little Mermaid and a lesser known TV show called The Little Vampire. Both are about people figuring themselves out while living in places they were told they weren’t allowed to be — a topic of particul...
Sep 21, 2023•34 min•Ep. 434
My guest this week is Tate Barkley, whose new memoir comes out next week and is entitled Sunday Dinners, Moonshine, and Men. It’s the story of a closeted kid growing up in an environment surrounded by toxic masculine figures, protective women, and moonshine operations that planted the seeds of a dangerous relationship with alcohol. Pulling himself up out of that world was a years-long process — and these days, Tate’s found a life that brings him joy he couldn’t possibly have envisioned back then...
Sep 14, 2023•40 min•Ep. 433
My guest this week is Frankie Miranda, the first openly gay president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation — a nonprofit serving the Latino community. Frankie’s background isn’t what you might expect for the head of a political organization. When he moved from Puerto Rico to New York, the plan was to study theater. But his dramatic training turned out to serve him well in work where he could serve his community — especially after stepping into a leadership role that threw him multiple immediate cu...
Sep 07, 2023•50 min•Ep. 431
On last week's Sewers of Paris podcast I spoke with Ben Miller of the Bad Gays book and podcast. This week I’m talking to his co-host and co-author, Huw Lemmey , a writer whose work investigates the disgusting. It’s an unlikely fascination, one borne out of attitudes he heard expressed about queer people when he was growing up. In looking at the realities of human life, from its best to its worst, Huw’s writing has evolved from asking whether people can be loveable despite being gross … to wheth...
Aug 31, 2023•40 min•Ep. 430
My guest this week is Ben Miller , co-author and co-creator of the Bad Gays book and podcast. Ben was headed for a career in international relations until he realized just how out of place he was in that role. It was a lucky encounter with a historical communist leader who helped him course-correct, and now he helps lead the largest queer archive in the world while enjoying his passions for opera and some of the most infamous queer villains in history. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. F...
Aug 24, 2023•47 min•Ep. 430
My guest this week is John Griffiths, the founder and executive director of GALECA — that’s The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. From an early age, John loved spending time with TV families, and as an adult he turned that passion into a career, spending time hob-nobbing and covering icons of entertainment. But like those found-families that captured his attention as a kid, he’s also assembled a family of his won — one consisting of hundreds of like-minded queer journalists and cultural cr...
Aug 17, 2023•48 min•Ep. 429
My guest this week is illustrator Kevin Jay Stanton . I can’t remember how he first came to my attention, but for the last few years I’ve been following him and his lovely artwork of plants and woodland creatures, which find their way onto all manner of objects from tarot cards to bomber jackets. Kevin’s work draws heavily from the natural world, which is why I was surprised to hear that for a time, he set those motifs aside and was pursuing work that he was told would be more commercially lucra...
Aug 10, 2023•34 min•Ep. 428
My guest this week spent eight years auditioning for Drag Race before he was accepted and his life completely changed. Alexis Michelle, aka Alex Michaels, was a theater performer when he discovered a love of drag, and gradually figured out how to turn his hobby into his career. Now Alexis known for two much-talked about appearances on Drag Race, for appearing on the show Dragnificent, for multiple off-Broadway roles, an album , and an upcoming live tour . But Alex (and Alexis) are only just gett...
Aug 03, 2023•41 min•Ep. 427
My guest this week is Trip Galey , who grew up in the macho world of rodeo before leaving it all behind to join the world of fairies. At his first opportunity, Trip left home to study literature and Shakespeare, finding himself drawn to classical fantasies — to the point that he reshaped his life around them, finding a home in England and dedicating himself to the study of magical tales. Now, his first novel is about to debut. It’s entitled A Market of Dreams and Destiny , and it’s about a human...
Jul 27, 2023•48 min•Ep. 426
My guest this week is Jesse Finley Reed, co-director and co-producer of the new documentary All Man , which dives deep into the famous (or infamous) catalog/magazine International Male. If you were a curious young queer in the 90s, chances are good that you took a furtive look through the pages of International Male, or had copies hidden in places only you knew about. It was a source of daring, adventurous fashion, and plenty of exposed male flesh. When it comes to telling the story of the rise ...
