“Turn Up The Volume” (w/ Tourmaline)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Look, may oh, I see you my own look over
there is that culture. Yes, goodness, lost culture, dang dong
lost culture. Esta is calling. Now I have to really
check in with you because you are, as of two
days ago, officially a New York again. Yeah, it's now happened.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Happened, but I will say the thing about moving is
then you have to like do that process. And I
can't believe what I'm finding in my closet. Yeah, so
one of my best friends, Melissa, came over and we
went through all of my clothes and really really really said,
doesn't spark joy? I guess we did like a marine,

(00:41):
so much of my ship did not spark joy. It's okay,
And I'm like, all this stuff that I was around
didn't spark joy, and it literally was You'll find it
weighs you down, like have you done like a deep
like donation moment.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Like a quarterly purge, and it's krilled not enough. No,
it's still not enough, and it's I don't consider myself
someone who like shops egregiously. I guess like we've all
been made to be like I guess I need that
just because it's like you hit a call to action
and then you head ad to card and it's in.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's you know what it is for me, It's like
stuff you accumulate at things where they like give you
a shirt. It's like, oh no, I need that Yankees
Pride shirt. Oh no, I need that that shirt that says,
like that niche phrase that I'm into this week.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I found a shirt the other day that.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I got from It was from the game show writer's
room and it said you want to fuck me Barbara
Notes on a scandal, which literally there would have been
one time to wear it, and it's when we had
Kate Blanchett on this podcast and I do dare do it.
So I gotta say thank you to the writer's room
of a game show for that gift.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
But it's gone. It had to go in the Murray Condo. Move. Hey,
that's okay. Now, would you I'm gonna posit something, okay?
Would you be okay with me? Let's say, looking at
a shirt that says you're Lisa Barlow, I care a
lot for me too, shirt, not that I've done this?
Would you be okay with me disposing? I just got
rid of it, that's okay?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
And I thought to myself because when you're on like
the I remember watching I think probably was watching Salt
Lake City Housewives.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
She said, what was it?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
She said? She said, care about me too, No, I
feel for me. To feel for me, I feel for
me too. And at the moment I was like, Wow,
that's amazing. You go on you know whatever it is,
like Etsy or whatever, and there it is is a
shirt and you say, well, I gotta buy that, and.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Go on Red Bubble. It's there.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
If you buy every piece of merch that has a
Cute Housewives saying you're gonna be living in shit, and
that is rural culture number forty. If you buy every
piece of merchant cute Housewives saying you're gonna be living
in shit, and I've been living in shit, and I
tell you I can breathe again.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I know.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Isn't that nice? Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
And Quarterly I'm gonna pick that up from Quarterly is nice.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
And it's just nice to be back in New York
when you have sort of dusted off the internal cobwebs
for yourself, like I hope it feels frustrated with we're
getting some rain today, you know what.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I was moving in the rain yesterday and they had
closed down my street because of a bicycle race.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
And I said, you know what, Matt, you wanted New
York back. You're getting it back.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's what it's all about. And I'm rappy, I'm thrilled.
I love my new place. It's still slowly coming together
as it's the process, but like returning to New York.
And we were just talking to our guests about this,
because our guest is an iconic New Yorkers, she has
a prodigal return. Fact fantastic a book. Yes, the new
book is actually it's not only very much like the

(03:30):
definitive I would say biography on Marsha P. Johnson, but
also this is a book about this is a queer
history of New York. Yeah, and that is something that
I really loved about it. And we were just saying
before we got on, like specifically this area, you know,
your Christopher Street, your West Village, your your Stone Wall area,
like we have so much personal history there and I'm
so proud to have that history. And reading this book

(03:52):
made me so proud.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
She has such a deep history with this part of town.
Truly definitive, which I want to talk about this because yes,
there's like a Nashville vocation of the West Village that's
happening right now, and I would love to talk about this,
but we should talk about it. Our guest is a
filmmaker and artist, one of the great queer archivists that
we have. I reached out to her for the first
time because I was reading Faggets in The Friends Between

