October 23, 2024 • 40 mins
Luis Camacho Xtravaganza was one of the ballroom dancers who choreographed Madonna's music video for "Vogue." It took voguing from the underground to the mainstream. He relives this complicated time — the rush of stardom and the consequences that came with it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think the most difficult moment for me during that
time was living in an apartment with a closet full
of designer clothes, no furniture, and then going out and
trying to try to cop, trying to cop, and so
(00:29):
I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford hope.
And there in lives that sad part right making these
choices of do I buy furniture for my apartment or
do I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately one.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
For a long time, as a gay kid, growing up
religious and in the South, I thought being gay was
the worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist,
I'm trying to unlearn that by seeking out our history,
and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
(01:12):
and love. In this episode, we'll meet Louise Camacho Extravaganza,
one of the choreographers of Madonna's music video Vogue. We'll
learn how his choreography for her would go on to
influence generations of queer life and pop culture, and how
the fame he was quickly thrust into came with a
Dark Side from My Heart podcast. I'm Jordan and Solve
(01:37):
and this is what we loved. I have this theory
(02:06):
that every time a gay man hears the nineteen ninety
song Vogue by Madonna is when he has his gay awakening.
I think I was in the eighth grade when I
had mine, and I first heard it. The music just
spoke to my soul. Ooh when that bass hits, do
doo doo, doo doo doo, It's so good. And when
(02:30):
I saw the video, my mouth was on the ground.
The way these men were moving their bodies in all
the ways I would have been mercilessly bullied for here
they were confidently striking a pose. I was too young
to have the language to describe how I felt, but
(02:52):
now I know it was queer self expression, unabashed and unashamed.
My next guest, Luise Camacho Extravaganza, was one of the
choreographers of that music video that, by many accounts, brought
voguing from the underground ballroom scene into the mainstream. His
(03:12):
work with Madonna would change the world, but much before then,
from the time he was a little boy, he knew
that he was destined to be a star. Louise, you
are a globally known dancer now and very famous for
(03:34):
popularizing this incredible art form, voguing. But I wonder was
that always your dream and aspiration as a child. Did
you always want to be a dancer.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I don't know if I always wanted to be a dancer.
When I was in front of the mirror, you know,
with my hairbrush for a microphone and a towel wrapped
around my head, I thought I was going to be like,
I don't know, boy George or Michael Jackson or something
like that, something that was of show right, of show business.
(04:11):
And I didn't know if it was going to be
dance or not. But I had a lot of energy
which my mom saw and to kind of like rein
it in, she put me in a boy's movement class,
which wasn't really a dance class per se. It was
(04:32):
more like, let's get the energy out of these voices
bodies and then that way the parents can take them
home and won't be bouncing off the walls. So it
was literally run across the room, roll, you know, roll around, jump,
you know, things like that. And so the teacher, his
name was Frank Ashley, and he had a little dance company,
(04:58):
a little junior dance company apparently saw a natural talent
in me and asked that I come back for another class.
Eventually it turned into me going to dance classes like
four times a week.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, what was the moment that you sort of knew
that you loved dancing and you loved expressing yourself through
moving your body.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I think it was probably the first time I ever
performed on stage with the little junior dance group and
the lights hit and they put a little outfit on me,
and I just loved that. I loved I love the
light that shines on me. I loved that the audience
(05:52):
was in the dark, and it was almost like I
was back in my room by myself. And at the end,
just the applause and looking side to side at the
other people performing with me, that we kind of did
something together and we projected this idea, this art form
(06:13):
that people really liked. Was I just think it was
a life changer for me.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well, fast forwarding a little bit, now, tell me about
when you first knew you were gay and how you
came out to your parents and your family.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I probably first knew I was gay when I went
into high school. I didn't really know what gay or
being gay was. And then I get to high school
and it was the high school performing arts. For me,
(06:51):
it was like oh, entering the big leagues. Like I
didn't know any of these people, and I was alone
and we were in the locker room about to like
go into our first dance classes and one of the
older a junior I think he was a junior at
the time, he came in and he looks us over
and he goes, okay, uh, you you and you you'll
(07:16):
be hanging out with us because you're gay. The rest
of around straight, so fuck y'all buy And we were like, okay.
I mean he was brash and bold, and he obviously.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Moved he read you.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I just like the fact that he wanted us to
kind of hang out with them or you know what's
like with his group.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Well, so you have become so famous for bringing voguing
to the world stage by all of the work that
you've done, especially with Madonna, But how did you first
get into voguing? Tell me that story.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It was that guy. He was He was the one
that you do used us to the houses and.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The balls, and the guy who had sort of.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He was. He was also a dancer and so you know,
he was sassy. And after school we played a game
called red Light green Light Vogue, which is like red
light green light one, two three, and instead of like
you know, freezing before you got to the person to
tag them out, you hit a pose. So the main
(08:29):
person would turn around, he would say red light green
Light Vogue and we would try to run towards him,
and then when he turned around, we would strike a pose.
And when we were trying to you know, establish or
kind of cultivate our little voguing style, we integrated our
technical dance moves into the voging style. So that's what
(08:53):
sort of set us apart from the guys that were
vote at the time because we injected our classical training
into vogue to make it our own. That was my
introduction to voguing. It was my introduction to the ballroom
(09:16):
house culture.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
What's the story of the first time that you went
to a ball?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So the first time I went to a ball was
a Paris's Burning ball.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yes, And it was in Harlem at the Elks Lodge
in Harlem. If you've ever seen pos and you look
at the inside of where they do the balls. It
was almost exact replica. Building was really really old and
it looked like a miniature version of what used to
(09:50):
be like an opera house, right, And so it was.
