The Sewers of Paris is a podcast about how queer people's lives were shaped by their 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: how did it change your life?

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Culture Critic Carlos Maza

Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, and Baldur's Gate

Sex Advice Columnist Dan Savage

Showtunes, The Boys in the Band, and the human menorah

If, like me, you are a huge fan of Dan Savage's work, you've probably heard him speak at length about sex and love and news and politics -- but this conversation is going to be a little different as we dive into 8-track tapes, secret bike rides, family arguments, and a rule-breaking theater troupe where Dan honed his sense of shock and showmanship long before he was known for dispensing Savage Love.

Drag Race Star BenDeLaCreme

Pee Wee Herman, Bugs Bunny, and Varla Jean Merman

I'm so grateful to Ben for sitting down with me to talk about how Bugs Bunny and Jessica Rabbit made him the man and woman he is today, the strategy that he devised for making the most of Drag Race, and why the producers of that show hated him.

Highlights of this week's episode: Ben's early forays into showmanship and drag, starting with news reports he'd stage as a child about what was happening around the house. Later, he appeared onstage in his boxers, and as Tina Angst in Chicago -- an angry punk-rock drag girl with pink and black dreadlocks. "I had such a crazy temper then," he said.

Writer & Academic Anthony Oliveira

Buffy, X-Men, He-Man, and Lwaxana Troi)

Have you ever been lucky enough to enjoy the sensation of villainy? My guest this week is Anthony Oliveira, who you might also know for his incisive tweeting as Meakoopa. Anthony's always felt a sympathy for monsters and villains -- or at least, the figures assumed to be monsters and villains -- even before he was old enough to realize that he might be considered one himself.
 

Dancer/Choreographer Jamal Terry-Sims

You've seen this week's guest on RuPaul's Drag Race, and you've seen his choreography in Footloose, on the Emmys, and videos and stage shows for Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, and the Spice Girls -- despite having never taken a dance class. Jamal Sims' dream began when he saw The Wiz and knew he needed to be up on stage dancing. And now, after a career spanning nearly three decades, he's shining a spotlight on up-and-comers with the documentary When the Beat Drops.

Writer JP Brammer

How do you forgive someone who won't, or can't, apologize? My guest this week is JP Brammer, who dispenses advice in the column Hola Papi on Grindr's news site Into. JP's made a name for himself by providing thoughtful insights into living your best gay life, but his understanding of life and love didn't just spring into existence fully formed. It's the product of some pain, some forgiveness, and a college club that he really hoped would present more opportunities for making out.

NPR Host Ari Shapiro

Cabaret shows, NPR, and Into the Woods

My guest this week is Ari Shapiro, host of All Things Considered. These days, he tells other people's stories on NPR, but his own story was considerably is more winding than you might expect -- behind his calm journalistic voice is a man who spent some time as an illegal immigrant, who carried mace for protection in high school, who nearly became an actor, and who might never have found his place on the radio if a gay icon hadn't intervened on his behalf.

Writer & Comedian Louis Virtel

Game shows, Clue, and great actresses of the 1970s

"For trivia people, Jeopardy! is The Hajj," Louis Virtel says on this week's episode of The Sewers of Paris. "You don't know what The Hajj has in store for you, but you have to make it once in your lifetime."

Louis' infamous snap, captured and deployed in countless GIFs since he appeared on Jeopardy!, happened in the spur of the moment. But in the lead up to his appearance, he was one big bundle of nerves.

Performer Zak the Barber

Dresden Dolls, No Doubt, Beats Antique, Pantera, AC/DC, M.I.A., White Zombie, Gogol Bordello

What happens when you grow up so fast you become an adult while you're still a kid? My guest this week is Zak, who was wise beyond his years by the time he was 14, thanks in part to a young love triangle and also being raised by a house full of strippers.Zak had barely entered high school when he felt ready to set out on his own, and start his own life. But he found that while you can grow up fast, you can't rush adulthood. That's how he wound up spending several teenage years drifting across the state, a runaway, in every sense of the word.

Wicked Author Gregory Maguire

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.

Comedian Guy Branum

Party Girl, Hello Dolly, and Margaret Thatcher

Why is "gay" the word that the world seems to have picked to describe us? My guest Guy Branum has some thoughts on the topic, and on many more. You can see Guy as the host of "Talk Show the Game Show," debuting April 5 on TruTV, where celebrities compete to be the best guest on a talk show. There could be no better environment for Guy, a brilliantly funny comedian with a superpower for first breaking rules, and then reassembling them into something far more fascinating. 

