The Best Gay Entertainment of 2016

This Week: 2016 in Review

Hello friends, and welcome to a special year-end edition of the Sewers of Paris. On this episode, I've invited some of my favorite gay podcasters to recommend their favorite entertainment of the year, from Lemonade to Difficult People and Moonlight and Reba. If you've been feeling down in the dumps about 2016, now's the time to take a deep breath and remember that it's actually been a great year to enjoy some amazing art and culture, and the next few years could be even more fertile.

Guests this week include Dan Savage of Savage Lovecast;, Kevin Allison of RISK!; Ryan O'Connor of LadyWatch, Tomefoolery with Cody Melcher; Daniel Krolik and Bil Antonio of BGM: Bad Gay Movies/Bitchy Gay Men; Marc Felion of Feast of Fun; and Dave White & Alonso Duralde of Linoleum Knife podcast. I couldn't be more grateful to them for joining me this week.

Among their picks:

Dan Savage loved Moonlight. “I was forced to confront my own privilege and bias and expectations," he said. Mark Felion liked Moonlight as well, and also had a blast working on the show Cooking with Drag Queens.

Kevin Allison of the RISK! podcast got into Game of Thrones this year -- and was surprised by how seductive the show made the emotion of revenge feel. From the Linoleum Knife podcast, Dave White liked the contemplative Cemetery of Splendor, while his husband Alonso Duralde liked Take me to the River -- a chilling take on family secrets.

Bil Antoniou and Daniel Krolik of BGM: Bad Gay Movies/Bitchy Gay Men appreciated the movie Elle and the show Difficult People, respectively. From LadyWatch, Ryan O'Connor raved for Sally Field in Hello My Name is Doris, and also suggested that we might be entering a film renaissance: "We're just an Easy Rider away from this generation's 9 to 5," he said. (Which triggers a whole conversation about who you would cast in a 9 to 5 remake.)

And Cody Melcher, from the podcast Tomefoolery, went back to the basics. Rather than wallow in 2016, he found comfort in the show Reba, and also in celebrity editions of The Weakest Link. "None of them know anything!" he laughed.

This Week's Recommendation: Inferno A-Go-Go

I hope that in 2017, you'll have an opportunity to experience MY favorite thing of this past year: BenDeLaCreme's live show, Inferno A-Go-Go, a one-drag-queen adaptation of Dante's Inferno. It may look from the outside like a kooky colorful literary joke, but the show develops layer upon layer through musical numbers, groany puns, and inventive puppetry; and by the time you get to the stunning halfway point, it's clear that what you're actually seeing is an incisive, sophisticated, and darkly funny exploration of the nature of Hell itself -- not just the biblical place, but the very ideas of cruelty, punishment suffering, and inhumanity.

The wacky concept of Inferno A-Go-Go may sound like a gay book report, but BenDeLaCreme's divinely comedic cabaret journey winds up plumbing far deeper questions than you might expect. Why did humans come up with the concept of Hell? Why do people suffer? And what can we do to escape the Hell that we live in -- or at least enjoy our time there?

The show is at some points hold-your-breath serious, and at others hilarious. But no joke, I believe Ben to be not just one of the greatest drag queens in the country, not just one of the greatest gay performers in the country, but one of the greatest living American artists period. I see a lot of drag shows, and I love recommending them because they're inventive, or surprising, or hilarious, or heartfelt. Inferno A-Go-Go is the first one I've ever recommended for being all of those things -- and also important.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

A Telemundo Reaction (Ep. 93 - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians)

This Week's Guest: Jose

Have you ever experienced a Christmas miracle? My guest this week has. His whole life, Jose longed to experience a magical snowy wonderland like he saw on American TV specials -- not exactly an easy thing to find in Venezuela, where the one snowball he ever saw was scraped together from a frosty puddle and carefully passed from person to person.

But that all changed on a on a trip to New York, where in the span of just a few days he  went on his first date with a boy, grew closer to the dad he'd never really known, and found himself retracing the footsteps of Kevin in Home Alone 2.

This Week's Recommendation: Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse

In our conversation about strange 80s Christmas specials, we were remiss in leaving out one of the strangest... He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special. It is not my recommendation this week, because it is almost an hour long and really not good. But I do recommend looking up the one scene where Skeletor has to escort two children and a cute animal to safety, and argues with them about whether fights are fun. 