The first floor was just a wood floor with tables
and chairs on either side, with a dance floor if
you will, in the middle, and if you're looking towards
the back, there was a stage. And then if you
(10:10):
walk towards the stage and turn around, you'll see that
there was a second floor and it was a U
shaped balcony that went all the way around with tables
and chairs on top of that as well. You smell
the wood floor when you go in. It's smelled.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And what did the people look like when you got there?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Two people looked like beautiful exotic birds. To me, it
was this plethora of beautifully adorned beings, which really really
fascinated me because I know most of them didn't look
like that when they were in the daytime. Right. The
(10:53):
drag queens were in sequins and in feathers and you
know big you know hairdoes and hats and wow, it
was just like Carnival and it was just a parade
of really beautifully dressed people because they were trying to,
you know, outdo each other, trying to put their best
(11:16):
foot forward and trying to emulate a lifestyle that wasn't
our own in the daytime. A lot of them were
also sex workers, and so there was a cross section
of a lot of people who could project this other
(11:39):
level of being at night and in the ballroom and
not get judged by it, and to live out that
other life in the ballroom and be regalled for it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I Love the Ballroom was founded in the late nineteen
sixties as a response to white drag ball being rigged
against black and brown queens. Ballroom was their opportunity to
create their own world where they were the stars. Because
of stigma, conventional job opportunities weren't often available to these queens,
(12:14):
so many were low income or pushed into sex work
for survival. Voguing was about aspiration. Ballroom dancers wanted to
emulate the persona, the confidence, and the fame of the
models on the covers of Vogue magazine. They dreamed of
seeing themselves on the cover, wearing expensive designer clothes and
(12:39):
striking a pose. The balls were also competitions chosen families
or houses would compete or walk in all kinds of
categories for prestige that would reward the best voger, the
best model, the best dressed, and so on. Louise competed
that first night he attended a ball, but it wasn't
(12:59):
for voguing. It was for drag. He had also just
officially become part of the House of Extravaganza and they
wanted him to win.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
My first category was not vogue. My first category was
witch cleanup and drag, which grew up and drag is,
I mean, to put it lightly, is just a regular
guy getting up in drag and trying to pass as
a girl. Because one day I went to school for
Halloween as one of the cheerleaders. It was just a floppy,
(13:32):
curly wig that I got from somewhere and the school uniform.
I don't even think I was tucked at the time,
and you know, I put eyeliner, Metscara and lipstick and
it was I was good to go. That was my
first category that I ever walked at a ball was
between and drag. It was like work, bitch, and all
(13:52):
this energy around and I was just looking around like, wow,
this is like perfect chaos. Because it was chaos. It
was like like I had always been there that first ball.
First of all, my sister came with me to the
ball because I needed to use her as an excuse
(14:14):
to get out of the house, even though she's younger
than me. But our father picked us up from the
ball and he came in, and thank goodness, I was
already done with my category and had changed back into
(14:35):
my boy clothes and stuff like that. I did not,
quote unquote like my dad growing up, because you know,
he would tell me boys don't bounce balls that way,
or a boy is don't hold their books that way,
or boys don't stand that way. You know. He was
just trying to toughen me up just a little bit.
(14:58):
And yeah, he picked us up and took us home,
and we were not in trouble. What's interesting is I
didn't know why he didn't, you know, bring down the
gauntlet on us, and I never understood. I think my
first time is my favorite memory. Every time I think
(15:20):
of the ballrooms, I think of the first time that
I was at that Paris ball, I really do, because
it was like chaotic, It was, you know, the stars
a lot like I don't know. It was this moment
that when you draw the curtain and you walk through
and you know this other world and is before you,
(15:43):
and you feel comfortable in that world. I didn't even
feel scared.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Louise had just competed in his first ball and he
had even won a category. More importantly, he was now
officially a member of the House of Extravaganza. He and
his friend Jose Extravaganza, who he went to high school
with and who he competed in balls with, honed their
voguing technique and they practiced at the balls. They began
(16:19):
performing all over New York and around the world. Although
voguing was gaining popularity within the gay community, it was
still relatively unknown to the mainstream. But Madonna heard about
the dance and she wrote a song about it in
nineteen ninety. She began thinking about the music video and
(16:39):
she wanted real voguers from the ballroom scene in it.
The video would change Louise's life and the world. So
it's the late eighties and voguing is still relatively underground,
and at the same time, Madonna has pretty much become
the biggest pop star on the planet. What is the
(17:02):
story of how you met her and how you became
her dancer.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Madonna also was a club kid. I'll start there, because
she just wasn't a person who kind of walked in
from nowhere and said I want to record a song
about voguing. Now. She frequented the clubs, and so when
she recorded Vogue, it was a natural progression for her
(17:30):
and she wanted voguers. And her friend, Debbie Mazar, who
the actress today, was her makeup artist at the time.
And Debbie goes, let me introduce you to the House
of Extravaganza. It was like six degrees of separation. Debbie's
friend who was friends with my friend's boyfriend, and they
(17:55):
were all hairdressers, and so she wanted she wanted to
meet us, and we went to Tracks, which is the
club that David the Pinos spun at in the middle
of the day and he started playing music. They opened
up the doors, and you know, we were kind of
just voguing, and then a limousine pulls up and out
(18:15):
pops Madonna. And the first thing I said to myself,
I was like, oh my god, she is tiny, little,
tiny girl. And so she came into the club and
she sat down and she was like what you got,
and we were like all right, and we just started
freaking going off and voguing, and she was like, this
(18:36):
is awesome. And before she left, she was like, hey,
you guys want to hang out tonight. I was like, yeah,
you want to hang out with us tonight? I know
when you're hanging out Madonna, but we're hanging out here.
She's like, okay, I'll go with y'all. Everybody started just
performing for her, and she sat on the speaker and
(18:56):
I stood in between her legs, and you know, we
would just vibing that way, and I don't know, we
just grew close. And that's how that's how our love
of you know, our love of Madonna and started. Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Well, you and Jose Extravaganza choreographed Madonna's video for Vogue.
