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May 14, 2025 52 mins

What does it mean to be 'canceled'? How do we collectively navigate the baffling, complex and contradictory world of an 'always-on' society? In the first part of this week's special two-part interview, Ben, Matt and Noel welcome the legendary writer, actor, playwright and activist, John Cameron Mitchell, creator of Cancellation Island, for a wide-ranging conversation on everything from lizard people to gnosticism, the power of language, Aleister Crowley and everything in between.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Friends, neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists.
It is no secret that modern society is diplomatically put complicated.

(00:50):
You know, it wasn't too long ago that it seemed
almost everyone was getting quote unquote canceled for all manner
of things, these concerns, competing interest moving at a rapid pace.
What can or cannot be said, what can or cannot
be asked? And of course what's up with all those

(01:11):
lizard people.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well yeah, we're also in a time where conspiracy theories
are far more mainstream than they have ever been. And
you put those things together and you just you got
a wacky reality. We're all hanging out in right now.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Right well, when the White House Press briefing room is
full of quote unquote influencers who are often peddling the
very conspiracy theories that we talk about on this show.
It really does sort of put a very bizarre and
Orwellian twist on quote unquote the.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
News bizarre Orwellian. Also, we still have not received a
response from the White House in our addition to join
their press room briefly, but hope springs a turtle and
we have something very special for you today, fellow listeners.
We are diving deep into these questions and more with

(02:02):
none other than the award winning creator, the actor, the writer, director, producer,
I'll say it, the philosopher create Yes, creator of the
hit podcast Cancelation Island, please join us and welcoming none
other than the legendary John Cameron Mitchell. John, thank you
for joining us today.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
Well, thank you. I don't know if I can measure
up to you.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Must you must.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Go on.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Can I get something out of the way, guys that
is not related to our interview, you must as well.
John Cameron Mitchell, I just have to say, Uh, one
of my favorite characters on screen in a long time
is Gabe Parrish. I freaking love Shrill and Gabe Parish,
thank you for making that happen.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
You're welcome. That's what happens when an old punk rocker
kurdles into a book magazine editor.

Speaker 6 (03:04):
It's beautiful, right.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I didn't know you directed several episodes of that show,
so I did, you didn't. IMDb is just wrong.

Speaker 7 (03:13):
That's conspiracy.

Speaker 5 (03:14):
Oh yeah, I mean I have a feeling I might
have if it had continued. I wish it well.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Speaking of the Internet being wrong, you and I hung
out not too long ago when you were coming through
it in Atlanta doing some incredible talks on a kind
of a lecture circuit here at Emory, and someone asked
you about your pronouns because of what Wikipedia said, I
believe it has couched you as being non binary. And
you were like, no, that's not true, and I have
no control over Wikipedia. I just thought that was a
very interesting.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
It isn't untrue that I'm non binary. I just don't
like the term.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Of course, but to be categorized by that in that way,
I just thought it was interesting, right, No, nothing to
do with me.

Speaker 7 (03:53):
Well, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know.

Speaker 5 (03:54):
Identity is being an actor, being a writer. Identity, which
always had good intentions of calling awareness to systems that
are unfair. But identity. You know, we Americans love to
monetize things, We love to commercialize things, and identity just

(04:15):
became felt like another kind of group to sell to,
you know, in a way bar code. You know, we're
almost selling our own identity to ourselves and all the
accessories that go with it, you know, like philosophy and
fashion and other things. And to me, it's the opposite
of what an artist should be doing, which is just

(04:35):
you know, trying on different identities. I you know, imagining
yourself as someone you are not. That is the point
of fiction, is putting your feet in the shoes of
someone you're not and going, wow, I actually have something
in common, which is the opposite of identities story, which
is stay in your lane, don't tell a story that's

(04:55):
not your own. And then you end up going, what
is my story? Who am I? You know, are these
artificial categories that were being rammed into Well.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I think it's interest. I think that's the show.

Speaker 6 (05:06):
Oh no, for sure.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Well, it's also interesting to see that that's almost an
issue that you see on both sides of the whether
it be politically speaking, left or right. You have people
on the left maybe guilty of what you're describing. And
then folks on the right this mega pushed towards identity
politics and just like you know, ideology overall, but they
somehow have a lot in common.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Yeah, and deep censorship. You know, the farther you go
to the so called right or left, you end up
in the middle. And you know, my there was I
had a line in my first podcast series, which was
a musical called anthem Homunculus, which is out there now
is someone says, you know, the the both the arch
conservative and the arch liberal both got shut on by

(05:49):
their dad. The only difference was the conservative thought they
deserved it.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I like that. I like that.