Jul 20, 2023•56 min•Ep. 425
I have two guests this week — Shantel Buggs and Trevor Hoppe are the co-authors of a new book about how queer people talk to each other about sex entitled “ Unsafe Words: Queering Consent in the #MeToo Era. ” I spoke to them both about what brought them to this topic, and about their individual experiences growing up as queer people in very different environments. We’ll hear first from Shantel, who planned to be a doctor before she felt the unexpected call from a very different field of study. A...
Jul 13, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 424
Welcome back to the Sewers of Paris. Thanks for your patience during the brief pause in the podcast during the month of June — and now I’m delighted to get back behind the mic for more conversations about the entertainment that changed the lives of queer people. On tonight’s episode: My guest this week is Manuel Betancourt, whose new book of essays about hunks, heartthrobs, and what pop culture taught him about men — and the desire for them. Manuel’s found his way through a series of re-inventio...
Jul 06, 2023•46 min•Ep. 423
On the last episode of Sewers of Paris, we heard from Max Miller, host of the YouTube series Tasting History the book of the same name. This week, we’re revisiting my 2020 conversation Max’s partner José, who as a kid was a shy gay nerd before he grew up to be … also a shy gay nerd. But one who helped launch Disney Plus, who now cohosts a YouTube series of his own, created a life for himself he could never have imagined when he was young. Also: A quick reminder that I’ve got a book of my own abo...
May 04, 2023•51 min•Ep. 422
On this week's Sewers of Paris podcast, we’re diving into the archives to revisit my 2020 interview with Max Miller. He’s the creator of the Tasting History YouTube channel, and author of the new book Tasting History , which comes out this week . In Max’s video series, he shares historical recipes and intriguing stories about the origin of the foods that humans have eaten throughout history, and his book expands on that work. It was inspired, in part, by Max’s appreciation for The Great British ...
Apr 20, 2023•49 min•Ep. 421
My guest this week is Andrew Rimby, host of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast . Andrew’s career as an entertainer began at an early age as a stage performer, but then he took an unexpected swerve into academia, and he’s spent the last decade pursuing a PhD, exploring the work of Victorian poets and in particular the homoerotics of Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a book coming out this May — Hi Honey, I’m Homo , now availab...
Apr 06, 2023•34 min•Ep. 420
Author Christopher Rice is known for a lot of things, from his thrillers to his podcast to collaborations with his mother Anne Rice to his more recent foray into novels about gay romance. I spoke to him last year about his book Sapphire Sunset , and now he has a new book in that series coming out. It’s entitled Sapphire Storm , and it’s about two men who start as bitter enemies before they realize that there’s an irresistible force pulling them closer together. I caught up with Christopher for a...
Mar 30, 2023•18 min•Ep. 419
My guest this week is Harvey Brownstone, who in 1995 became Canada’s first openly gay judge. Focusing his career on family law, Harvey helped shine a spotlight on Canada as a destination for same-sex couples to wed before it was legal in the US. But before all that, he was a young gay kid who’d been thrown out of the house, struggling through school, living on welfare, and searching for others like him. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First just want to let you know that we’re gearing ...
Mar 16, 2023•58 min•Ep. 418
If you happen to be in Toronto this weekend, you may want to find your way down to Massey Hall on Saturday night for a one-night-only performance called Och and Oy! , starring actor Alan Cumming and NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro. Their collaborative show is a mix of cabaret and storytelling, and to mark its debut, I’m diving into the Sewers archives to revisit my 2018 conversation with Ari Shapiro, who was then as now one of the hosts of NPR’s flagship show All Things Considered . As a journalis...
Mar 02, 2023•59 min•Ep. 417
This week we’re concluding my conversation with filmmaker David Weissman ( We Were Here , The Cockettes , Conversations With My Elders ) with part 3 of our talk. Previously we talked about his background in hippie enclaves of Los Angeles in the 1960s, and then his move to San Francisco. We ended our last conversation on a pause, since it was moving in a direction David wasn’t prepared to talk about — and so this week we’re resuming with an explanation of what happened....
Feb 16, 2023•51 min•Ep. 416
This week we’re picking up my previous conversation with filmmaker David Weissman , who started off in hippie enclaves of Los Angeles in the 1960s before moving up to San Francisco for the particularly adventurous 70s. In this part of our chat, we touch on SF’s counterculture scene, the music and nightlife, and also the political upheaval that soon followed. Just as we were starting to talk about the 1980s … our connection momentarily dropped out. And when we picked up, David asked to pause the ...