It is something people often say is one of the
greatest music videos of all time. What was your favorite
memory of that whole music video experience.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It was the wardrobe. What was exciting was getting to
the soundstage and getting into hair and makeup, trying on
these beautiful clothes, and all the clothes were go ta
and and so even though we and Jose were trying
to keep our cool about the whole thing, like it
(19:55):
was exciting for us because we knew that this was
a turning point. I mean it was a real life
video shoot with production, and I mean it was like, okay,
so we are now playing with the big dogs. And
(20:15):
that whole process of watching all of these departments come
together to produce this imagery and this video was really
the high point of that whole video experience for us.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
How did you feel that day when you walked on
set and there was just all of this incredible production
and resource and money put behind something that you were
leading God, you know I felt, I.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Mean, the little boy Lewis inside was like, yes, this
is it. I'm never going back ever again, you know.
And but of course I had to like tell myself,
rain that shit in, bitch, because you have a job
to do and if you want to keep doing what
you're doing for a long time, then you can't. You know,
(21:08):
you got to be professional. I had to rise to
this occasion, even though I was giddy inside and I
felt like, this is it. This is what I this
is what all the years in front of the mirror
fantasy about and being a person that wanted to entertain others.
This is it. It has all culmulated you know has
(21:31):
been brought to this point.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Shortly after the video came out, Vogue became the number
one song all around the world. Madonna was about to
embark on one of the biggest moments of her career,
a world tour to support the song and the album
it was on. The show would be called the Blonde
Ambition Tour. It would become wildly successful and make Madonna
(21:55):
the second biggest touring act in history behind Michael Jackson.
Louise was asked to join as a dancer. Madonna documented
the tour in a groundbreaking film called Truth or Dare,
which Louise was prominently featured in. The show and the
documentary are widely credited for introducing queer life to the
(22:15):
mainstream openly and unapologetically. At the time it became the
highest grossing documentary ever made, Louise had just turned twenty
years old. The fame he was emulating in his voguing
on the ballroom stage was now a reality on the
world stage. Well. In nineteen ninety, Vogue becomes the number
(22:40):
one song in America and really around the world. You
end up going on this wildly successful world tour with
Madonna starring in her groundbreaking documentary Truth or Dare. Everyone
around the world is voguing in nineteen ninety, But what
was the moment that you realized voguing had become so
(23:02):
much bigger than what you were doing during Red Light
Green Light Vogue.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I never really got the graphatas of what we were
doing and being our true authentic self until one day
a mom came up to me. A mom came up
to me after the show, and she said to me
(23:30):
that she had a son, and she brought her son
to the Blande Division tour. There were many years before
that moment her son suffered, and she was just thanking
us that we were just being ourselves and that her
(23:53):
son could see himself in us and thus be himself
and be free of whatever constraints he had within himself
that he was locking away. And at that moment, you know,
I knew that this was something that was way beyond
(24:14):
not only myself, but it went beyond voting right, It
went beyond you know, hitting some fabulous pose. It really
vibrated out to a lot of guys and girls who
were unable to really express themselves because they didn't really
have an outlet to do.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So, wow, what was your favorite memory on that life
changing tour?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
We were in Chicago because my father is from Chicago.
So I flew my father and my sister to Chicago,
and you know, I got them a hotel room and
I rented him a limo so that way he can
see his family, So that way he can have this
little moment of you know, my son is fear said,
you know this is and I'm pulling up on you.
(25:03):
It'll it's very cute. But he took us to meet
my uncle, Raffie. And when my uncle answered the door,
I immediately knew why. I immediately knew why my father
was unfazed because my uncle answered the door had longer hair,
(25:25):
he had long fingernails, and so his brother was a
drag queen and performed in clubs. And when he looked
at me, it was there was that look like, oh,
I get it, I get it. I looked at my
dad in different light From then on, it was and
we grew so close after that, and it was all
(25:47):
unspoken too. It was all unspoken, and that night I
just cried. I cried because I got it. He just
probably didn't want me to go through what his brother
went through, or he wanted to toughen me up so
that way I can survive like his brother survived.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I wonder what it was like for you to go
from dancing in school and dancing in the Balls underground
in New York to then being thrust onto the global
stage so quickly. You were about twenty years old at
(26:28):
the time. What was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I mean, without sounding too kind of like egotistical or facetious,
it felt natural, Jordan, It really did. It felt like, oh, yeah,
I'm supposed to be here, and I always go back
to that image of myself in front of the mirror
(26:54):
in my bedroom, you know, with a hair brush in
my hand and a towel for wig, and like that
little boy made it all the way here.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
After the tour ended, life wasn't so easy for Louise
and the other dancers. The backdrop of this time period
was the AIDS crisis. By nineteen ninety one, hundred thousand
Americans had already died. Shortly after the tour, one of
the dancers died from AIDS related complications, two others were
(27:28):
diagnosed with HIV. Being so young, Louise was dealing with
a lot his community, the ballroom scene, and the dance
family he made on the tour was dying. In addition,
he didn't know how to process the end of the tour,
the intense high and the adrenaline that would come from
(27:50):
night after night of screaming fans. When it ended, all
of the hype was over and he was thrust back
into the reality of his life. He turned to drugs
to cope. We've talked about a lot of the positives
around how you had come to this moment, this amazing moment,
(28:15):
But what were some of the negative consequences of achieving
this fame so quickly.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
A lot of people saying that Madonna had used us
for our talent, and then personally, you know, it was
a wild ride and and so that included drinking and
(28:45):
for me, and I'm only speaking for myself, you know,
I lived the rock and roll I lived the rock
and roll lifestyle, so you know, it was boos and
boys and drugs, and so I lost my way there
for minute, I really did. I lost I'm not gonna lie.