Speaker 6 (05:59):
Unpack.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Wow, there's an our Boro set play for sure.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
Yea yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
And with this, uh, with this, John, hopefully we're conveying
that we are all tremendous fans of your work and
we wanted to maybe open up our conversation. Now, speaking
a little bit about your podcast, your newest podcast, Cancelation Island.
You and your co writer Michael You leverage humor, empathy,

(06:26):
and philosophy to take just a genuine, non lectury, non
condescending approach to some pretty serious concerns that you've alluded
to just a few moments ago. Could you describe Cancelation
Island for our audience and maybe give us a bit
of a detail about what inspired you to create this show.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
So, I had a lot of friends who had been
canceled ten or or so years ago when this was
coming up as a as a you know, worldwide issue
of like you know, in purity being the possibility of
shut down, you know, sutting down career lives, livelihood, ways
of making money, social presence. And it affected a lot

(07:12):
of my friends in a negative way. Of course, it
was coming from good intentions, trying to call account to
people who hadn't been the legal system failing in some ways,
but then in other ways it was not able to
see the full spectrum of a person, you know, seeing

(07:32):
their face while they're saying it informs the words, you know,
it sometimes oftens and mitigates the words. And when we
see just the words on a tweet, it's like, you know,
the CBD to the full spectrum cannabis. You know, it's
just a part of it, and you can't react fully

(07:53):
or you overreact because you're not seeing the whole image
of a person in front of you. Digital culture has
amplify paranoia, misunderstanding, conspiracy theories for sure, and there would
be no Trump. Without digital culture, there would be no polarization.
We would no longer be in the state of mind

(08:13):
that I describe in cancellation as when all news is
fake all stories are true.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Wow, yes, you.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
Know, when facts are in fact suspect and degraded by
the powers that be. You know, of course Trump is saying,
you know, if there are no facts, science doesn't really
mean anything. It's just what he wants things to believe
that those are the facts. But in that situation where
we fact a suspect, in effect, all news is fake
and all stories are true, and that can mean conspiracy theories,

(08:46):
but it can also mean beautifully nuanced fiction in which
we can find ourselves in other people's shoes and characters'
shoes and suddenly identifying with their emotions people we hadn't
seem to have nothing in common with. So it's an opportunity.
It's a strange situation when facts are disrespected, but maybe

(09:09):
the only tool we have left our stories.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
That's brilliant, brilliantly put John. We also, you know, we
see we see the weaponization, right of the concept of
fake news, this cavalcade of always on culture, everybody being
required to have a statement yeah, sometimes to their detriment. Right,

(09:35):
would you do us the favor of defining the concept
of cancelation and therefore cancel culture as it's understood in
the modern West today.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Well, you know, it's a funny term that just seemed
to kind of come up maybe ten or you know,
twelve years ago, as the you know me too was
coming up, as you know, understandings about racism and police brutality. Obviously,
I come from AIDS activism and queer rights where we

(10:14):
cancelation wasn't really our goal, because it was more like survival.
We would make fun of corporations trying to make money
on our backs and on our deaths, but we didn't
try to get rid of anybody. You know, we wouldn't
have mind had getting rid of Bush and Reagan, who
kind of left us to die. But it was more

(10:37):
about who can we work with? Right during AIDS activism,
we worked every angle, we negotiated with big pharma and saying,
even if you don't care about us, you could make
billions if you save our lives. As well as a
two It was a two track thing going on. We
were also in the streets making fun of homophobes and

(10:58):
hateful capital It's like people put a giant condom on
the house of anti gay Senator Jesse Helms, and it
was a you know, don't mess with the gays because
they will. You know, they know, they know how to
take you down with flair and you know, with nuanced.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, well, I think nuance there is the key, because
it seems to me that the kind of black and
white sort of I guess division that's created by cancelation
isn't particularly helpful or useful towards a larger discourse or
towards the idea of individuals being able to have redemption

(11:39):
arcs or even I don't know. It makes everybody scared
to speak their minds for fear they may be, you know,
have that target focused on them, right.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
And it comes from again good intentions. We're going to
take out the bad guy. But we as outsiders, as oddballs,
understand that there is nuance in the world. We understand
that when people judge you from how you look or
say you have to hide a secret about yourself, like
your sexuality, or inner gender. Then you understand there's a

(12:09):
surface and then there's a deeper, nuanced truth underneath it.
When everything goes your way, when you're part of the
ruling class, you get very literal right. Things are what
they look like. And when she hits the fan, as
it does in life, who has the skills to deal
with complexity? But the outsiders, you know, they're the ones

(12:31):
who know. Being an outsider can kill you if you
don't feel like you belong, but it can also make
you an innovator and a hero and a freedom fighter.
So cancelation almost goes against what we know as complexity,
as nuance, as the possibility of change, of redemption. Like

(12:52):
you're saying, I grew up very Catholic, so I still
believe that people. Maybe you know, I'm misinformant, but I
see people changing, you know, I see people wanting to
xpiate their sins and move on, and I want to
help that. So cancelation is like black or white, you're in,
you're out, And it risks us imitating ro pressors. You know,