Feb 02, 2023•44 min•Ep. 415
My guest this week is documentary filmmaker David Weissman ( The Cockettes , We Were Here ), who was in exactly the right place at the right time to have a front-row seat to one of the most revolutionary periods in American culture. In fact, he wasn’t just an observer of the Venice Beach LSD scene in the 60s, or of San Francisco’s chaotic drag cauldron in the 70s — he was an active participant, exploring and enjoying an explosion of music, live performance, and a rejection of institutions that o...
Jan 19, 2023•49 min•Ep. 414
My guest this week is Andrew Farrier , a New Orleans tour guide and podcaster who began his career in a small Louisiana town, giving tours of haunted houses as a kid. A child of hippies, Andrew was given wide latitude to explore creative pursuits, and it wasn’t long before he found himself in New Orleans, testing the boundaries of performance and exploring surprising histories — from early gay inhabitants to a close friend’s long-hidden connection to voodoo. We’ll have that conversation in a min...
Jan 05, 2023•56 min•Ep. 413
Hello and welcome to the Sewers of Paris Holiday Special Special! In the spirit of the season, we’re diving back into the Sewers archives for my 2017 conversations with numerous past guests about their very favorite seasonal entertainment. We'll have an appreciation of Batman Returns from writer Anthony Oliveira, author of Lord of Empyre: Emperor Hulkling among many other works. There's a tribute to Snow Miser from Glen Weldon of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Performance artist Johnnie Junglegut...
Dec 22, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 413
We’re doing something a little different on this week’s episode — we’ve got TWO guests. Kaela Joseph and Tanya Cook are the authors of the new book Fandom Acts of Kindness , which is about how fandoms can change the world, from Star Trek to Xena Warrior Princess to Supernatural and Our Flag Means Death. Kaela and Tanya have spent years within various nerdy communities, where they’ve seen how fans can use their love of all things geeky to make the world a better place. We’ll have that conversatio...
Dec 15, 2022•50 min•Ep. 412
This week my guest is J.P. Der Boghossian, and I’m also his guest. JP’s the host of the podcast This Queer Book Saved My Life, where he talks to queer folks about their favorite books. And we’re doing a sort of podcast exchange — for the first half of the episode I’ll interview him about the entertainment that impacted him the most, and then he’ll turn things around and interview me about one of my favorite books. Let me know what you think of this little experiment! And check out his podcast at...
Dec 08, 2022•50 min•Ep. 411
This week’s guest is Noah Adams, a researcher investigating the experiences of people who are trans and autistic. Noah’s understanding of himself began with cartoons in childhood, with characters that drew his interest in ways that he wouldn’t fully understand until years later. By the way, in our conversation, Noah mentions a fundraiser that he’s doing to help queer people relocate to safety — here’s the link for that if you’d like to chip in. Also, a big thanks to everyone who supports The Sew...
Dec 01, 2022•52 min•Ep. 410
My guest this week is Ben Sander, creator of the character Brini Maxwell, a drag hostess who’s helmed shows about crafting, cooking, and homemaking, for decades. It all started with a little cable access show that he produced with some help from his mother, before becoming a cable TV series, with live shows that continue to this day — with Brini the character continuing to evolve as Ben her creator explores new artistic frontiers. (Also: if you’re a fan of pop culture history — and I think you a...
Nov 25, 2022•37 min•Ep. 409
My guest this week is Edgar Gomez, author of the book High Risk Homosexual. Edgar spent years trying to figure out who he was, bouncing from one group to another — which took him from skater cliques to an encounter with a sex worker in Nicaragua to enrolling in school to become a cop, until he was expelled after being falsely accused of being a drug dealer. Edgar auditioned a lot of identities before he found one that felt right — one that allowed him to continue infiltrating and exploring all t...
Nov 18, 2022•48 min•Ep. 408
My guest this week is Josh Weed, who ten years ago became a minor online celebrity after writing a blog post about how he was gay, Mormon, and happily married to a woman. Well, things have changed a bit since then. In 2018, Josh and his now ex-wife decided that it just wasn’t working, and they parted ways to pursue new relationships. Since then, they’ve both re-married, and remain close friends. And Josh has had some space to reflect on the cultural forces that gave them a distorted view of huma...
Nov 03, 2022•Ep. 407