I lost my way. And after a while I had
(29:06):
to kind of get a handle on that part of
my journey, which was leading me down a road that
I didn't want to kind of go down.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, you've been pretty open about your struggles with addiction
and heroin addiction. How did you discover that?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It definitely happened after, you know, after the tour. The beginning,
it was just like drinking and smoking pod and stuff
like that. Then I got to heroin. It really was
me just trying to hold you know, hold on to
the last vestiges of what the Blante ambition had given
(29:48):
me that at natural high. It's like it was it
was the after party that I never wanted to leave,
right And it really was like this calm down of
being on such a natural high for so long that
(30:08):
you know, trying to trying to get off, trying to
get off the drugs was hard, really hard.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I wonder if you would tell us what was the
most difficult moment during that struggle for you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I think the most difficult moment for me during that
time was living in an apartment with a closet full
of designer clothes, no furniture, a TV on top of
a crate, and that's it. And then going out and
(30:50):
trying to trying to cop, trying to cop and so
I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford Nope.
And therein lies that sad part, right, making these choices
of do I buy furniture for my apartment or do
I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately won for a
(31:15):
long time. And you know, it's not enough. It's not
enough to have a closet full of pretty designer clothes
if the rest of the room doesn't feel as abundant
or at least just lived in. And I don't know,
(31:36):
it was. It was not good. It was not good.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It sort of sounds as though you had kind of
gifted the world this art form voguing, and it exploded.
And it sounds like the train that it was on
was going so fast that it kind of left you
behind in a way. It was a train that you
were initially.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's literally the train that you know, for some reason,
I lost my footing and fell off of so you're
trying to chase the train and it's just literally going
faster than you can run. Thus it left me, you know,
it left me behind, you know. And yeah, we were
riding that train and it was going faster and faster
(32:24):
and faster, but one false move and I fell off
the train and literally was trying to gather myself together
to get back on the train and could not could
not catch it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Louise was knee deep inside of a heroin addiction and
it was taking over his life. It was the dark
reality of show business and a twenty year old watching
his entire community suffer and die while being thrown onto
the world stage. How did you end up overcoming your
(33:11):
addiction after the tour?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
My mom again being the supportive person that she is
and my parents. One Christmas before Christmas, she came to
me and she said, I got you a Christmas present
and it was a plane ticket to Los Angeles. She said, baby,
you need to rest because I was burning the candle
(33:35):
at all ends. And I said, oh fabulous, Okay, great,
let's go to Los Angeles. And I stayed with Nicki Harris,
who was Madonna's backup singer, and it was the holidays,
so you know, we cooked, we you know, hung out
by her pool. She had a pool at her house,
(33:57):
and so we did that and it was Met and
me trying to figure out what I'm going to do
with the rest of my life. And it was January seventeenth,
that was the day I was I was supposed to
come back home. I'm packing my bag and literally, Nikki
(34:18):
walks by the room and she says, you don't have
to go if you don't want to, that's all she said.
And literally I lost it because I knew if I
went back, I would be right back where I was.
(34:39):
And I cried. I cried, and I knew it. I
knew it. I knew it. I couldn't go back. I
called my mom and I said, so I won't be
coming back for a while, and she said, I understand again.
And I stayed and I tried to to, you know, rebuild,
(35:03):
rebuild my life. And so there came another turning point
in my life where a friend of mine came up
to me and he was like, listen, I haven't seen
you in a long time, and I want to tell
you why. And it's because I've been in recovery. He
told me his story, and at the end of that conversation,
(35:26):
I said, I need I need help. I need whatever
you did, I need that too. Because I realized that
my addiction would never kill me. It would just drag
me along like a can in the back of a
Neluetz car, and I would just be dragged along for
(35:47):
the rest of my life, and I knew I knew it,
and I was tired, Jordan Man, I was effing tired
of trying to chase some thing that was no longer
available to me because I was not working at it anymore. So, Yeah,
(36:08):
I went to a recovery house and I spent fourteen
months in a recovery house and I just turned I
just completed twenty years and twenty years sober now.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So wow, congratulations, that's an amazing milestone. You've inspired at
this point, multiple generations of people, bringing this art form
into the consciousness of so many people. How do you
remember this very complex time in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I think it's the best time in my life because
it taught me not only to reach for the stars
and I'll get it if you work hard I did
at that time. It also taught me that if I
(37:05):
am not vigilant within my own being in consciousness, that
I can slip and fall. That being said, if I
am vigilant and conscious within myself and love myself, that
I know that I can rebuild and get back to
(37:26):
Lewis so that time, the good and the bad are
cherished for me because it lets me have the life
that I have today, and I'm really, really, really grateful,
and I wouldn't change not one thing.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I love that Now. Voguing is now having a renaissance again,
and it's lasted multiple generations. At this point, I don't
know what it is about it. Every gay person I
know is obsessed. What do you think about it transcends time.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It's the ability to express yourself and not be made
to feel shame over it, right, whether it's coming from
within you or shame from somebody else, right, bitch on fears,
this is me. Boom boom boom. I just got my
nails down, you know, like, this is me where I
(38:31):
am right now, and I love that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Well, you are one of the pioneers and so deeply
responsible for the explosion of this. As new queer generations
discover voguing and inherit voguing, what do you want to
pass down to them?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I want to pass down that One. They really should
get into the history of vogue and where it came from.
It's just not throwing our hands in the air right
and feeling fierce. It really comes from a place that
(39:16):
holds more gravitas than that. And two, getting out there
and expressing yourself is really important. And three support having
that support system around you of people saying, yes, this
is fantastic, you are fantastic. You go boy or you
(39:39):
go girl or whatever, and you know which makes people
feel loved and seen and appreciated.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan GONSLVS. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write it
to tell your story, email us at Butweloved at gmail
dot com or send us a message on Instagram or
TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production of
The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved
(40:15):
was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey pat Our. Executive producers
are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Rokel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(40:37):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I think the most difficult moment for me during that
time was living in an apartment with a closet full
of designer clothes, no furniture, and then going out and
trying to try to cop, trying to cop, and so
(00:29):
I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford hope.