(13:17):
who are who are more black and white. So cancelation
became a weapon when the legal system failed, and it
was an imperfect one. It was an blunt instrument and
it would beat down people who were just slightly off,
you know, message, and it couldn't handle nuance and complexity,

(13:39):
and certainly the Internet has problems with that. Headwig, in fact,
got canceled during COVID at the height of let's say,
political correctness in the Western world or the let's say,
the industrial world. And it happened because there was a production,
a big production happening with a queer actor who was

(13:59):
a big star, and some young people who identified as
non binary trans said, well, as a trans role, only
trans people can play it, and it destroyed the production.
The actor got into DM fights, drunken DM fights with
those people who are really just young actors who wanted

(14:22):
the role. You know, They're not enough gender non conforming roles,
that's for sure, and I always try to write them,
but I don't limit who can play things. You know,
like Headveig is about drag and rock and roll. It's
not about trans. The character is forced into an operation
that is not a trans story. That's a story of
mutilation by the patriarchy telling us what is male and

(14:42):
what is female, and a female is a man without
a penis you know it's bullsh and all my trans
friends understand that. But when you're nineteen in trans and
you're weaned on political correctness, you're like, well, that's roles
being stolen from me. And the actor they canceled ended
up trying to kill himself twice, you know, and I

(15:05):
think one of the accusers has apologized since. But it's like,
is Headtig really the enemy here?

Speaker 3 (15:10):
You know?

Speaker 4 (15:12):
It seems like a waste of time, a lot of
let's focus on Yes, let's focus on bigger.

Speaker 5 (15:19):
Steve Bonnet's work for him.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, We're We're that's a great point. We're also we're
also looking at a situation where, you know, on this show, John,
we often say that life is one non consensual game
of long form improv and everybody has to everybody has
to understand there are more commonalities, right, and differences are beautiful.

(15:47):
They should be celebrated, not weaponized, not leveraged to other
u This this is something a thread we could argue
that runs through Cancelation Island, because they're is without spoiling
too much, there is a fantastic dollop of the conspiratorial
thought to which you earlier allude. We're gonna pause for

(16:10):
a word from our sponsor and then we'll be back
with more from John and we're back. Personally, really enjoy
episode four, where things kick off and we get this, uh,

(16:33):
we get this download of one of our show's favorite
conspiracy theories of all time, which speaks in brilliant metaphor
to these questions of identity, the idea that a secret
faction of the world's most powerful people are in fact
not people at all, but.

Speaker 6 (16:54):
Like extra dimensional yeah reptiz. Yeah, Oh sorry, I'm.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Just gonna say, Ben, I was reading up on some
of the metaphor of that that you mentioned, and I
love I'm really excited to get into this because it
becomes when you start to look at it like a metaphor,
a way of describing just sort of unseen forces rather
than a literal, you know, exterior, you know, interloper from
another dimension, and it can often have that effect of

(17:23):
what we call or we didn't make this up, but
the thought terminating cliche where there's some truth to something
or it represents a truth, but by going to all
in with the weird thing, you kind of throw the
baby out with the bath order for a lot of people,
so Here's here's the.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Question, John, When you and Michael are writing this and
you chose this long running conspiratorial thought process, right, be
it a cliche or not? What drew you to this?
What fascinates you about the reptilian concept?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
Well, to me, conspiracy theories have always been somewhat interesting.
Though part of me goes, where are the conspiracy theories
of people secretly trying to help us? You know, we
know they're not everyone is evil, and we also know
that secret things happen in different ways, and some people

(18:21):
actually are. You know, there's a term paranoid, which means
the irrational beliefs some is trying to hurt you. But
another term, which I've used in an anthem, which is pronoid,
which is the irrational belief that someone's trying to help you.

Speaker 7 (18:36):
Why are aliens?

Speaker 5 (18:38):
I know, why are aliens and lizards always bent on
doing evil? You know, who aren't some humans good or
seeking good? And why wouldn't you know aliens and lizards
follow suit with their complexity. Actually, that's what our second
season is all about, is aliens canceling aliens.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well, you know, John, there is a really interesting movement
happening in kind of that UFO UAP space where there
is a there's a growing belief that whatever the extraterrestrials
are that are being seen, you know in the skies,
are here to help humanity at some point, like save

(19:21):
ourselves essentially from ourselves. So there is there is some
thread of that kind of rolling through right now, but
it's certainly not as prominent as you know.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
As we know, conspiracy theories, like conceptions of God, exist
to explain things we don't like, you know, about our lives,
like death. That's why God was invented to explain death, conspiracy.
And when God becomes less popular and religion becomes less popular,

(19:55):
conspiracy theories and other belief systems come to the fore.
And we as Americans are very innovative about all kinds
of things, including our conspiracy theories and even our religions.
You could say that Latter day Saints and you know,
other homemade scientology, you know, homemade religious American religions do

(20:17):
the same thing, but they have a you know, explaining
why we're unhappy, but also creates very lovely capitalist goals.
Mormonism and scientist might the American because they're making money
is almost close, you know, you're closer to God when
you make money.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
We always talk about just how money is a religion
and of itself.