Internet Pioneer Alan Emtage

There’s a good chance that the Internet as we know it wouldn't be a thing without this week's guest. Alan Emtage grew up in Barbados, where his connection to the outside world came through amateur radio projects that allowed him to talk with people around the world. He went on to pioneer the way we find information on the Internet at a time when there was no way to search, inventing the technology that eventually became familiar tools like Google. Alan made it possible for queer culture to flourish online, and for people who grew up isolated to find their community.

Drag Queen Robbie Turner

Classic movies, Linda Ronstadt, and Shakespeare

Who taught you how to be beautiful? My guest this week made a lifelong study of the most beautiful woman he knew, his mother, even going so far as to transform into a character who bears an uncanny resemblance. You might know Robbie Turner the character from this season's Drag Race, or from her regular appearances at shows in Seattle and around the country. She might've hosted your Pride, or officiated your wedding. But on today's episode we're going to get to know Robbie Turner the man.

Actor Cam Clarke

My guest this week is Cam Clarke, who grew up in a showbiz family that’s been entertaining audiences since the early 30s. If you’re not familiar with his work as one of the the youngest members of the King Family Singers, you might know him as the voice of Leonardo on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or as Kaneda from Akira, or as Liquid Snake in Metal Gear. He’s been the voice of He-Man, Simba, Jen from the Dark Crystal, and hundreds of other roles. Cam’s always had a gift for voices and song — and not just with the SOUND of his voice, but with the words he’s found to express who he truly is.

Opera Director Paul Curran

Donna Summer, Moliere, and Baz Luhrmann

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.

Comedian Joel Kim Booster

Murder mysteries, stand up comedy, and Clue

When did you first escape your bubble? We all start life protected by adults, looked after and shielded from the harsh realities of the world. Some of us burst out of it as fast as we can, and others like to pretend they never have to leave. This week's guest is comedian Joel Kim Booster, whose parents tried so hard to control his life that when he finally did come out, it was with so much momentum he found himself homeless -- until a family he hardly even knew took him in.

Porn Actor & Academic Conor Habib

Superfriends, Buffy, and Porn

You may think you already know a lot about Conner, given that you've probably seen him naked in such films as Dad Goes to College, Hot House Backroom Volume 18, and Brief Encounters. But Conner actually holds his cards pretty close to his furry chest. Though you might've seen him naked in porn, you probably know less about his background growing up in Mennonite country, dabbling in the occult, getting lost in the Pennsylvania punk scene, and his secret super power.

Artist Fazaad Feroze

Gargoyles, John Waters, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

How far up your family tree would you have to go before the way your family lives became unrecognizable? My guest this week is Fazaad Feroze, whose parents grew up in huts in Guyana before moving to the United States. As you can imagine, assimilation into American culture wasn't always easy.

Actor Wyatt Fenner

My guest this week is actor Wyatt Fenner, who you've seen on Veronica Mars, Bones, and the movie Make the Yuletide Gay. New Yorkers, you can see him right now in the show Transparent Falsehood at Theater 511 on West 54th Street. As an actor, Wyatt's an expert at inhabiting personas and hiding himself behind someone else. But an accidental outing and an attack that could have killed him helped him realize just who it was he was hiding.

Comedian Christopher Smith Bryant

Human interaction is challenging even under the best of circumstances, and for years this week’s guest was resigned to just always having difficulty understanding other people. Comedian Christopher Smith Bryant picked up techniques for socializing from interactive entertainment like video games, and later from improv classes. His adult life has been a series of unexpected discoveries, from the realization that he actually shouldn’t be a minister to a recent diagnosis that’s helped him understand what it means to be on the autism spectrum.

Amazing Race Winner Scott Flanary

Do you always NEED to dream big, or is it sometimes ok to just be happy with what you've got? My guest this week has some experience when it comes to achieving big dreams -- Scott Flanary was the winner of Season 29 of The Amazing Race, which had been a goal for pretty much all of his adult life. So now that he's accomplished goals that once seemed impossibly difficult, he's grappling with a tough question: now what?

Playwright Robert Patrick

Judy Garland, classic films, Bohemia, and off-off-Broadway

Before Pride, before gay marriage, before disco, before most of what we recognize today as gay culture, there was Greenwich Village. It's the gay enclave that invented gay enclaves, a place where you went to reject mainstream after the mainstream had rejected you. My guest today is playwright Robert Patrick, who wandered into the Village as an unsuspecting young gay man in the 1960s. He was only supposed to be there for a day, but he wound up staying for years, witnessing -- and participating in -- one of the most important periods in American theater history.