(04:15):
Revolutions and you wrote such a beautiful introduction to that,
and I was like, I have to reach out to her,
like this is one of the most beautiful pieces of
queer writing that I've ever read, and I think I
DMed you, and then I was like, Hi, I'm just
like a fan, like you wrote such a beautiful thing.
And then when when it was announced that you were
writing like the kind of the first the first ever,
the first ever Johnson biography, I got so excited. And

(04:37):
then I'm so glad this worked out so that you
were on.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
The book is Marsha The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P.
Johnson A twenty. It's just one of the most important
icons we've had in our history. And to know that
such an exhaustive, brilliant piece of writing now exists, it's
just beautiful and we are so proud to welcome you
to the podcasts tormally.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Bye. Thank you both for having me so much.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, I'm really excited to dig into it. And yeah,
it's not just Marcia, it's that area. You bring it
to life beautifully.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, I mean I have spent so much time on
Christopher Street. I started going there as a teenager when
I was at Columbia, taking that slow one train down
and that's where I found my people. That's where I
found like queer, transgender, not conforming young people just taking
up space. We were turning up the volume in of
our life, like we were being all of who we were,

(05:34):
and also we were getting you know, noise and resistance.
The people who lived there weren't into us, the police
weren't into us. And yet, similar to Marcia, that was
just a jumping off point for turning up the volume more.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Yeah, it's a.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Beautiful way to put it though. It's really beautiful. I mean,
like if you're lucky in life, like it's just a
big opportunity to just like gradually turn up the dial
or have someone like knock it down and then you
just keep turning it the other way. Wait, wait, I
need to know about the the commute from Columbia.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, the one train commute pre iPhone just long. You know,
it's just but you know I was saying before, like
I live in Miami right now, and I drive up
to Disney World all the time because that's like my
place of But commuting for me is a place where
I find clarity. It's like I fall into the day dream.

(06:25):
I fall into the imagination as an artist. You know,
some of us have studios, but for me, like New
York City was my studio and the subway train was
my place of like rest and rest.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
But yeah, I still get my best reading, not on
the trade, Yes I got. I think I read most
of the book on the train.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, it felt right. Yeah, I did feel like it
was connected and rooted in this whole. Like oh, like
I'm I am a citizen, a denizen of the city absolutely,
and like I am I'm part of this grand fabric
of people. And like you would pass literally the Sheridan
Square stop, yeah, like I would be on the one
and like past shared in square is like it all

(07:04):
happened upstairs.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Literally, And Marcia, I have a dear friend Augusta Machado
who is part of the Angels of Light, Hot Peaches,
early drag culture, and right and Augusto talks about how
Marcia would be above the Christopher Street stop and be
a symbol for anyone who this is like the early sixties,
right seventies, a symbol for anyone who is coming from

(07:27):
a place where they had to turn.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Down the volume.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Right when they saw Marcia, they knew all of them
was welcome in that space. And then so that goes
to what you're saying, it's like it happened right above us.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, and as you ascend, it's like it's like it's
like what you see, you see that, you see the vision.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
I mean, you write like so vividly about, you know,
the time, like I'm in reading about the Stonewall riots,
like it's it's just you forget when you're there now,
or like maybe it's more top of mine now as
things get, you know, more tense, and over the past
few years, things get more difficult. But it's so you

(08:04):
read about the violence in that area, Yeah, but I
associate it with so much joy and it is all
of those things, and you write so beautifully about like
Marcia's lack of correct recollection also speaking to the fact
that she is in that way, like a living document
and it is all those things.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
So it's really.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Kind of it's important, I think, to realize like as
you walk around with that joy, it does hold that history.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and like trauma shapes our memory, right, Like
there's so many beautiful writings and teachings about how violence
and trauma affect not just you know, like how we
feel about ourselves, but how we recall ourselves in our community.
And so Marcia talked about that really beautifully. She talked
about being lost in the music. Right, there's this beautiful

(08:53):
clip where she's being interviewed in the basement of a
West Village house and she's talking about being lost in
the music ever since the nineteen sixty nine Stone Wall
ryots and she couldn't remember what date, you know, first
she's talking about the seventies, and then like nineteen sixty three,
and then she's like lost in the music the Stone Wall,
and then she recalled Marvin Gaye heard her through the

(09:15):
grape vine, Ryan, and that was the music playing on
the jukebox when the police raided Stone Wall.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
And so it's this beautiful malleable.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Like kind of piscy and she was a virgo, but
this piscy and way, you know, are you your.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Cancer?