Speaker 6 (20:41):
Often that something that comes up here.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
Catholicism is very close to that prosperity Catholic Catholicism and
very far from former Pope, you know, Francis is more
let's say.

Speaker 6 (20:55):
Socialism benevolent, yes, yeah, yeah, because.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
You know, there's nothing more socialist than early Christianity. So
in other words, I find all of this really fascinating,
and you know, I might just jump back to a
very early conspiracy theory in effect in the early Christian Church.
You know, in Hedwig Headig in the Angry inch My musical,

(21:19):
there's a character named Tommy nosis Gnosa.

Speaker 6 (21:23):
The Gnostic Gospels, right.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
And he is inspired by the Gnostic Christian Gospels, which
were Christian texts that were considered heretical and not allowed
to be in the Bible, that had a really interesting
non authoritarian view of Christianity and more less sexist and
more Buddhist in the way, you know, so we can
all be God. And even Aleister Crowley and his spirituality

(21:50):
sprang from Gnosticism. You know. I live in a house that.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
Used to be a chapter of Aleister Crowley's Church.

Speaker 5 (21:59):
What Oto What Oriental Templars, which was an ancient Freemason
group that Alistair took over and remade in his image
and used Thelma, you know, his philosophy, which the golden
rule was do what thou wilt, which was.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Then co opted by Satanism or the Church of States, right.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
And they got weaponized by outsiders, right, creating a moral
panic rather than a curiosity toward how people were like,
toward the motive of why someone would seek to understand
the universe through this specific lens. And that's something you know,

(22:45):
that's something that we returned to time and time again
on the show. You Know you Can, and you returned
to it. I would argue time and time again in
your work it is devilishly convenient to lack nuance right
to make that black and white binary decision. But your work,

(23:06):
not just in Cancelation Island, but overall, I would posit
your work challenges the audience to exercise empathy and curiosity.
And that's why that's why we find it so fascinating
that you included one of the one of the primary
weaponized conspiracy theories used to other people, right, like, I

(23:30):
don't like this guy. Therefore lizards.

Speaker 7 (23:33):
Well, to get back to the lizard people.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
Which you know, the most complex or let's say, uh,
thorough investigation of is by Ike what's his name.

Speaker 6 (23:48):
David, You know him, We spoke to him on the show.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
He's legendary and he has an Alistair Crowley like aura
about him.

Speaker 7 (23:56):
But he posits this.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
There's been versions of this kind of conspiracy theory throughout
the ages, which is hidden people among us, right, hiding
their true identities in positions of power, the most popular
one of course, being the anti Semitic version of that. Right, right,
the diaspora of people who don't at that time have

(24:21):
their own land filtering through the world and taking over, Right,
that's a big conspiracy thing. It's like they are trying
to take over.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Take our land, take our jobs, take our women, whatever
it might be, convert our youth exactly.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
And that's you know, people have identified, you know, had
pushed that to trans people in the recent years, you know,
probably the least powerful group we could puzzibly think of.
And you know, billionaires like JK. Rowling and Dave Chappelle
spending all of their capital on punching down to this
group of new group, group of lizard people among us

(25:02):
called trans people. Originally it was whoever you didn't like, right,
it was foreigners, it was Jews, it was black people,
it was versions of queer people. Women, you know, were
always considered subhuman and somewhat dangerous. Immigrants going to shadowy
immigrant coming to take over, to infiltrate right our purity

(25:28):
and the protocols of Zion of course, you know, pushing
the alternate reality of invasion, secret invasion. And to me,
the lizard people one is such a perfect uh, you know,

(25:48):
it seems to also come a little bit from scientology, right,
the sort of right, the uh, the perfect undetectable conspiracy
theory where because you know, when I was a kid
that you know, Donald Sutherland in what was that movie
where body auditernactures was the perfect you know, early version

(26:09):
of that, right, and sixties and seventies was really the
heyday of conspiracy theory in our panic about authority. It
tended to come a little bit more from the left
at that time, right, because Nixon was ascendant in the
Vietnam War, and now it's you know, from all sides politically,
you know, conspiracy theories meet in the middle, like past

(26:31):
l QAnon, you know, the wellness meeting, meeting, the anti
vaxxers meeting, the you know Robert F. Kenady Junior who
actually came to head Big weirdly and came backstage. Isn't
that strange?

Speaker 6 (26:45):
What did he bring? Eryl?