And there in lives that sad part right making these
choices of do I buy furniture for my apartment or
do I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately one.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
For a long time, as a gay kid, growing up
religious and in the South, I thought being gay was
the worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist,
I'm trying to unlearn that by seeking out our history,
and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
(01:12):
and love. In this episode, we'll meet Louise Camacho Extravaganza,
one of the choreographers of Madonna's music video Vogue. We'll
learn how his choreography for her would go on to
influence generations of queer life and pop culture, and how
the fame he was quickly thrust into came with a
Dark Side from My Heart podcast. I'm Jordan and Solve
(01:37):
and this is what we loved. I have this theory
(02:06):
that every time a gay man hears the nineteen ninety
song Vogue by Madonna is when he has his gay awakening.
I think I was in the eighth grade when I
had mine, and I first heard it. The music just
spoke to my soul. Ooh when that bass hits, do
doo doo, doo doo doo, It's so good. And when
(02:30):
I saw the video, my mouth was on the ground.
The way these men were moving their bodies in all
the ways I would have been mercilessly bullied for here
they were confidently striking a pose. I was too young
to have the language to describe how I felt, but
(02:52):
now I know it was queer self expression, unabashed and unashamed.
My next guest, Luise Camacho Extravaganza, was one of the
choreographers of that music video that, by many accounts, brought
voguing from the underground ballroom scene into the mainstream. His
(03:12):
work with Madonna would change the world, but much before then,
from the time he was a little boy, he knew
that he was destined to be a star. Louise, you
are a globally known dancer now and very famous for
(03:34):
popularizing this incredible art form, voguing. But I wonder was
that always your dream and aspiration as a child. Did
you always want to be a dancer.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I don't know if I always wanted to be a dancer.
When I was in front of the mirror, you know,
with my hairbrush for a microphone and a towel wrapped
around my head, I thought I was going to be like,
I don't know, boy George or Michael Jackson or something
like that, something that was of show right, of show business.
(04:11):
And I didn't know if it was going to be
dance or not. But I had a lot of energy
which my mom saw and to kind of like rein
it in, she put me in a boy's movement class,
which wasn't really a dance class per se. It was
(04:32):
more like, let's get the energy out of these voices
bodies and then that way the parents can take them
home and won't be bouncing off the walls. So it
was literally run across the room, roll, you know, roll around, jump,
you know, things like that. And so the teacher, his
name was Frank Ashley, and he had a little dance company,
(04:58):
a little junior dance company apparently saw a natural talent
in me and asked that I come back for another class.
Eventually it turned into me going to dance classes like
four times a week.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, what was the moment that you sort of knew
that you loved dancing and you loved expressing yourself through
moving your body.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I think it was probably the first time I ever
performed on stage with the little junior dance group and
the lights hit and they put a little outfit on me,
and I just loved that. I loved I love the
light that shines on me. I loved that the audience
(05:52):
was in the dark, and it was almost like I
was back in my room by myself. And at the end,
just the applause and looking side to side at the
other people performing with me, that we kind of did
something together and we projected this idea, this art form
(06:13):
that people really liked. Was I just think it was
a life changer for me.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well, fast forwarding a little bit, now, tell me about
when you first knew you were gay and how you
came out to your parents and your family.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I probably first knew I was gay when I went
into high school. I didn't really know what gay or
being gay was. And then I get to high school
and it was the high school performing arts. For me,
(06:51):
it was like oh, entering the big leagues. Like I
didn't know any of these people, and I was alone
and we were in the locker room about to like
go into our first dance classes and one of the
older a junior I think he was a junior at
the time, he came in and he looks us over
and he goes, okay, uh, you you and you you'll
(07:16):
be hanging out with us because you're gay. The rest
of around straight, so fuck y'all buy And we were like, okay.
I mean he was brash and bold, and he obviously.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Moved he read you.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I just like the fact that he wanted us to
kind of hang out with them or you know what's
like with his group.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Well, so you have become so famous for bringing voguing
to the world stage by all of the work that
you've done, especially with Madonna, But how did you first
get into voguing? Tell me that story.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It was that guy. He was He was the one
that you do used us to the houses and.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The balls, and the guy who had sort of.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He was. He was also a dancer and so you know,
he was sassy. And after school we played a game
called red Light green Light Vogue, which is like red
light green light one, two three, and instead of like
you know, freezing before you got to the person to
tag them out, you hit a pose. So the main
(08:29):
person would turn around, he would say red light green
Light Vogue and we would try to run towards him,
and then when he turned around, we would strike a pose.
And when we were trying to you know, establish or
kind of cultivate our little voguing style, we integrated our
technical dance moves into the voging style. So that's what
(08:53):
sort of set us apart from the guys that were
vote at the time because we injected our classical training
into vogue to make it our own. That was my
introduction to voguing. It was my introduction to the ballroom
(09:16):
house culture.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
What's the story of the first time that you went
to a ball?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So the first time I went to a ball was
a Paris's Burning ball.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yes, And it was in Harlem at the Elks Lodge
in Harlem. If you've ever seen pos and you look
at the inside of where they do the balls. It
was almost exact replica. Building was really really old and
it looked like a miniature version of what used to
(09:50):
be like an opera house, right, And so it was.