Big Ol' Nerd Charlie Logan

Star Trek, The Black Hole, Bye Bye Birdie, Portal, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Wham!, Erasure

When you think about the science fiction, what comes to mind? Maybe some silvery uniforms, blue guys with antennas, blinking lights. You know, the future. What's great about imaginary futures is that they're places of potential, an escape to a place where where everything's better, or sometimes worse. And whatever problems we have today have all been solved -- or maybe exacerbated. This week's guest is Charlie Logan, founder of the Pink Parties, a regular series of huge queer nerd gatherings that are timed to Seattle's biggest comic and videogame conventions. Charlie started throwing Pink Parties as a way to find other gays who shared his love of anything geeky, and his hope for a better future, and his need to escape. Because after all, as we'll hear, for a time there was a lot that he needed to escape from.

NPR Reporter Sonari Glinton

Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Willa White, and Judy Garland

When you look back on your life, who are the adults who were wiser than you realized at the time? My guest this week is NPR's Sonari Glinton. He grew up in Chicago, surrounded by amazing artists and curators who managed to steer him in the directions that were exactly what a little queer kid needed.

Burlesque Anthropologist Indigo Blue

You might’ve seen this week’s guest onstage at some point — Indigo Blue is an accomplished burlesque performer and teacher. She also got a degree in anthropology by writing about sex work while working as a stripper, so she has a unique set of skills to pass along to students.

Dungeons & Dragons Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford

Imaging growing up to find that the fantasy worlds you envisioned as a kid aren't just real, but have been waiting for you to lead them. My guest this week is Jeremy Crawford, lead rules designer for Dungeons & Dragons. We'll be talking about the witches, wizards, and elves who shaped his work in games, his relationship with his husband, and the queer content he now gets to insert in the world's most iconic tabletop game.

E! Host Steve Kmetko

Hollywood, celebrities, and The Wizard of Oz

My guest this week is Steve Kmetko, best known as the face of the E! cable network from 1994 to 2002. He hosted countless Oscar and Emmy broadcasts, reported from film festivals, and interviewed everyone who was anyone in Hollywood. It was his dream job, but privately, he was being weighed down by a lifetime of baggage: a career that demanded he stay closeted, and a religious upbringing that burdened him with guilt.

Although his career was going great, the pressure of keeping a secret just kept building as the years went on. Until finally, after years of putting tough questions to everyone around him, it was time for Steve to tell the truth about himself.

It was a gutsy move. Risky. And there were times that he paid a price for being honest about who he was. But the acceptance that LGBTs enjoy today simply wouldn't be possible if not for the high-profile figures who stepped forward in years past, people whom we give particular thanks.

Artist Henry Goldring

How do you share your story when your story defies belief? My guest this week is Henry Goldring, whose upcoming memoir is entitled Unbelievable and recounts tales of audaciously bluffing his way into getting hired as Joan Rivers' opening act, despite never having performed before; and also getting committed by his siblings. Henry grew up in a generation that didn't have the internet, didn't have public role models, and was decimated by an epidemic. Considering all he's endured, it's no wonder he's got some particularly wild stories to share.

Actor David Yost

My guest this week has spent the last 25 years tapping into inner heroes — first on screen, and then in real life. David Yost played Billy, the Blue Ranger on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, portraying a teenager with attitude who saved the world every week. But in his private life, he struggled to accept himself and to resist the homophobia of his colleagues. With on-set harassment exacting a heavy toll, he walked away from Power Rangers as an act of defiance and self-care, beginning a journey of self-acceptance that required as much bravery as his on-screen counterpart.

Go-go Dancer Timmy Roghaar

My guest this week is Timmy Roghaar, a Seattle actor, drag queen, go-go dancer, and ex-Mormon. Timmy left Salt Lake City behind to take off his pants and dance, and we chatted all about what got him out of a rut and in touch with his inner exhibitionist. (BTW in case you missed it, check out my livechat with Timmy a few weeks ago!)

Game Designer Tork Shaw

Queer as Folk, Round the Horne, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Oscar Wilde, and Kenneth Horne

In the 1960s, fabulous queer characters were hiding in plain sight on the BBC radio show Round the Horne, which featured two squealing gays speaking in barely-veiled innuendo. They were using a form of gay British slang known as "Polari" that's all but died out today. Decades later, Tork Shaw would listen to tapes of the episode in the car with this family, and he'd hear something of himself in the bookish, aristocratic, quick-witted gays like Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick on the radio. He didn't quite fit in at school -- everyone around him was sporty and posh -- so he cultivated a caustic wit, modeled on the Round the Horne's Julian and Sandy, Oscar Wilde, and Noel Coward. But by the time he was teenager, he was feeling ready to set that aside. "I didn't want to be mean anymore," he said. "What happens if I let go of everything I've done in the past?"