Speaker 5 (26:48):
It was back in the you know, the late nineties. No,
he was blank faced and lizard like.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
All right.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
I didn't know, He's like, what are you doing here?
Didn't crack is mind, didn't seem to like it. Maybe
he was. He was probably dating some model back then.
It's like, let's goy, come on this guy.

Speaker 6 (27:05):
That was that was that in his drugs period?

Speaker 5 (27:08):
Perhaps eight okay, maybe a little past.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
I also love how this model is Australia.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
For some reason, I just become Australian and I'm John.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
Can I do rail for a second and just point
out that you were the voice of the dunker use Kangaroo.

Speaker 7 (27:23):
How do you do your old dog?

Speaker 2 (27:27):
I cannot believe that is true.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
It is true.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
It was an and you're acting your gig days.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
I mean like not you know you girl, always an actor,
but incredible, incredible.

Speaker 6 (27:39):
Just had to I had to bring that up, and
I'm mad that they've changed the design.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
They're just little d coins now.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
Now and it's the you know, it was the animated
kangaroos among us.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Amazing a lizard could never.

Speaker 7 (27:55):
This particular you know.

Speaker 5 (27:57):
In Cancelation Island. Just to set it up a bit more,
we have a Holly Hunter creates or founds a kind
of pilot project called Renewal, and it's about taking a
curated group of canceled people, bringing them to a desert
island which only has a decommissioned CIA Black site on it,

(28:21):
which they have remodeled with the help of Michael Core's
into a lovely resort. And they've curated a group of
gen Z therapists because what they lack in life experience,
they make up for uncertainty. And they are going to
treat these curated group of canceled people that goes from

(28:42):
a slightly windsteining character to someone who just slip of
a tongue and really does not belong in limbo in
the doghouse. And quickly after a couple episodes, all of
our satire about cancel culture is stripped away when mortality,

(29:03):
uh you know appears, which means, oh my God, there's
a giant, life threatening hurricane, Hurricane Swift.

Speaker 7 (29:12):
What do they call it?

Speaker 5 (29:13):
Hurricane Taylor? Because it is Swift, they rename it hur
Beyonce in the spirit of impending diversity. Then someone else says,
Beyonce doesn't really write her own songs. This is for real,
let's call it Hurricane Solange. They keep changing the name
of But in that madness, people start disappearing from the

(29:34):
rehab and we start to realize there is someone still
there from the CIA Black Site living in the bunker beneath,
and that is a rogue conspiracy adult CI, a linguist
you know, who sees himself as a bit of a
you know, born identity figure. Now, who is the jont

(29:58):
Listen not Jones like the John the Baptist too, K
of Kanon, which we've invented as our version of the
secret Lizard people conspiracy among us? And K like Q
is an unidentified figure who seems to have knowledge and

(30:19):
power but is incognito. And Uh Casper All the characters'
names begin with K, which makes him suspicious.

Speaker 7 (30:30):
Casper with the K.

Speaker 5 (30:32):
Is the ghost like rogues CIA agent living beneath monitoring
this subsurd rehab above and starting to kidnap members of
the rehab because he thinks they might be k and
you know, he needs to reconnect their brain so they
become Because it's a very complex, as all conspiracy theories

(30:53):
are situation, and our case though the uh, the lizards
seem to become real. Any woman is impregnated by one
of the lizards and gives birth and then they arrive
and they're really nice. Okay, you guys are also upset

(31:18):
and canceling and this and that. It's like, how can
we help?

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Right? Right, we come in peace.

Speaker 7 (31:25):
As opposed to pieces.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
We're gonna take a quick break here, here a word
from our sponsor, will be right.

Speaker 6 (31:32):
Back, and we're back.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
This is something that again I hesitate to overuse the
word residence, but this exploration of dare we say truth
through fiction? I think it challenges our audience to explore
not just metaphor, but to apply that metaphor to lived

(32:09):
experience right on an individual level. So I'm with you, John,
I'm hoping that there are lizard people. I would love
it if one of the many alleged reptilians came out
and finally had the press conference and said Hey, you
know what, Yes, yeah, it's all true. We're worried about you.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
Guys.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
You should call your mom. You know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
Some of our brethren, you know, really I don't want
you around anymore. We can't be responsible for all of them.
We're as complex as you, Donald Trump. One of our
brethren has different plans.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
We're sorry about.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Right, right, this guy.