The first floor was just a wood floor with tables
and chairs on either side, with a dance floor if
you will, in the middle, and if you're looking towards
the back, there was a stage. And then if you
(10:10):
walk towards the stage and turn around, you'll see that
there was a second floor and it was a U
shaped balcony that went all the way around with tables
and chairs on top of that as well. You smell
the wood floor when you go in. It's smelled.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And what did the people look like when you got there?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Two people looked like beautiful exotic birds. To me, it
was this plethora of beautifully adorned beings, which really really
fascinated me because I know most of them didn't look
like that when they were in the daytime. Right. The
(10:53):
drag queens were in sequins and in feathers and you
know big you know hairdoes and hats and wow, it
was just like Carnival and it was just a parade
of really beautifully dressed people because they were trying to,
you know, outdo each other, trying to put their best
(11:16):
foot forward and trying to emulate a lifestyle that wasn't
our own in the daytime. A lot of them were
also sex workers, and so there was a cross section
of a lot of people who could project this other
(11:39):
level of being at night and in the ballroom and
not get judged by it, and to live out that
other life in the ballroom and be regalled for it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I Love the Ballroom was founded in the late nineteen
sixties as a response to white drag ball being rigged
against black and brown queens. Ballroom was their opportunity to
create their own world where they were the stars. Because
of stigma, conventional job opportunities weren't often available to these queens,
(12:14):
so many were low income or pushed into sex work
for survival. Voguing was about aspiration. Ballroom dancers wanted to
emulate the persona, the confidence, and the fame of the
models on the covers of Vogue magazine. They dreamed of
seeing themselves on the cover, wearing expensive designer clothes and
(12:39):
striking a pose. The balls were also competitions chosen families
or houses would compete or walk in all kinds of
categories for prestige that would reward the best voger, the
best model, the best dressed, and so on. Louise competed
that first night he attended a ball, but it wasn't
(12:59):
for voguing. It was for drag. He had also just
officially become part of the House of Extravaganza and they
wanted him to win.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
My first category was not vogue. My first category was
witch cleanup and drag, which grew up and drag is,
I mean, to put it lightly, is just a regular
guy getting up in drag and trying to pass as
a girl. Because one day I went to school for
Halloween as one of the cheerleaders. It was just a floppy,
(13:32):
curly wig that I got from somewhere and the school uniform.
I don't even think I was tucked at the time,
and you know, I put eyeliner, Metscara and lipstick and
it was I was good to go. That was my
first category that I ever walked at a ball was
between and drag. It was like work, bitch, and all
(13:52):
this energy around and I was just looking around like, wow,
this is like perfect chaos. Because it was chaos. It
was like like I had always been there that first ball.
First of all, my sister came with me to the
ball because I needed to use her as an excuse
(14:14):
to get out of the house, even though she's younger
than me. But our father picked us up from the
ball and he came in, and thank goodness, I was
already done with my category and had changed back into
(14:35):
my boy clothes and stuff like that. I did not,
quote unquote like my dad growing up, because you know,
he would tell me boys don't bounce balls that way,
or a boy is don't hold their books that way,
or boys don't stand that way. You know. He was
just trying to toughen me up just a little bit.
(14:58):
And yeah, he picked us up and took us home,
and we were not in trouble. What's interesting is I
didn't know why he didn't, you know, bring down the
gauntlet on us, and I never understood. I think my
first time is my favorite memory. Every time I think
(15:20):
of the ballrooms, I think of the first time that
I was at that Paris ball, I really do, because
it was like chaotic, It was, you know, the stars
a lot like I don't know. It was this moment
that when you draw the curtain and you walk through
and you know this other world and is before you,
(15:43):
and you feel comfortable in that world. I didn't even
feel scared.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Louise had just competed in his first ball and he
had even won a category. More importantly, he was now
officially a member of the House of Extravaganza. He and
his friend Jose Extravaganza, who he went to high school
with and who he competed in balls with, honed their
voguing technique and they practiced at the balls. They began
(16:19):
performing all over New York and around the world. Although
voguing was gaining popularity within the gay community, it was
still relatively unknown to the mainstream. But Madonna heard about
the dance and she wrote a song about it in
nineteen ninety. She began thinking about the music video and
(16:39):
she wanted real voguers from the ballroom scene in it.
The video would change Louise's life and the world. So
it's the late eighties and voguing is still relatively underground,
and at the same time, Madonna has pretty much become
the biggest pop star on the planet. What is the
(17:02):
story of how you met her and how you became
her dancer.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Madonna also was a club kid. I'll start there, because
she just wasn't a person who kind of walked in
from nowhere and said I want to record a song
about voguing. Now. She frequented the clubs, and so when
she recorded Vogue, it was a natural progression for her
(17:30):
and she wanted voguers. And her friend, Debbie Mazar, who
the actress today, was her makeup artist at the time.
And Debbie goes, let me introduce you to the House
of Extravaganza. It was like six degrees of separation. Debbie's
friend who was friends with my friend's boyfriend, and they
(17:55):
were all hairdressers, and so she wanted she wanted to
meet us, and we went to Tracks, which is the
club that David the Pinos spun at in the middle
of the day and he started playing music. They opened
up the doors, and you know, we were kind of
just voguing, and then a limousine pulls up and out
(18:15):
pops Madonna. And the first thing I said to myself,
I was like, oh my god, she is tiny, little,
tiny girl. And so she came into the club and
she sat down and she was like what you got,
and we were like all right, and we just started
freaking going off and voguing, and she was like, this
(18:36):
is awesome. And before she left, she was like, hey,
you guys want to hang out tonight. I was like, yeah,
you want to hang out with us tonight? I know
when you're hanging out Madonna, but we're hanging out here.
She's like, okay, I'll go with y'all. Everybody started just
performing for her, and she sat on the speaker and
(18:56):
I stood in between her legs, and you know, we
would just vibing that way, and I don't know, we
just grew close. And that's how that's how our love
of you know, our love of Madonna and started. Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Well, you and Jose Extravaganza choreographed Madonna's video for Vogue.