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Oh my god? That always god was oh my god,
that's so funny. We don't want to try I want
to try that ad a lot.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Okay, Yeah, well that took it to the next novel,
next level.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
But her her sort of reconceiving that moment is piscing
in the sense that it's just like, but you know what,
because it's trauma shapes's memory, but like that memory for her,
like she's you. You write about how she kind of
like conflicts that with her birthday exactly, and it's like
still joyful in this way.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
And it's a birthing too, like Stonewall birth a new
era for her and so many Right, it was a
moment where three articles of law, three articles of clothing laws. Right,
the police were using these laws to repress and make
small transgender not conforming people. Right. I have a dear
friend Ms Major who was also at Stonewall trans elder

(10:29):
and she talks about, you know, you would get arrested
just for going outside.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Marcia would be regularly picked up by the police, whether
it was in Times Square or on Christopher Street just
by going outside. And what is so beautiful about that
moment too, is like she was reaching for a bigger
sense of knowing that she mattered, and she did it
from a place of turning over the table right when
we're feeling really afraid. It can be so powerful to

(10:55):
reach for anger, righteous anger, righteous revenge. Was what Stonewall
for her really was about.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, there's this thing that happens where injustice is happening
writ in front of you. Yeah, something bad is happening,
writ in front of you, and there is just this
like stasis and like being a bystander, yeah to those
things like someone needs to break, that someone needs to
be in order for anything to happen exactly, And uh,

(11:23):
it like calls upon you to be like a brave
person and the fact that like there were obviously brave
people before Marcia, before Sylvia and before anyone who was
there that night, of course, but it does just take
this like transcendence beyond yourself that Marsha was very tapped
into spiritually to make you go, well, let's fucking like

(11:45):
let's start the revolution.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Because it's like also unbearable to live in a place
of fear. Yeah, right, like it is. I've experienced this.
I remember like in you know, I've lived in New
York for a long time and I had many different
kinds of expressions in New York. Like sometimes the volume
of my life I came out of organizing, right, so, welfare, healthcare, housing,
you know, police in prison issues. Those were the things

(12:08):
that I was doing for a real long time before
I became an artist. And it was so important for
me to be with my community in that and we
were doing campaigns and kind of raising visibility, but the
volume of my life and my expression was really turned down, yeah,
And it was this kind of dichotomy between that, and
so I remember these moments where I was like, this

(12:31):
is I how can I show up for other people
if I'm not gonna actually be the most authentic version
of myself.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
It's it's so it costs.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
More for my soul to be fearful than it does
to actually like tap into my power and be exuberantly.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Speaking of power, you there's a line in this book
which really I like had to read it many times
because it meant so much to me and I thought
you put it so well, and I'm gonna if I
butcher it you'll keep correctly. But some power can be
wrestled out of someone who's wielding power thoughtlessly or carelessly.
And it's something I think it was speaking to the

(13:09):
fact that like there was obviously I mean Stonewall was
a riot, there was a breakout, but it's almost like
the police at the time didn't know what to do
with it because then they were thinking, like, wait, why
exactly are we oppressing these people? What exactly? I know
we're following and maintaining the rule of love, but why
is the law what it is? Maybe that's worth questioning. Yeah,

(13:30):
can you just talk about the connection between those thoughts.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Well, I think it's like when someone is tapped into
who they really are, they have more power fastly and
more clarity and better sense of timing than all of
the people who don't. It takes it severs your power,
I think, on a spiritual.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
Way and an.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Energetic way to be pushing someone down relentlessly. And so
the people who were plugged into who they were, like
Marcia and took that like fearless moment or like actually
this is not okay. Have are connected to a well
of resource that that shapes worlds and you saw it,
So I think about that all the time. It's like