Speaker 7 (32:54):
They come out, sorry.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Peez, that's how it happens. There's a public apology. They're like, look,
hashtag not all lizards.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Yeah, guys, I want to go down the lizard path more.
But I have to sidebar on something that came up
a little while ago, just because I cannot stop thinking
about it. John, Can you please tell us more about
your house, Like, has anything weird happened in there? Any
strange spots in the house that have different energy.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
Well, my house is one hundred and eighty years old
in the middle of the Bywater part of New Orleans,
and we bought it, as I said, from a chapter
of the Oto the Oortist Templar Orientis, which Crowley did
run for many years worldwide. He didn't live in this house,

(33:51):
but he spent time in New Orleans and it was
his favorite town in the US, and as it's mine.
And I came upon it at the time when everyone
was buying and it was the one house that was
not selling, and I was like, what's wrong? As a curse,
you know, what's going on? And I walked in and
there's this fifty foot ballroom with a stage. The walls

(34:13):
were decorated with kind of you know, planet signs, and
there was elements of the Jupiter Square, which is it
has to do with Jupiter's xenios aspect, which has to
do with hospitality, where you see a square of numbers numerology,
every line adds up to thirty four or something, and

(34:36):
it had to do with hospitality. And so there's all
this imagery here and a cool you know Moroccan arch
in my kitchen. And I made friends with the original
owner and she sent me some photographs.

Speaker 6 (34:49):
It was a.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
Funeral home for fifty years, you know. And the brand
of arch Druidess of Louisiana will I mean a warden
of course, alliteration. And I kept finding out more than
it was five different churches after that, the Catholic meeting hall.

(35:12):
There was a baptisma font in our floor. There was
a pentagram up in our route and our attic.

Speaker 6 (35:19):
Thank god they didn't overhaul it, you know. I mean,
that's incredible, you know.

Speaker 5 (35:25):
And we poured a lot of money into it at
the time, and now I can't afford it.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
But well, this, John, if of me, this reminds me
of uh, what I call a sleeper line. Like the
language here in Cancelation Island is we're inherently humorous. We're
not again talking down to people. Nobody ever, nobody ever

(35:52):
really established rapport via condescension, right, And so one of
the sleeper lines that I, uh, that I clung to
and listen back in often is the line you can
see the spirits in everything. And this sort of reminds
me of of Matt's question earlier regarding the Oto house

(36:14):
in which you now reside. And it also it reminds
me of oh, what's that thing in Japanese folklore where
if an inanimate object is or a place is well
cared for for a century plus, it acquires its own
sort of animism. I'm sorry, this is wait wait.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Wait, was any have you experienced anything in the house?

Speaker 5 (36:35):
John, Well, I haven't.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
You know.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
It's interesting because I I came in it felt good.
It felt like a personality, you know. It wasn't like
an abode it was it felt like a presence that
was control and interested and curious. And a Hurricane Ida
hit right after, and there was a lot of trouble
and you know, trying to get the house together. We

(36:58):
had a house sitter probably was on math and the
energy was in the room in the house. And after
we extracted him with I had to bribe him to
get out and he stole.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (37:12):
I didn't prosecute because usually those type of people, their
life is their actual sentence. I think he was arrested later.
But what I brought in a voodoo priestess, because you know, yes,
and in New Orleans you work with bo's here and
there's a lot of cultures and you're like, whatever works right.
And the voodoo person wanted said I need the house

(37:34):
for ninety minutes. I need a pail of water and
a single egg.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Whoa.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
And this is before eggs were financial flats.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
And it was actually a not you know, a my
friend's chicken egg. Actually, this is so New Orleans. She's
our witchy real estate agent who sold me the house.
She has her own chickens, you know, this is how
we're you. And so Sally, the priestess, came in. We

(38:05):
don't know what happened to the egg. I'm sure no
one ate it. But she said, you know, the house
feels very good. You don't clear the house of spirits,
you work with them, right, and I love you feel it.
And she said the only negative energy I had was
in this one room, which turned out to be the
meth heads room. Wow, interestingly right, and there's a weird

(38:27):
crawl space above that, which.

Speaker 7 (38:32):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
Actually there was a lot of lighting instruments up there
for the ballroom, which is interesting. But you know, I
was a little scared, but she really cleared it. It
felt good people who come in here, So I haven't
had any negative I've known when the house is unhappy.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
I e.

Speaker 5 (38:49):
We haven't been taken care of it. You know, it
loves people. It loves events, you know, artistic events. It's
becoming a bit of an artist's residency. I'm trying to
raise money to.

Speaker 7 (38:59):
Keep it local.

Speaker 5 (39:01):
People can use it for whatever it can charge.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, John, if I if I could interject there, and Matt,
sorry if I stepped on you when I was setting
up the question I wanted to get to you, so John,
at least we can confirm at least some people there
have felt there is a you know, far be it
to call it animism, but felt a presence.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
They feel, yes, they feel the presidence of the house.
But also, here's my favorite thing that happened. I new
Orleans is a place you talk to strangers, You talk
to people in the street, you invite them over spontaneously.
It's like, that's why I'm here. But I invited this
guitarist over and his pregnant wife, and we sat in
our ballroom and she's very calm, and.

Speaker 7 (39:47):
She said, was this a mortuary?

