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.
My guest today 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
I'm delighted, by the way, to have finally had a reason to talk about Star Trek on the show. Here are those tribbles:
Star Trek The Trouble With Tribbles Clip
Here's the song from Bye Bye Birdie that Charlie had to sing about being sincere... while pretending to be heterosexual.
Factory custom Fender Jaguar guitar. The song scene from the 1963 movie. I stripped out the low quality movie audio, and replaced it with the stereo version. I also made the instruments louder where they were too low in various sections.
Once Charlie came out, he was introduced to Erasure:
Erasure Always
And Wham! Can you believe anyone ever thought that George Michael was straight?
Music video by Wham! performing Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. (c) 1984 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (UK) Limited
And of course, Charlie's Pink Parties now feature guests like Jennifer Hale, who voiced Dragon Age: Inquisition's Krem, possibly the greatest trans character in video games:
One of the most compelling characters in the Dragon Age Universe, Krem and how the character is written pushes audiences to ask for more for their games! ***************************** Want more Dragon Age: Inquisition? Check the playlists down below: All Cutscenes ► http://tinyurl.com/loldxrg Achievements and Collections ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL__d-O-iz-xAXJuvzcBAWoh8CIEpznY4f
As well as the delightful Ellen McLain character GLaDOS:
Excluding dialogues and coop. 100% pure GLaDOSomness. The order is a bit random, yet I tried to make it sound chronological. Interesting fact: While picking files for the video, I've noticed that there are actually most early-game announcer messages spoken by GLaDOS.
Music:
Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/