(14:08):
it's everything that's going on right now. People who are
trying to like erase our lives have a real kind
of like they're not tapped in now at all. They're
not tapped into who they are. And so when we
meet that with an abundance of spirit, an abundance of
connection to those that came before and also those who

(14:29):
are being pushed down, I think we have we have
the resources.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
We do because the oppressor is not dialing up the
volume on their life.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's exactly.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right, but like we are kind of forced to. I'm
saying we in this sort of general sense, like we
in our oppression are our only option is just to
turn up the volume. That's exactly like despair is like
the thing that's supposed to happen. Despair is supposed to
be like a transitional place for me. Like that's that's
the thing that like in my queer experience that I've learned.

(15:04):
Are you saying that you and your drives up to
Disney World are tapping into your spirituality?

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Like literally I'm listening to like my manifesting tape, like
you know, listening to like Laraji and my music and whatever,
and it's that to me, I'm absolutely tapping into it.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
What are you doing at Disney?

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Okay, so I'm doing all.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Of it, But where are you most spiritually tapped in
the Rise of the Resistance.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's literally art.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'm reading Walt Disney's biography right now going through because like,
honestly that I want to make art like that. Yeah,
and I hope and aspire that my art builds a
world that people feel invited to. That's what the point
of the book is is like, come in to Marcia's
world that is expansive where you get permission to actually

(15:57):
be who you are. And so to me, I think
about other people who create on that scale, you know,
and that's really my desires, like to create culture and
aren't on that scale, whether through a photograph, a film,
a book, or like a theme bar.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
I feel because I think because you had it, you
had an exhibit somewhere, you just show somewhere where it
was like a portal, right, yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
The Whitney Biennials portal.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
And then also I have work up with the met
in the Afrofuturist Period Room, and it's two photographs, two
self portraits, one where I'm floating in mid air in
a space suit and the other where it's like I'm
back in time in the eighteen hundreds, kind of evoking
this early transfigure Mary Jones lived in on Green Street

(16:41):
in Soho in the eighteen thirties. And so the Afrofuturist
Period Room is also like a portal. Right, you get
to step into a space that imagines that Seneca Village,
which preceded Central Parks, still exists.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
This is this question of like what if we got
to live freely? And then my hope is that people
see in their own life, like what if I act
more freely right in this moment, in this moment, in
this moment.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
So do you think like it's just to speak about
like because we're talking about Disney and now it's funny
because we were just talking before we got on like
they opened Epic Universe and they.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Used the.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Portals like that's the that's the language that they're using.
Portals into worlds, lands, not like bridges. And there is
something about immersion in the sort of you know, oh
my god, the girl who did the very long four
hour thing about Disney the Hotel.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yes, yes, yeah, lindsay something.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
She does all these long content but yeah, and they're
so good. We love the hotel.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
The hotel was.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
She talked about this concept of immersion, about how like
it really feels like as entertainment and as experiences and
as technology goes on and on and on.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
I think this is kind of what West World was.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Obviously, it's like the kind of final frontier of entertainment
and in enjoying, you know, these experiences, the goal being
like full immersion. Yeah, what do you think that that is?
Why do you think we're there? Well?

Speaker 3 (18:09):
I think you know, for me, like I make art films,
right and or kind of like short films, and so
I always think about it's gonna sound strange, but the
first one of the first films I saw was' was
It of Oz? Right? And I think about this moment
right where it goes from black and white to technicolor.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Yeah, and it did something to my mind.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
Right, it's a paradigm shift. And so I think immersion
is really a paradigm shift. So I have a film
Silesia that's at Tate Modern and it goes from eighteen
thirties New York to Sylvia rivera on Christopher Street along
the Hudson River, which we called the River Jordan. And
I was hoping to evoke that where's it of oz
feeling that is like black and white to technicolor, because

(18:52):
when I'm immersed in something, I'm seeing it differently, right,
like you are kind of like hacking or editing your
reality in a popular way.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, And that almost speaks to to Marsha P. Johnson's
recollection of the time, because she was fully immersed in
the experience and so she cannot see it clearly because
she is existing within it. Whereas that side, there are
of course facts about when someone all happens. But when
you're immersed in the experience and therefore part of the atmosphere,
you can't really be expected. And also there's some joy

(19:21):
in that, and you're losing yourself into the moment.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
When artists are a musician is performing on stage, it's
like you're fully there, you're fully channeling or parameters change.
The parameters change, and.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
It says something about the fact that the collective recollection
collective recollection of stonewall of the Riot is that no
one quite knows exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
What happened exactly.