Speaker 5 (39:52):
And it hasn't been a mortuary since in nineteen thirty
and there's no I just had found out like the
week before that it had been a merched mort and
I said, well, yes, how did you know? And she said,
I grew up in a mortuary.

Speaker 7 (40:06):
And this feels about right.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
I'm like, okay, my other friends said people died in
your house. I was like, nobody dies in a mortuary.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
We're at Disney World, that's true.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Room they just hang out here for a while, y'all.

Speaker 6 (40:26):
Can I just say it's super creepy that.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
I was just looking something up on the Internet and
I got served an ad for Orgone Energy Pyramids. I
think that the computer is listening, and I think I
will It's only fifty five.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
All right for this whole accounting sixty four?

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Maybe Okay, there's a company Orgone Pyramids Incorporated.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Don't you have to create Orgon Energy unclear?

Speaker 6 (40:51):
Don't ask questions, don't.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
As we all know, I love the Orgon box for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:00):
I always said scary, but you know, fascinating, queer familiar
for me. And I lived his house in Kansas as
a kid, but I never part of your story there
in Anthem, Yes so Anthem. My composer Brian Weller, and
I actually drove around Kansas where it took place and
where I lived, and I knocked on William Burrow's door, thinking,

(41:21):
what the hell you know in Lawrence, Kansas, where he
used to live, and the caretaker came out and said,
what as if they'd experienced this before, And I said,
I'm writing a musical that might actually take place on
this porch. You know, I saw the characters living in
William Burrow's old house. And he's like, all right, I
haven't heard that one, come on in, you say, some

(41:45):
Japanese hipster, you know, And I this tiny house with
a huge garden, bullet holes in the ceiling that Bill
had shot, and I ended up we ended up writing
our first draft at Burrow's house house so cool. Anthemunculus,
which has a character based on Bill played by Ben

(42:08):
Foster who played them in the film Kill Your Darlings,
And so Burrows, you know, Heroin inspired occultism, which was
mixed with science, you know, in his particular inimitable way,
and you know, perhaps junk sides of the Oregon box.
But again whatever works right right, it inspired us as well.

(42:32):
And if you think about it, we're all sort of
in William Burrow's absurd world now. I mean Trump is
a Burrows type character, oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Ooh ooh.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Can we talk about the Lavender Scare, like way back
in the day when when the you know, the executive
branch decided, oh, we have to be afraid, just like
with the quote red scare, we have to be afraid
of anyone who is quote you're talking about now I'm
talking about now. It feels like it feels like we're

(43:05):
time traveling a bit or just re experiencing something.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
History is always closer than it looks in the rear
view mirror.

Speaker 5 (43:13):
Oh yes, And as we know back then, gay people
and now translated more to trans people are the lizard
people among us for the maga type rights. You know
that everyone needs a scapegoat, and they're very convenient because
in their view they are trans people are alien and

(43:34):
unnatural and subverting, you know, God's will or whatever God
they feel they I don't know what kind.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Of God that is, but the convenient God for the.

Speaker 7 (43:44):
Day exactly which we all do.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
As the subject of my new play, Claude Cahun said
she was an anti Nazi artist.

Speaker 7 (43:54):
We get the God we deserve.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Well, with that in mind, do you mind if we
backtrack a little bit you brought up and I'm sorry
I had to step away for just a second, so
I hopefully I didn't miss this, But you were talking
about the Gnostic Gospels and these kind of parts of
the Bible that are inconvenient perhaps that were not included
for folks that maybe have weaponized that religion, that particular religion,
and many others, of course, but inconvenient for them. There's

(44:22):
another aspect of that in the book of Enoch, and
that is also a great kind of analog I suppose
for this idea of lizard people and potentially even where
they came from the idea. And I know, Ben, this
is a big wheelhouse for you, the nephelum and the
idea that these angels bred with humans and created you know,

(44:42):
these this other race of you know, human angel hybrids
that can be seen as a stand in for this
idea of lizard people. But there's also some very interesting
kind of queer culture wrapped up in that the idea
that Sodom and Gomorrah was actually home to some of
these you know, angel human hybrids, and that a lot

(45:05):
of that is maybe potentially where some of the anti
queer rhetoric comes from. Because the Bible doesn't actually refer to,
you know, specifically by name the act of being engaged.
I think it's the idea of seeking something about unusual
flesh or there's a term that I'm maybe misconstruing, but
there's this sense that or there's this theory that perhaps

(45:27):
that is referencing these nephelem but it's not actually contained
within the Bible because that book was cut out, so
I don't know, maybe a bit broad and I'm bringing
up maybe multiple points, but maybe something we could touch
on real quick. Well.

Speaker 5 (45:39):
One of the things about the Gnostics that I mean,
having grown up extremely Catholic beyond and you know, as
a kid taught by Benedictine monks in Scotland and at
that time a little queer boy, I actually considering, you know,
monk hood. My mom later was like, you're gay.