It is something people often say is one of the
greatest music videos of all time. What was your favorite
memory of that whole music video experience.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
It was the wardrobe. What was exciting was getting to
the soundstage and getting into hair and makeup, trying on
these beautiful clothes, and all the clothes were go ta
and and so even though we and Jose were trying
to keep our cool about the whole thing, like it
(19:55):
was exciting for us because we knew that this was
a turning point. I mean it was a real life
video shoot with production, and I mean it was like, okay,
so we are now playing with the big dogs. And
(20:15):
that whole process of watching all of these departments come
together to produce this imagery and this video was really
the high point of that whole video experience for us.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
How did you feel that day when you walked on
set and there was just all of this incredible production
and resource and money put behind something that you were
leading God, you know I felt, I.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Mean, the little boy Lewis inside was like, yes, this
is it. I'm never going back ever again, you know.
And but of course I had to like tell myself,
rain that shit in, bitch, because you have a job
to do and if you want to keep doing what
you're doing for a long time, then you can't. You know,
(21:08):
you got to be professional. I had to rise to
this occasion, even though I was giddy inside and I
felt like, this is it. This is what I this
is what all the years in front of the mirror
fantasy about and being a person that wanted to entertain others.
This is it. It has all culmulated you know has
(21:31):
been brought to this point.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Shortly after the video came out, Vogue became the number
one song all around the world. Madonna was about to
embark on one of the biggest moments of her career,
a world tour to support the song and the album
it was on. The show would be called the Blonde
Ambition Tour. It would become wildly successful and make Madonna
(21:55):
the second biggest touring act in history behind Michael Jackson.
Louise was asked to join as a dancer. Madonna documented
the tour in a groundbreaking film called Truth or Dare,
which Louise was prominently featured in. The show and the
documentary are widely credited for introducing queer life to the
(22:15):
mainstream openly and unapologetically. At the time it became the
highest grossing documentary ever made, Louise had just turned twenty
years old. The fame he was emulating in his voguing
on the ballroom stage was now a reality on the
world stage. Well. In nineteen ninety, Vogue becomes the number
(22:40):
one song in America and really around the world. You
end up going on this wildly successful world tour with
Madonna starring in her groundbreaking documentary Truth or Dare. Everyone
around the world is voguing in nineteen ninety, But what
was the moment that you realized voguing had become so
(23:02):
much bigger than what you were doing during Red Light
Green Light Vogue.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I never really got the graphatas of what we were
doing and being our true authentic self until one day
a mom came up to me. A mom came up
to me after the show, and she said to me
(23:30):
that she had a son, and she brought her son
to the Blande Division tour. There were many years before
that moment her son suffered, and she was just thanking
us that we were just being ourselves and that her
(23:53):
son could see himself in us and thus be himself
and be free of whatever constraints he had within himself
that he was locking away. And at that moment, you know,
I knew that this was something that was way beyond
(24:14):
not only myself, but it went beyond voting right, It
went beyond you know, hitting some fabulous pose. It really
vibrated out to a lot of guys and girls who
were unable to really express themselves because they didn't really
have an outlet to do.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So, wow, what was your favorite memory on that life
changing tour?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
We were in Chicago because my father is from Chicago.
So I flew my father and my sister to Chicago,
and you know, I got them a hotel room and
I rented him a limo so that way he can
see his family, So that way he can have this
little moment of you know, my son is fear said,
you know this is and I'm pulling up on you.
(25:03):
It'll it's very cute. But he took us to meet
my uncle, Raffie. And when my uncle answered the door,
I immediately knew why. I immediately knew why my father
was unfazed because my uncle answered the door had longer hair,
(25:25):
he had long fingernails, and so his brother was a
drag queen and performed in clubs. And when he looked
at me, it was there was that look like, oh,
I get it, I get it. I looked at my
dad in different light From then on, it was and
we grew so close after that, and it was all
(25:47):
unspoken too. It was all unspoken, and that night I
just cried. I cried because I got it. He just
probably didn't want me to go through what his brother
went through, or he wanted to toughen me up so
that way I can survive like his brother survived.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I wonder what it was like for you to go
from dancing in school and dancing in the Balls underground
in New York to then being thrust onto the global
stage so quickly. You were about twenty years old at
(26:28):
the time. What was that like for you?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I mean, without sounding too kind of like egotistical or facetious,
it felt natural, Jordan, It really did. It felt like, oh, yeah,
I'm supposed to be here, and I always go back
to that image of myself in front of the mirror
(26:54):
in my bedroom, you know, with a hair brush in
my hand and a towel for wig, and like that
little boy made it all the way here.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
After the tour ended, life wasn't so easy for Louise
and the other dancers. The backdrop of this time period
was the AIDS crisis. By nineteen ninety one, hundred thousand
Americans had already died. Shortly after the tour, one of
the dancers died from AIDS related complications, two others were
(27:28):
diagnosed with HIV. Being so young, Louise was dealing with
a lot his community, the ballroom scene, and the dance
family he made on the tour was dying. In addition,
he didn't know how to process the end of the tour,
the intense high and the adrenaline that would come from
(27:50):
night after night of screaming fans. When it ended, all
of the hype was over and he was thrust back
into the reality of his life. He turned to drugs
to cope. We've talked about a lot of the positives
around how you had come to this moment, this amazing moment,
(28:15):
But what were some of the negative consequences of achieving
this fame so quickly.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
A lot of people saying that Madonna had used us
for our talent, and then personally, you know, it was
a wild ride and and so that included drinking and
(28:45):
for me, and I'm only speaking for myself, you know,
I lived the rock and roll I lived the rock
and roll lifestyle, so you know, it was boos and
boys and drugs, and so I lost my way there
for minute, I really did. I lost I'm not gonna lie.