Speaker 5 (19:44):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
It's not just one person that's Marshall like not being
able to recall it, but a lot of.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
People because it's not my friendly Alacsmi writes really beautifully
about how riots are not sane events, the not neuro
normative events. You're in an altered state, and I think
that speaks to but you're saying, it's like you're not
going to have total recall, You're fully in this altered place. Yeah,
there was not like a first brick exactly exactly exactly,

(20:11):
even though there were people who were first rippling out,
like Marcia in the back room or store may or
you know, like Nova, there were people rippling, but there
were these were popping off simultaneously.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, you write so well in the book about the
community that was built not even around Marsha, but just
with like horizontally with Marsha just sort of like there
as a leader in this in this space. But it's like,
it's really wild that it all is contained in the
neighborhood or on Christopher Street. Like her whole life, her
whole life began in a way, like her parameters changed

(20:46):
on Christopher Street at Sheridan Square and then you know,
has this tragic, almost beautifully mysterious ending too right on
Christopher Street, and like and then that's where everyone celebrated
her life. Yeah, you know, they spread spreader ashes at
the river. Like the fact that it's so local and

(21:08):
yet so globally like impactful is always what's kind of
crazy to me. Yeah, like it happened right there, like
like the start of queer liberation happened on the street
where like there's a Donald's two blocks down.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, and it used to be a stream, Like it
was one of the longest streets in New York. I
kind of go into like the history of the city
a little bit, and it was like a water us
all being water signs. It was a water pathway. Christopher
Street was way hundreds of years ago, and it had
a flow and kind of like in a lyrical sense,
it mirrored Marsha's flow. When I was writing the book

(21:41):
at the end, I lived on Christopher Street. I lived
on Christopher and Hudson, and it just it was so
trippy to experience, how you know, Marcia had a birth
of becoming right at Stonewall and then there was a moment,
you know, an ending, not the ending of her, but
an ending of and Christopher and hunting in the water.

(22:01):
And so it just is it's so profound in it.
How could it not raise these kinds of spiritual questions.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, I really do like believe that, And this is
where I'll get pricing in WOOO. But like there are
places that just have energy, like and I do think
that that intersection has energy, Like there is an energy there.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
It is thick.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
You are more powerful there. I will always have such
gorgeous memories. This is when Bowen and I were in
our mid twenties. I was dating Henry Koperski shout out,
and he would play the piano at the downstairs duplex. Yeah,
and we would go and Bowen would do the most
incredible performance of Lady Gaga's rendition of Bang Bang And

(22:47):
I will just never forget the people coming up to
the window and looking in, not knowing it would be
you know, future superstar bow and Yang. But like it's
just there was something about it like we were all
performer there.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
We were all stars there.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Like that's right. I remember that's where I started. Literally
I started the Christmas Show. Yes, like from seventy people upstairs,
like and just seeing people go up and express themselves.
You are lended that because of the history, even if
you're not conscious, that's because it's woven into the place.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
It's woven into the energy of the place. I think
that's exactly right. My friend Randy, Randy's like eighty three now,
but he was, do you ever go to Julius? Yeah,
of course, So he led the sit in before Stonewall.
Wow at Julius, you know, like this was nineteen sixty
five or something like a few years before Stonewall. Julius
was a straight bar that refused to serve openly gay people.