Artist and Nightlife Adventurer Anthony Garcia-Copian

My guest this week discovered himself somewhere in the lost dark lounges of Miami beach. He grew up in the 1970s, enduring raids on drag shows, wild drug culture, and occasionally running from the police or paddling away in an escape rowboat. Anthony's adventures took him from doing painkillers with the granddaughter of deposed presidents, interviewing Grace Jones, and to a comparatively placid life today of selling tea with his cat-loving husband.

Director Wes Hurley

Curly Sue, Hudson Hawk, Ghost, Labyrinth, Diana Ross, and Ben DeLaCreme

My guest this week is Wes Hurley, creator of the incredible web series Capitol Hill. Season 2 of the show just premiered on YouTube this week, and it's laden with references from all across the broad landscape of American popular culture. Growing up in Vladivostok, Russia, American movies and TV shows floated to Wes through secretive, often illegal channels, and they gave him hope that maybe someday he wouldn't have to walk a mile for clean water, or carry a knife to school, or find human remains washing past his house in a flood. Bootleg American movies kept his spirits up, but when he and his mother were finally able to escape to the United States, they found the country wasn't quite what he'd been led to expect.

Game Master Adam Koebel

This week's guest is an imaginary creature -- or at least, that's primarily how the public knows him, though character and places he invents. Every day, Adam Koebel runs role-playing games where players invent new personas, work together to solve problems, and tell stories that exist in their collective imaginations. He's also the co-creator of Dungeon World, a game that's driven by the relationships between characters. As a result, a lot of Adam's time is spent inhabiting roles and expressing fantastic identities -- but in all of them, there's a little germ of who he truly is -- the strange outcast who left a corporate job to spend every day playing games.

Author Ryan LaSalla

My guest this week is Ryan La Sala. He's got a very queer fantasy novel coming out next year, and while he's always been imaginative, he didn't always exactly use his powers for good. 

Entertainer Mark Finley

Lily Tomlin, Carol Burnett, Pinky & the Brain, Studio 54, Quentin Crisp, and HIV

"There was an incident and I was found to be insane," Mark reveals on this week's episode, "because my flamboyant behavior was disruptive."

Mark's been around long enough to remember when being gay was assumed to be a mental illness, and the very presence of an openly gay teenager was too much for anyone to bear. He fled his small hometown as quickly as he could, spending time in Japan, Cal Arts, and for a time at Brigham Young University where he says "I felt mighty comfortable. But apparently they didn't."

An unannounced exorcism made him aware that his presence might not have been entirely welcome at BYU. "I was sleeping with a lot of guys," he says. "Always there to lend a helping hand. I haven't been called 'The Golden Throat' all my life for nothing."

His wild life in the theater eventually took him to New York, where he took some advice given to him by Carol Burnett to heart: "you sound like you really love theater," she told him when he was young and wrote to her for advice. "And if you love it, keep doing it."

Mark Finley Part 2

My guest this week is Mark Finley. Again. I spoke to Mark last week about his career as an actor and talent coordinator, fleeing his small town and meeting his heroes. Mark shared so many incredible memories that I invited him back to talk more about his time in New York, traveling around the country, and how he survived after doctors told him six months to live.

As you'll hear, the audio of our conversation is a little echoey -- it's quite not as clear as a normal episode. But the memories Mark shared are just so incredible I had to share them with you, echo and all.

Comedian Michael Henry

How do you muster the nerve to keep going when it seems like the odds are stacked against you? My guest this week picked up some life advice from improv comedy -- in particular, the lesson to say yes and then heighten whatever's happened so far. Though you may know Michael Henry from his YouTube comedy videos, his acting background is far more serious, and he expected to become a serious dramatic actor. The fact that he could only seem to make audiences laugh troubled him for years -- until he realized he could say yes to comedy, and the unexpected direction it would take him.

Writer Robert Patrick

Before Pride, before gay marriage, before disco, before most of what we recognize today as gay culture, there was Greenwich Village. It's the gay enclave that invented gay enclaves, a place where you went to reject mainstream after the mainstream had rejected you. My guest today is playwright Robert Patrick, who wandered into the Village as an unsuspecting young gay man in the 1960s. He was only supposed to be there for a day, but he wound up staying for years, witnessing -- and participating in -- one of the most important periods in American theater history.

Argentinian Podcaster Gustavo Casals

Many of us grew up with some kind of authority who kept us from exploring gay culture -- it might've been a parent, or a priest, or school. Now imagine if that authority was a military dictator. And imagine what you'd do the day that dictator fell. My guest this week grew up in post-Peron Argentina, living under a military junta until a war ended their rule. Seemingly overnight, Gustavo's country was opened to international arts and culture, and he discovered an entire world he'd been missing -- a world to which he instantly knew he belonged.

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