My real recommendation this week is for something that is actually good, and that is Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse. It's my favorite holiday special -- chaotic and weird and unpredictable, it features unmitigated cheer, a strangely relaxed Cher, hunky construction workers, and surprise guests emerging delighted from boxes like visiting angels.

Although its origins are religious, the rules for celebrating Christmas certainly have changed over the years, which is why we no longer celebrate with Yule goats. And the changeable, mystifying, bizarre fun of Pee Wee's special is, I think, the best encapsulation of what makes Christmas great: a time to gather together with people you love, to practice some silly ancient rituals, and to invent new traditions that, if they're fun, can be continued from year to year.

Because Christmas isn't frozen in time -- it's a party that for hundreds of years has been growing, evolving, and in Pee Wee's case, rapidly mutating. 

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

That Really Felt Like Christmas Magic (Ep. 92 - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

This Week's Guest: Jonathan Renteria-Elyea

Growing up as in atheist home, December was the closest I ever came to having a religious experience -- not because of actual religion, but the beauty of the snow and gifting and carols and lights just overwhelmed and transported me, years before I had any inkling that there was any kind of churchy component.

My guest this week came to Christmas from the other side of the looking glass. Jonathan grew up in a deeply religious family, and similarly found himself swept up in the pageantry of the season. These days, he's distanced himself from the faith. And now Christmas has become spiritual for him in a far more personal way.

This Week's Recommendation: A Muppet Family Christmas

My recommendation this week is A Muppet Family Christmas, a somewhat overlooked Muppet special from 1987, in which the gang shows up unannounced at Fozzie's mom's house. And by the gang, I do mean everyone -- the Sesame Street characters come caroling, there's a hole in the wall that leads to Fraggle Rock, and at one point Sam the Eagle leans into frame to ask "why am I here?"

There is a pureness to the special that will be instantly recognizable to any fan, from casual to the most seasoned toughpig. This episode features real Muppet magic, not the pale imitations that the characters became in the 90s. And this Christmas special throws them all together in an irresistible alchemy. But beyond just being the perfect showcase for the characters, it's also a beautiful celebration of family, both biological and chosen. Fozzie's brought his weirdos home, and though his mom isn't sure what to make of them, she opens her doors and welcomes them with open arms.

And even if you're not physically near your family at this time of year, you're still surrounded with happy memories, stories, movies, songs -- whatever entertainment you love is a little capsule of the season, each one a little bond with someone else you can enjoy it with. So among the gifts you give at the end of this year, I hope you'll also give the gift of sharing the culture that gives you joy with the people who give you joy. Doing that on the Sewers of Paris has been my great pleasure, and I hope in the new year it can be yours as well.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Tragically Ludicrous and Ludicrously Tragic (Ep. 91 - Reality Shows)

This Week's Guest: Ross Semple

How do you think you'd come across if someone made your life into a reality show? My guest this week is Ross Semple, who grew up in a sort of fishbowl where the presence of family was constant and privacy didn't exist. And so naturally the round-the-clock surveillance of reality shows resonated with him, particularly as the medium evolved and the term "reality" became euphemistic.

But as young as the genre may seem, Ross eventually discovered that hysterics, outlandish costumes, and the ludicrously tragic have a long and noble history in queer entertainment.

This Week's Recommendation: All About Eve

I hope that you'll respond to my recommendation this week by saying, oh, I've already seen it. Because everyone should have seen All About Eve already. In case you haven't, I suppose we can still be friends but here's what you need to know:

It came out in 1950 and stars everyone you hope it stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe in a brief appearance -- the kind of actors who make you think "now THIS is a black and white film."

The story is a delicious melodrama: aging actress takes in a young ingenue and soon everyone's scheming and fighting and sobbing and blackmailing. This is the movie that invented countless catty catchphrases, but also perfected a certain way of being, a way of carrying oneself with a ferociousness that is at once dignified and absurd.

The film is wall-to-wall with tough dames making sweeping pronouncements, dueling sarcastic asides, and even occasionally an insultingly weak slap to the face. It is a crowning achievement of camp, in part because it was never intended to be. It was, after all, a more innocent time -- Susan Sontag was just 17 when it came out -- and by the time we got to the slapping fights on Dynasty, the gossip of Desperate Housewives, and NBC's Hairspray Live, the entertainment industry had developed a sort of assembly language for mass-market camp, distilling it down to just its tastiest ingredients. 