(23:41):
And he went there and he led, you know, borrow
tactics from the black liberation movement, the civil rights movement,
and he led this beautiful sit in. And so there's
all of these spots that pop off like that, so
much so that it's like it's not one place. It
is an abundance of places creating a very particular vibe.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, it almost feels like in that it's like a
true circle of queer bars and like a queer community.
It does feel protective, almost like a witchy spiritual circle.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I mean, it's it's like you it's like any anything
uncouth untoward, Like it's like if yeah, it's just it
would feel like a true violation. We are protected there,
and I honestly feel like the entire thing needs to
be historically landmarks. Fear for the duplex, I do.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
I I like it.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
It bothers me to know that like it's just a
building that could get taken down because it's not.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
It's not.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
It's yeah, And I think it's interesting too, you know,
like we are creating also the new places in that space.
When hundreds and hundreds of people showed up at you know,
in Sheridan Square and we're like, you cannot erase the
tea from the National Park Service websites or erase Marcia
and Soviet Right exactly, I think we're creating you know,

(24:58):
it's like it was powerful then and it's powerful now
and it's summoning force.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
But then you can have it show up in any
form where you either have hundreds of people show up
a Sharn Square or you have fifteen thousand people show
up at the Brooklyn Museum in twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
That was a moment where I was like, oh my god,
like this this is how we show up now because
we always were like it's so hard to like visualize
what it was like back then in the absence of
like documentation or photography. But it's like the way proliferates
now is even more sort of functional because it's like
anyone could see that from anywhere, that image anywhere and

(25:34):
then go there now or just know where to find
their people or resources now, which is probably most important.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
I'm sortly just thinking about how if there were like
just this, they'd be reading this in high school, you
know what I mean. And I just I feel like
I'd be remiss not to talk about with you hear,
someone who's so involved in the literary and art community
and like someone who's like you know, out here writing
really important work about queer historical figures, if you could
just speak to and talk about what you're seeing in

(26:09):
terms of like attacks on these types of books and
like things like that, and the removal of these types
of really important works that explain and you know, include people.
And I feel like Marsha P. Johnson's legacy, well, we're.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Seeing it from obviously the highest office political office right
with Trump executive orders that are having a real material
effect on our community. You know, ever since the inauguration
where he was talking about their official policy of two genders. Right.
I have a dear friend who tried to travel through
the airport two weeks ago and she was the TSI

(26:44):
didn't allow her to enter because she has an X
on her ID state issued ID, and they also wouldn't
let her leave the airport. And so we're actually seeing
these it's not just rhetoric. It's having a real concrete
effect in our lives. It's also really affecting. I always
want to make sure we're including like our trans siblings
who are incarcerated, and so that it's having our huge

(27:07):
effect on incarcerated people. And it's also affecting the classroom, right,
and these institutions of art and creativity. We saw the
National Endowment of Arts today, museums where my work is up,
mass Smoka just made an announcement that the NEA is
withdrawing funding. So we're really saying in real time effect yeah,

(27:28):
our political landscape.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
So many organizations of any size or like losing out
on all this NEA stuff where Baffo I heard, is
losing stuff Like a lot of these the only way
that I have known how to be present because of
scheduling stuff, and like I literally can't even like show
up like in any place outstead of work. Right now,
It's like okay, like Baffo is raising funds, let's go there,

(27:53):
Let's let's drop some cash there, Let's drop some cash
for the doll invasion in August. Like, let's just like
PLoP some little some little windfalls wherever we can, like
we as in me like I'm trying to do that,
and the only way that I know how now, because
it's like we cannot feel helpless in this moment exactly.
It just spare has to be a transitional phase. It
cannot be the terminus.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
That's exactly right, I think to me.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
You know an organization that's near and dear to my
heart is the trans Justice Funding Project. So I've been
raising funds for trans Justice Funding Project, which funds gives
fund to rural grassroots organizations throughout the South First Nation,
organizations which are really important places that are not necessarily
just on the coast. And so I always like to bring.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Up, Yeah, God, I mean, is it how much of
this do you have to sort of like hold in
your in your mind, like at any given time, I
feel like you are in your work. You're so expansive
and the people that you think about that I feel
like there must be some weight to that.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
I think part of it is I've been doing this
for a long time, right, and there are moments that
evoke amount of grief seeing loved ones die from lack
of care or from violence. It's definitely like a part
of my story this moment. For whatever reason, I also