Speaker 7 (45:57):
That's the that's the place for you.

Speaker 5 (46:02):
And I'm like, oh god, Mom, there's problems with that.

Speaker 7 (46:04):
She's like, that's just.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
Anti Catholic propaganda. There was no abuse. I'm like, okay,
I've dodged it by the skin of my teeth and
the schools. But what was what I did love about
it is of course the Catholic the queerness of it,
you know, not not the gayness, but the weird iconography,

(46:26):
the cosmology, you know, the Lord of the ringsness of
it that, you know, the Jesus on the Cross, which
is so gay. And then Mary, who's you know, almost
as important as Jesus in many cultures the only way
into Christianity for women for centuries.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
The religious syncretism.

Speaker 5 (46:46):
Of taking gods and making them into saints and making
them into Mary. It's a very smart thing to do
when you're trying to missionize.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Don't forget the costumes for sure. But also this back
back to the nephil and thing. Ben, maybe you can
speak on this the giants aspect of it, or I
believe their offspring were giants, and this was this notion
the giants were kind of gods among men, gods on earth.
And that's also inconvenient for the Bible property.

Speaker 5 (47:16):
That's right, like how do you fit that? As well
as slavery if forget that one. But you know, what
the Gnostics talked about was the creator God as the villain,
you know.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah, the imperfect god of the lesser universe.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
Yes, that's right. And the mother of that god was
named Sophia, was in effect a non binary entity, you know,
like in the film like the Angels, right, there's really
gender there. It was sort of all genders in a way.
And Sophia, which means wisdom, came from the Pleroma, which

(47:56):
was the higher heavens to give birth in our world,
our universe, so to speak, almost illicitly, because you were
supposed to give birth with a partner in a way.
And she was like, I'm going to do it myself,
parthenogenetic reproduction in effect, and in their some Gnostic stories,

(48:19):
she was so horrified at what she produced that she
wrapped God's face in a cloud and tiptoed away, leaving
him to think he was the only thing in existence.
So I talk about this in my show The Origin
of Love, which talks about how Hedvig came about. And

(48:43):
I say, well, kids, to the Gnostics, God was a
dumpster baby and his flawedness and it was a male
identified thing begat our flawedness. And Adam and Eve, let's say,
Adam at first was lifeless, and it took the spark

(49:03):
of Sophia, you know, the divine spark coming to give
it life. And Eve was a manifestation of Sophia. So
in Headgig, Tommy compares Headwig to Eve, the woman who
wanted to know shit, the first saint, and even Jesus
was a kind of manifestation of Eve to the Gnostics

(49:25):
as someone who brought up love, which was not a
word used in terms of divinity in the Old Testament.
And so this was fascinating to me because even as
a kid, I'm like, what is the problem with eating
the apple? From the tree of knowledge. She just is
a scientist. She wants to know things. The guy was
incurious in his man cave watching football while he was

(49:50):
trying to make things happen, And I'm like, what is
wrong with that? Even as a child, I'm like, this
story is being interpreted incorrectly. So when I read the
gnost six, I'm like, bingo, this is another way to
look at Christianity. Same stories of Christianity. And it talked
about the inner spark within all of us, Sophia within

(50:14):
all of us, which is where you get that idea
of we have our own divinity, which was very threatening
to an authoritarian church.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Oh oh, no, kidding, Yeah, and hold the phone, folks,
friends and neighbors. We're going deep in this conversation, so
much so that we're going to make this interview segment
a two parter. Now we're not sure where we're ending
it just yet. Full disclosure, So we don't know what

(50:43):
we've Singer. We left you right right, but we don't
want to leave you again without a dope spell to
spit too, So spit too, Spit two. So please joined
us in a few days where we'll follow up with
part two of our conversation with John Cameron Mitchell and
Cancelation Island. In the meantime, you can find us online.

(51:05):
You can call us on a telephone. You can always
reach us at our good old fashioned email address.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
Online. We existed the handle Conspiracy Stuff on all the
social media platforms of note, including YouTube or video conhugalor
exists for your perusing enjoyment Facebook, where you can join
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy at x FKA, Twitter,
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Don't let the concept of pronoid escape any of us.
I think that is one of the coolest ideas that
I've heard in a while. It's not something I was
aware of. You can call us right now and tell
us what you think about that, or for anything else
we've been talking about so far. Our number is one
eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, give

(51:48):
yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
can use your name and message on the air. If
you don't like using your voice to communicate, why not
send us an email. We are the entities that.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Read each piece of correspondence we receive. Now, of course,
you don't have to just choose one thing you can email,
even if you do like being on the phone. We
accept all covers here, joined us out here in the dark.
Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the void writes back,
how do you know for sure? It's one way to
find out conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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