But All About Eve boasts a more complex bouquet. Its not have confessionals, drinks thrown in faces, or even a single high school musical number. But I wouldn't say it suffers for their absence.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Don't Ask Me Out Again Until You've Written Chapter Two (Ep. 90 - Tootsie)

This Week's Guest: Steven Rowley

When it comes to costumes, some of us have a greater-than-average appreciation for layering. My guest this week is writer Steven Rowley, whose debut novel Lily and the Octopus is touching and familiar and funny. It is also one of the gayest stories he's ever told, after a career spent in what was a sort of disguise, writing rom-coms about heterosexual relationships. But by the time his deeply personal book was complete he knew that he was done de-gaying his stories. So he told his publisher as much, unsure how they'd respond.

This Week's Recommendation: Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride

Thanks again to Steven, and don't forget to check out his book Lily and the Octopus. Or my book, Defining Marriage. Just the thing for the readers in your life.

I also highly recommend following Steven and Byron's dog Tilda on Instagram -- her handle is tildaswintondog, all one word.

I am delighted to be talking about dogs because they are the best. Humans are fine, I guess, but it's our animal friends help us to be our best selves. For my recommendation this week, take a look at the strangely beautiful South Park episode Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride, in which Stan worries that there's something wrong with his dog because he's gay.

The episode is notable for various reasons, among them its Emmy and GLAAD Award nominations. Given the time that it came out -- 1997 -- it's a remarkably affectionate and empathetic portrayal of gay characters. It might have been challenging to talk about homosexual people on TV at the time but you could talk about homosexual animals.

Ironically, Ellen's sitcom was cancelled a few months after this episode aired. She had just come out in an hourlong special called "The Puppy Episode," so named because a producer suggested that she get a dog instead of pursuing romantic interests.

Anyway, the South Park episode concludes on a 100% optimistic note about human compassion and our ability to see the good in each other, which is not bad for a raunchy cartoon. And it might be tempting to credit the writers or the animators or the actors for this lovely piece of television history, but I think that overlooks the true heros: dogs. So, thank you, dogs, for this episode of South Park. It may help us all be better people. But we'll never be as good as dogs.

Clips of Stuff we Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

You Can Only Be Young and Dumb for So Long (Ep. 89 - Mama Tits)

This Week's Guest: Mama Tits

This year's Thanksgiving seems like a particularly important time to reflect back on the good things in our lives, the positive advances we've made, and the people we love and trust -- in fact, times given what they are, our very sanity may depend on it.

Life's a balance of good and bad, and there's never so much of one that there's none of the other. My guest this week has certainly had his share of ups and down, going from an opera prodigy to Idaho's foremost producer of raves to living in a tiny room just upstairs from the off-Broadway debut of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Throughout his adventures, Brian -- aka Mama Tits -- has always been a survivor, toughening himself through the bad news so he could be ready for good news.

This Week's Recommendation: Party Girl

Thanks again to Mama Tits for joining me. And if you'd like to join her, pack your bags for Mexico: Mama now winters in Puetro Vallarta from November to May. Her new show Sweet Like Candy is every Monday and Thursday at Act II Stages. And while she's away, her drag troupe holds down the fort in Seattle every weekend with the show Mimosas Cabaret. Now through the end of the year, they're performing the fabulous original show A Boob Job for Christmas.

It sure is tempting to escape from real life into a fantasy world, now more than ever. And I love an escape as much as anyone, but as tempting as those fantasies may be, eventually real life has a way of intruding since it is, after all, where we actually reside. 

For my recommendation this week, check out the movie Party Girl, a 1995 film starring Parker Posey as a free spirt named Mary who'll do anything she can to live her own life. She throws parties, takes drugs, and avoids work of any kind, just barely keeping everything from crashing down around her. But crash things must, and when they do, she finds herself evicted, jobless, and alienated from her friends.

And that forces Mary to take a long hard, painful look in the mirror at a woman she's been refusing to see: a woman capable of being responsible, taking care of herself, worthy of self-respect.

Taking a long hard look at yourself can be tough, a lot tougher than looking away. But if you're constantly looking away into some escape, that often means there's something wrong, a problem that only you can fix, a problem that'll keep chasing you in real life until it catches up and your fantasy can no longer provide a place to hide.