(29:11):
feel tapped into a sense of hope because I have
come to a place where I firmly believe the bigger
the problem, the bigger the solution, and that solutions are
created from problems, and that when we pivot our focus
from not you know, it's really important to talk about
the bad things going on, but also when we pivot
to well, how are we showing up in the world,

(29:33):
you were just doing that. I think that's really magnetic,
compelling energy. More and more people are looking for who
are the helpers. I think it was like mister Rogers,
He's like, look for the helpers?

Speaker 5 (29:43):
Right.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
I firmly believe that now it's like, who are the
helpers in our community? We know things are so hard
and when I do that, I feel lighter, like I
have a greater sense of clarity. It's like when I clean, similarly,
I have a greater sense of clarity. And also when
I'm looking for the helper and looking for the solutions.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
And driving to Disney literally honestly driving to Disney.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Seven by You Adventure.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
I really it broke down when I was on the.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Days breaking down, days breaking But it was really cool
because we got to leave through the back door and everything,
which was I mean, I love the backstage.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah, we were on Tower of Terror when it broke down.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
We were high as a kite and we were.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Like, uh and like they come they come out of
like you know, like a hallway with fluoresca like lighting,
like hey, you guys have to come down, and you
literally walk down. It was we were, but it was
hilarious because then we took an actual elevator.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Down to the ground.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
We were we were like, okay, drop along the way.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
We all we did was rise, and so then there
was that thing of like in your head when you're
expecting one thing, but then it.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Never so we kept that was we were. We stopped
literally before the one Jennifer is like, yes, I have.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
To go for so many reasons.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, it's my star.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Jennifer is a legend.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
But it's like aoc on her like Fight the Oligarchy
Tour one of the things she's been speaking to And
I do think it's so important and it's something that
I struggle with, you know, over the past six weeks,
Like I find myself like traveling a lot and like
doing some things that are making me happy and taking opportunities,
and I there is like a degree of guilt because
every time I turn on the news, it feels like devastation.

(31:32):
It feels like depression, it feels like more darkness encroaching.
But one thing she said was that you have to
take your opportunities to feel joy.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
I remember hearing that because.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Because it could be so easy right now to forget
and then you forget what you're fighting for.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah, and also when you I have found I don't
know if you have, but when I'm in a more
joyful place, I have a greater capacity to show up for.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
People in my life.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Oh yeah, it's like my the plug is plugged into
the electricity in my joy and so I can be
channing solutions more and when when I'm just vibing in despair,
I don't necessarily lose that capacity, but it shows that
it's diminished, at least for me.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Of course.

Speaker 4 (32:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
And is this part of the imagination for the theme park,
which is that is kind of the ultimate place?

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Okay, thank you for seeing me, of course, girl.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Okay, Yeah, from a young age, and I do think
it did come out of like honestly, I think my
obsession with it started when I was seven or eight.
We were just talking about this because Bowen and I
went to Epic Universe. They were kind enough to invite
us to see it, and we're going to be at
the grand opening. Oh my god, it's so exciting.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
So we're going to be there.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
And we were being asked because they filmed us doing
they filmed us on the go pro doing the stardust racer.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
We were asked, we were online like about our experiences
with the im person. I said, I've been at Universal
Parks fan since I was seven or eight and I
went on the Back to the Future ride and I
remember it. I didn't understand that immersive entertainment like that,
and I think it made me want to be creative,
And I think that's why it's important, and that's why
I get on my soapbox so much about them lowering
those goddamn prices because families need to be able to

(33:14):
experience that. That is what what would have wanted, et cetera.
But my thing is it is really formative for a
young kid. Like we went into the Super Nintendo World
and I was like, my sister, who's a grown ass,
like walked in and here's a horizon. I'm like, yeah,
imagine being.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
A child exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Like it's crazy, those those those experiences are so special.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, I can only go so often because of the
Florida discount. Well, yes, which is incredible. It's like it's
much more discounted. Everyone should have access to places of
that helped them plug in their line to have a
greater sense of like imagination. You know, there's this moment
where I think it's Kevin Costner talking about riding the
original Disney rides over and over and over again. My

(33:59):
whole YouTube about Algorithm is theme parks.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Okay, I'll just literally that's the only thing that comes up.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Podcast.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
You are amazed.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
She's a legend, but like I'm not biotic construct looking
at the what is your what's your algorithm?

