My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast 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 stu...
2023-09-07 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
Here's a Q&A/feedback video for September, and ohhhh boy do I have a lot to share this month. Lately you've been sending me a lot of suggestions for stuff that I should check out, and I have to say you all have wonderful taste -- so I'm going to pass many of those recommendations right back along to everyone else. Those re...
2023-09-01 16:00:21 +0000 UTC View PostOn 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...
2023-08-31 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
For this week's bonus video, WOW do I have an incredible person to introduce you to: Barbette, who born in a little Texas town in 1899 and rose to become the high-wire drag queen toast of Paris, Broadway, and motion pictures. Celebrated by Jean Cocteau, Barbette's real name was Vander Clyde (or maybe Vander Clyde Broadway?) an...
2023-08-27 18:16:03 +0000 UTC View PostMy guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast 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 j...
2023-08-24 16:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh boy am I THRILLED to bring you this week's Bonus Video, because we've unearthed a bunch of documents that refute a long-held Hollywood legend about the film Some Like it Hot! I also have some great details about the not-famous-enough dancer who coached Marilyn Monroe through a variety of films, and also choreographed the infamous and super ga...
2023-08-20 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View PostMy guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast 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 c...
2023-08-17 19:10:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
For this week's Bonus Video, I've got some RATHER incendiary remarks from Carroll O'Connor (that's Archie on All in the Family) regarding the breaking of contracts -- basically, he writes in TV Guide (of all places) that it's always ethical for actors to make life difficult for greedy producers who want to ex...
2023-08-13 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostMy 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 pla...
2023-08-10 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostHi there!
I wanted to give you a heads-up about a recent glitch on Patreon: A small number of folks may have noticed that their bank declined to process Patreon pledges over the last few days. (Most pledges went through with no problems.) I'm in touch with Patreon's support people, and they let me know that they found the issue and are wor...
2023-08-04 21:00:35 +0000 UTC View PostMy guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast 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-...
2023-08-03 17:31:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
Time once again for the monthly Q&A/feedback video, available for free to all Patreon members! I'm responding to questions, comments, and clips that you've sent me -- and this month, it's almost all clips. Fascinating ones! We'll start with one more BONKERS failed pilot, this time featuring Superman ... with one mino...
2023-08-01 16:00:16 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there! This week's bonus video is all about Beverly LaSalle, the groundbreaking drag queen from All in the Family -- where she was discovered, how the writers adapted a real-life drag performer for a TV audience, and how television changed live drag venues in the late 70s. Plus, the actress who played Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton)...
2023-07-30 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMy guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast 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 class...
2023-07-27 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there! In this week's bonus video, I have two astonishing stories about Bette Davis being a real weirdo around the cast of All in the Family, starting with a run-in with the president of Egypt and ending with her getting caught cleaning a museum restroom. Also: Why All in the Family came very very close to killing off Arc...
2023-07-23 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostMy guest on The Sewers of Paris podcast 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 yo...
2023-07-20 16:16:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there! In this week's bonus video, I've got some intriguing stories about the casting of All in the Family -- and some very unlikely lucky-breaks that completely changed the lives of some of the younger actors, from Rob Reiner to Sally Struthers to Mike Evans (that's Lionel Jefferson, who was with the show from the very first epis...
2023-07-16 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostI have two guests on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast — 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 Er...
2023-07-13 18:41:30 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome back to the Sewers of Paris! Thanks for your patience during the brief pause in the podcast — 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: Disney villains, Buffy, and James Baldwin.
My guest is Manuel Betancourt, whose...
2023-07-06 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh hello!
In this week's bonus video, I've got a ton of great stories about Norman Lear's many many shows: How he had to sneak NBC executives into a CBS office in order to get Sanford and Son picked up; how the star of Mary Hartman Mary Hartman wrote a 12-page essay arguing for why she should have a nervous breakdow...
2023-07-02 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
Time once again for the monthly Q&A video, available for free to all Patreon members!
Responding to your comments, clips you've sent, and requests -- and can you believe some of you still want to talk about My Mother the Car??? (Only a little this time, I promise.) Also: I got some great respo...
2023-07-01 16:00:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello!
As of this week, all of the Patreon bonus videos should be transferred from Vimeo to YouTube -- which should mean an end to the "video not found" errors. Now that the change-over is done, everything ought to play normally. But if you run into any errors or weird behavior, please let me know so I can fix it! And thanks for your patie...
2023-06-25 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
A quick heads-up about videos on Patreon: I'm in the process of moving all of the videos from Vimeo to YouTube, which should finally end the "video not available" message that sometimes pops up here. There shouldn't be any disruption for you -- all the videos should just play normally, just (hopefully) without any more ann...
2023-06-18 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello there!
I'm trying something new with bonus videos this week -- instead of putting them on Vimeo, this one's on YouTube. I'm hoping this will resolve the "sometimes it just wont play" issue that some folks encounter, but let me know if this is working better or worse for you. And here's a backup link in case the video's not playing: <...
2023-06-11 17:11:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Backup link in case the video's not working:
https://youtu.be/kJ3UOjvZ8ro
And by the way, I've started the process of moving bonus videos over to YouTube, which should be more stable. It'll take a few weeks because I've got A LOT of files t...
2023-06-04 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Backup link in case the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/428j8ljRpVs
Hello there! I'm adding something new this month!
Lately, a lot of Patrons have been sending me clips & questions & observations & whatnot, so I've decided...
2023-06-01 20:05:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Backup link in case the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/qOXWIbCL0m0
Hello there! In this week's bonus video, we're exploring the SUPER bizarre saga of the animatronic robot that Disney built in the 90s to promote both ABC sitcoms and the Exxon...
2023-05-28 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Backup link in case the video doesn't play:
https://youtu.be/QdnZEXEF1Ck
It's Mother's Day, and you know what that means: Time to celebrate the iconic 1965 sitcom My Mother the Car, widely considered the worst televisio...
2023-05-14 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Backup link in case the video doesn't play:
https://youtu.be/35PzSd3xf1Y
Hi there! In this week's bonus video, we're exploring the mystery of the Ellen DeGeneres Variety Show -- a program that was filmed but never broadcast in t...
2023-05-07 21:59:21 +0000 UTC View PostOn the last episode of the Sewers of Paris podcast, 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 ...
2023-05-04 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post