So as tough as it is, we all need to pop out of our escapes now and then, whether they're parties or movies or roles that we play. Look around, look at yourself, look at your real life -- and if there's something you've been avoiding, deal with it. So that way, when you disappear back into whatever your escape may be, you're doing it for fun instead of self-preservation.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Put on Your Lipstick, Make a Martini, and Go (Ep. 87 - Paul Curran)

This Week's Guest: Paul Curran

Photo: Christopher Bowen

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.

By the way, I've made my book Defining Marriage free to download as an ebook this week through November 18th. The book's full of personal stories from people who fought for marriage equality over the last forty years, and some lessons that might be particularly relevant today about how queer people stood up for themselves in the face of cruel leaders and unjust laws. Just head to DefiningMarriage.com to download a copy -- it's free through Friday, November 18th.

Also, you might've heard that my partner and I broadcast a livestream last weekend of our queer gamer video project, Playing with Pride. If you missed it, don't worry -- we're keeping the recorded livestream up at PlayingWithPride.com through November 19th. If you like the stories on Sewers of Paris, I think you'll enjoy the stories and interviews with LGBT gamers and allies in Playing With Pride. And because it's a work in progress, your input can really help us shape this project. The presentation's about an hour long, and then there's a feedback form that takes just a minute or two to fill out. Head over to PlayingWithPride.com to watch the video and let us know your thoughts.

This Week's Recommendation: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat

Thanks again to Paul for joining me. Keep an eye out for the show he directed with the Dallas Opera, Becoming Santa Claus, coming soon to DVD. And he'll be directing the Golden Cockerel this coming summer at the Santa Fe opera.

I'll confess I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to opera. But the times that my guests on the show have brought it up, it's not hard to see the appeal in shows that create a heightened reality, an imaginary world, a place where voices become surreal. The extremity of the opera provides the same sense of escape that many of us get from explosive special effects in movies, or steamy love scenes in a novel.

That escape is at the heart of great art and culture, and sometimes, great art and culture is about the escape itself. For my recommendation this week, check out the music video for the song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Even though I've seen it countless times, I watched it right before editing this episode and it still has the power to move me. The video follows a young man as he makes the difficult decision to leave home and strike out in search of something better -- someONE better -- and its ambiguous ending lets you write your own ending for the main character after the final freeze frame.

Of course, the ending that you write will probably reflect your own experience, your own escape. It's a heightened reality that, it turns out, was a mirror all along.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Jesus Wants You to Find a Nice Man (Ep. 86 - Final Fantasy)

This Week's Guest: Andrew Slade

If you're like me, right now you're searching for something -- anything -- to lend you comfort. We've just ended a horrifying election season, and are about to embark on four years that will likely be even worse. How do we even start to recover from this, how do we get out of bed for the next four years, what can we do to move forward?

Well the future, good or bad, starts with us. We can shape it. The world in which we live begins in our imaginations, and then through our work we bring it to life. And that's why art and culture and ideas and entertainment and daydreaming are all so important, particularly at moments like these.

I spoke to this week's guest, Andrew Slade, before the election about his passion for escape, whether it's into a video game or a drag character. We talked about how imaginary worlds can become real, how a fantasy can become reality, and how one person's late-night idea can blossom into a collaboration and then into a performance that changes lives. Back when we recorded our chat, we weren't thinking about politics. But as you listen this week, I hope you will.

This week's Recommendation: Chaka Corn

Thanks again to Andrew for joining me. I cannot recommend highly enough that you go to YouTube and type in his drag name -- Chaka Corn -- and watch him perform. His acts are even more strange and geeky and fun than you can imagine, and half the pleasure is listening to the audience roar with approval. 

It's not easy to connect to a room full of people, especially when your references are to 8-bit videogame characters that may be older than some of the people watching. But Chaka corn isn't just referencing culture -- she's making something new, from love stories to revenge fantasies to declarations of queer power. And even if you don't exactly know who Megaman is, or which Pokemon does what, the story they're telling is clear. And seeing the pleasure of the show spreading from the stage to the far corners of the room is magic. Pure magic.

If you, like me, feel like any hope of recovery from this election is so far away as to be imperceptible, remember we have magic. We tell stories, we make art, we share the books and music and movies and shows that have moved us. And in so doing we have the power to transmute ideas into messages and messages into movements.