I lost my way. And after a while I had
(29:06):
to kind of get a handle on that part of
my journey, which was leading me down a road that
I didn't want to kind of go down.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, you've been pretty open about your struggles with addiction
and heroin addiction. How did you discover that?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
It definitely happened after, you know, after the tour. The beginning,
it was just like drinking and smoking pod and stuff
like that. Then I got to heroin. It really was
me just trying to hold you know, hold on to
the last vestiges of what the Blante ambition had given
(29:48):
me that at natural high. It's like it was it
was the after party that I never wanted to leave,
right And it really was like this calm down of
being on such a natural high for so long that
(30:08):
you know, trying to trying to get off, trying to
get off the drugs was hard, really hard.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I wonder if you would tell us what was the
most difficult moment during that struggle for you.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I think the most difficult moment for me during that
time was living in an apartment with a closet full
of designer clothes, no furniture, a TV on top of
a crate, and that's it. And then going out and
(30:50):
trying to trying to cop, trying to cop and so
I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford Nope.
And therein lies that sad part, right, making these choices
of do I buy furniture for my apartment or do
I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately won for a
(31:15):
long time. And you know, it's not enough. It's not
enough to have a closet full of pretty designer clothes
if the rest of the room doesn't feel as abundant
or at least just lived in. And I don't know,
(31:36):
it was. It was not good. It was not good.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It sort of sounds as though you had kind of
gifted the world this art form voguing, and it exploded.
And it sounds like the train that it was on
was going so fast that it kind of left you
behind in a way. It was a train that you
were initially.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's literally the train that you know, for some reason,
I lost my footing and fell off of so you're
trying to chase the train and it's just literally going
faster than you can run. Thus it left me, you know,
it left me behind, you know. And yeah, we were
riding that train and it was going faster and faster
(32:24):
and faster, but one false move and I fell off
the train and literally was trying to gather myself together
to get back on the train and could not could
not catch it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Louise was knee deep inside of a heroin addiction and
it was taking over his life. It was the dark
reality of show business and a twenty year old watching
his entire community suffer and die while being thrown onto
the world stage. How did you end up overcoming your
(33:11):
addiction after the tour?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
My mom again being the supportive person that she is
and my parents. One Christmas before Christmas, she came to
me and she said, I got you a Christmas present
and it was a plane ticket to Los Angeles. She said, baby,
you need to rest because I was burning the candle
(33:35):
at all ends. And I said, oh fabulous, Okay, great,
let's go to Los Angeles. And I stayed with Nicki Harris,
who was Madonna's backup singer, and it was the holidays,
so you know, we cooked, we you know, hung out
by her pool. She had a pool at her house,
(33:57):
and so we did that and it was Met and
me trying to figure out what I'm going to do
with the rest of my life. And it was January seventeenth,
that was the day I was I was supposed to
come back home. I'm packing my bag and literally, Nikki
(34:18):
walks by the room and she says, you don't have
to go if you don't want to, that's all she said.
And literally I lost it because I knew if I
went back, I would be right back where I was.
(34:39):
And I cried. I cried, and I knew it. I
knew it. I knew it. I couldn't go back. I
called my mom and I said, so I won't be
coming back for a while, and she said, I understand again.
And I stayed and I tried to to, you know, rebuild,
(35:03):
rebuild my life. And so there came another turning point
in my life where a friend of mine came up
to me and he was like, listen, I haven't seen
you in a long time, and I want to tell
you why. And it's because I've been in recovery. He
told me his story, and at the end of that conversation,
(35:26):
I said, I need I need help. I need whatever
you did, I need that too. Because I realized that
my addiction would never kill me. It would just drag
me along like a can in the back of a
Neluetz car, and I would just be dragged along for
(35:47):
the rest of my life, and I knew I knew it,
and I was tired, Jordan Man, I was effing tired
of trying to chase some thing that was no longer
available to me because I was not working at it anymore. So, Yeah,
(36:08):
I went to a recovery house and I spent fourteen
months in a recovery house and I just turned I
just completed twenty years and twenty years sober now.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So wow, congratulations, that's an amazing milestone. You've inspired at
this point, multiple generations of people, bringing this art form
into the consciousness of so many people. How do you
remember this very complex time in your life.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I think it's the best time in my life because
it taught me not only to reach for the stars
and I'll get it if you work hard I did
at that time. It also taught me that if I
(37:05):
am not vigilant within my own being in consciousness, that
I can slip and fall. That being said, if I
am vigilant and conscious within myself and love myself, that
I know that I can rebuild and get back to
(37:26):
Lewis so that time, the good and the bad are
cherished for me because it lets me have the life
that I have today, and I'm really, really, really grateful,
and I wouldn't change not one thing.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I love that Now. Voguing is now having a renaissance again,
and it's lasted multiple generations. At this point, I don't
know what it is about it. Every gay person I
know is obsessed. What do you think about it transcends time.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It's the ability to express yourself and not be made
to feel shame over it, right, whether it's coming from
within you or shame from somebody else, right, bitch on fears,
this is me. Boom boom boom. I just got my
nails down, you know, like, this is me where I
(38:31):
am right now, and I love that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Well, you are one of the pioneers and so deeply
responsible for the explosion of this. As new queer generations
discover voguing and inherit voguing, what do you want to
pass down to them?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
I want to pass down that One. They really should
get into the history of vogue and where it came from.
It's just not throwing our hands in the air right
and feeling fierce. It really comes from a place that
(39:16):
holds more gravitas than that. And two, getting out there
and expressing yourself is really important. And three support having
that support system around you of people saying, yes, this
is fantastic, you are fantastic. You go boy or you
(39:39):
go girl or whatever, and you know which makes people
feel loved and seen and appreciated.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan GONSLVS. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write it
to tell your story, email us at Butweloved at gmail
dot com or send us a message on Instagram or
TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production of
The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved
(40:15):
was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey pat Our. Executive producers
are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Rokel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(40:37):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
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