The Sewers of Paris

I can’t believe this is the case, but we’re just about at the end of 2023 — somehow — and I figured this was a good time to look back at some of my favorite Sewers of Paris episodes of the past year. From a New Orleans ghost-hunter who was inspired by Monty Python, to queer romance novels, to bad gays, to the shocking stories behind 1970s couture, I was lucky enough to chat with a lot of really in...

As we veer ever closer to Christmas, this week's episode is a dive into the Sewers of Paris archives for a chat with Scott Shoemaker. Along with his partner Freddie, Scott’s great passion is live weird theater, which manifests in such projects as an ongoing series of live shows in which he plays a boozy pill-popping version of Ms Pac Man, or his annual Christmas show where he finds new ways every...

My guest this week is New York comedian Justin Randall , who was a very different person when he moved to the big city a few years ago. Back then he was a closeted actor, and the idea of coming out seemed like a distant dream — and not a good one. But things changed when he started getting up on stage as a stand-up comedian, and discovered the liberating power of making people laugh … and of makin...

We have two guests this week — filmmakers Melina Maerker and David Miller are the co-creators of a new documentary entitled We Live Here: The Midwest , which follows a variety of brave families enduring challenging circumstances as queer people in conservative parts of the country. Both Melinda and David came to filmmaking out of a desire to tell other peoples’ stories, and create a space where pe...

My guest this week is Lucas Hilderbrand , author of the new book The Bars Are Ours , which provides a deep look at the history of gay bars. Before he launched into this intriguing field of study, Lucas bounced around queer culture for several years, looking for the place where he fit in — a journey that included a particularly traumatic experience in musical theater. And it’s probably not a surpri...

A new biopic just debuted on Netflix entitled Rustin, about the incredible life of Bayard Rustin — a civil rights leader who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. And this week, we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archives to hear my 2017 interview with Bayard’s surviving partner, Walter Naegle, as well as with filmmaker Matt Wolf, who made a documentary about Walter entitled Bayard and Me . In add...

My guest this week is historian Eric Gonzaba, whose fascinating work includes the Wearing Gay History archive — a collection of vintage queer t-shirts — and Mapping the Gay Guides, an accounting of queer travel guides from the 60s and 70s. Eric’s interest in history was piqued at an early age, when he developed an obsession for the Kennedy Center Honors, which pay annual tribute to lifetime innova...

My guest this week is an old friend. I first met Tim Sheridan about a decade ago, when we were both writers trying to figure out how to make a living doing what we loved. Well, it took some time, but we both figured it out. Today, Tim’s the celebrated writer of major movies and comics, from Justice League to He-Man and Transformers and Batman and Superman. His latest series is Alan Scott: The Gree...

My guest this week is actor Ray Stewart, who first came to my attention in the role of Darryl Driscoll on the 70s sitcom Barney Miller. Ray played half of a same-sex couple at a time when such characters were vanishingly rare. But you’ve also seen him on everything from The Bob Newhart Show to Benson to Days of Our Lives and more — and that’s not even touching on his career in film and Broadway. R...

My guest this week is Karel Bouley. Back in the 90s, Karel and his partner Andrew Howard were the first openly queer couple to host a major market drive time radio show in the US. And after Andrew unexpectedly passed away in the early 2000s, Karel helped change California laws around suing for wrongful death. For leaving a mark in those and many other ways, the city of Long Beach will recognize th...

I’m speaking this week with Wilson Paulino, who co-hosts the Wilferland podcast with his partner Fernando. Wilson grew up in a pretty idyllic tourist town in the Dominican Republic, where life was good … as long as he didn’t talk about who he really was. Quietly closeted, he watched gay couples on American TV shows, living lives that seemed impossibly far away. But meeting his partner helped open...

In honor of the start of October, the spookiest month, this week we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archives to hear my 2015 interview with Jamie Mauer, who you may also know as Rantasmo, the creator of the Needs More Gay YouTube series. Jamie grew up loving unsettling stories — like a lot of queer people. For those of us who feel pressure to hide their true selves, horror and fantasy — and par...

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, whi...

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 t...

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 — an...

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 h...

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,...

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...

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 assembl...

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 tim...

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...

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...

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, ad...

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, wh...

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 cult...