So my recommendation this week is also to make stuff, watch stuff, go to stuff, share stuff. And make that stuff count. Don't squander your magic.

Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Things You Thought Were Evil (Ep. 85 - PJ Harvey)

This Week's Guest: Austin Bull

My guest this week is Austin Bull, also known as the performance artist The Bearded Femme. His stage persona is eye-catching and weird, from vibrant green beards to dressing up as sexualized religious figures. Creating creatures onstage is his way of making sense of a darkness that once threatened to overwhelm him -- and standing up to his own fears.

By the way, this Saturday, November 5th, you can catch me and my partner James livestreaming video games for 24 hours straight. It's a fundraiser for Seattle Children's Hospital, and you can watch and chat and donate as we play Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Smash Brothers, and lots more. While we play, we're asking viewers to chip in a few bucks to support research into childhood diseases. Just go bit.ly/extralifeseattle to watch and donate. We're starting at 9am pacific on November 5 and going straight through to 9am on November 6th. Wish us luck.

Also, James and I are working on a documentary project about queer gamers, and on November 12th we're going to be livestreaming a sneak peek and responding to viewers' questions and comments.  If you enjoy the storytelling on Sewers of Paris, you'll want to join us live for Playing with Pride. It's a work in progress, so feedback at this stage can have a huge impact on its future. Just visit PlayingWithPride.com to watch, and to sign up for the latest news on the project as it evolves.

This Week's Recommendation: Dragula

I have seen a lot of drag, and it takes a lot to make me turn my head at this point. So I'm 100% in support of any artist who's embarking on something daring and weird. That's why my cautious recommendation this week is Dragula, a brand new drag-queen elimination show that's kind of Drag Race plus Addams Family plus Marilyn Manson. It's pretty rough around the edges -- but that's kind of the point.

The show just premiered online, and it's the work of LA nightlife creatures The Boulet Brothers and upcoming Sewers of Paris guest Johnny McGovern. Each half-hour episode brings together drag queens of a sort you're unlikely to see on Logo: messy, scary, upsetting, and downright baffling. The show is set in a cemetery, and on the premiere they're challenged to present their best witch looks. The performers come out on stage cackling with skulls, fangs, and spikes, and they're then doused in water to demonstrate their best death.

The judgement begins with a Boulet brother reminding them that "In the Dragula family, we pride ourselves on being outcasts and losers." And there is therefore no winner. There is, however, an extermination, with a few queens called out for their unacceptable use of items like sensible black pumps. Three contestants are then buried alive in coffins and showered through a tube with live insects in pitch blackness until one actually urinates on camera.

If the bright lights and beauty of Drag Race have always rubbed you the wrong way, you'll probably love the catacombs and creatures on Dragula. After being showered in mealworms, one of the contestants explains why she enjoyed herself: "the only thing to do was what I've done my whole life, take something shitty and nightmarish and make it something to laugh about."

That line reminded me of something I once read by Annie Proulx, the author of Brokeback Mountain. Explaining the message of the story, she said, "if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it."

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Nicest Debt Collector Around (Ep. 84 - Great British Bake Off)

This Week's Guest: Edd Kimber

Why is food so important? I mean, other than the whole keeping-you-alive thing. My guest this week found his life forever changed by food when he won the first season of The Great British Bake-Off. Edd Kimber was a shy, unhappy banker when his cakes, cookies, and pies catapulted him to national fame. It was all a bit much for a young man who once dreaded attention -- but it also meant a once-in-a-lifetime chance for him to pursue his dreams of baking for a living.

This Week's Recommendation: Stirring the Pot

Thanks again to Edd for joining me. If you liked hearing from him, check out his new podcast, Stirring the Pot, where every episode he talks to a different chef, food writer, or celebrity about how food has touched their lives. It's kind of The Sewers of Paris, but with food.

Edd's conversations on Stirring the Pot are lovely and heartwarming and funny and familiar. Like the entertainment we talk about on this show, meals are something we craft and consume for each other.

And maybe I'm giving away too much by telling you this, but the truth is that this show, The Sewers of Paris, isn't really about entertainment. It's about people, and the ways that we connect. Often, it can be difficult for us mostly-hairless apes to relate to each other, but our shared experiences can provide a universal language where words fail. Whether those experiences are a book that two people loved, or a dessert that they shared, they provide nourishment and inspiration.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/