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Okay, so it's all like epic Disney and then like manifesting.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
That's a great, that's really good. And they talk to
each other, literally talk to each other because you have to, like,
for me, at least, I have to imagine it into
being right. And while she was doing that, I write
a little bit about the hot spring hotels in Times Square.
These were hourly hotels where, you know, you literally would

(34:48):
be arrested if you were a trans person expressing any
part of your authenticity in Times Square.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Because they would assume it was solicitation exactly. And these
laws actually stayed into the books, you know. Twenty twenty
was when the three articles I was going to say,
Andrew Cromo, former governor, right, and so Marcia. When they
could hustle a little bit of money, they would rent
these hourly hotels. And they call them hot spring hotels
because whether whatever season it was, it was always really hot.

(35:15):
But these were places where they would dream their life
into being right. They would have a little bit of
relief from the police and violence on the street, and
they would ask each other again and again and again,
like what would it feel like to be able to
move through the world with a greater sense of ease
or a greater sense of freedom. And so to me,

(35:36):
those places, whether it's the Hourly hotel or a Disney
theme park or epic, those are the places that we
get to, at least for me, imagine a world where
we get to show up more free and more playful.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, the site specificity is important because I was gonna say,
like even like the porn theaters in Times Square, Yeah,
places where like they would just stay all day exactly
and think just and just like they were being like
a little black box space whatever. Like, yeah, the world
was at some remove exact that they could like access
this like imagination.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yeah. And Samuel Delaney, I don't know if you've read
like Time Square, read Times Square right about it really
beautiful but you know, and also Marcia came from a
place of like kind of naivete right like she was
you know, she's working at Child's restaurant, so she was
a waitress, and then she was befriending these treet queens
like Sylvia, who was thirteen I can only imagine literally,

(36:30):
and then was going to these theaters and there's this
interview where she was talking about, oh.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Like you won't lick that man's toes.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
You know, she mind kept getting blown by this imagery
and being like, oh, like, I guess people are doing
these things.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
So it was really powerful to read that part.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
It's a portal, it's a portal's portal. And how do
you feel this way about children's literature? Like our friend
Julia was telling us, like he he wrote this beautiful
children's book and whatever I did, like a like like
a book of it with him, was like, like, what inspired
you to children's literature? And he was like, it's the
most politically powerful medium that we have.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
So I also wrote a children's books that comes out
the same day. It's called One Day in June, and
it starts with a caretaker with a little one on
respeech I don't know if y'all go to Queer Haven Sanctuary,
and then it goes up to Raquel Willis's speech at
the Brooklyn Museum with fifteen thousand people, And it's really
about channeling that frequency just like a radio station of

(37:28):
Marsha and how she is in the every day, she's
in the permission to be all of who we are.
She's in you know, worker who is giving her tips
to someone who can't afford to buy their kid ice cream.
She's in the dancing at Raoul, she's you know, or
their club.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
It's like all of this five is very available and
to me, in a moment when young ones, kids are
being told really firmly that either they don't exist, that
their truth is wrong and they need to change, or
they're just you know, turning the dial of their of
their life and truth down, it's really important to have

(38:07):
a book that's not that right. That's we're giving ourselves
permission to play and to try new things, and also
to connect it to a history that is still so palpable.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, talk about this really interesting metaphor that I feel
like you're returning to, which is turning up the volume,
adjusting to the frequency, like plugging in. It feels like
they're feel like you're describing life in a way or
just like you know, the human experience in a way
that is very like that's a toggle or that can
be like modulated in a sense because and in a

(38:39):
way I kind of not in a way, I really
do love that's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yeah, well, I mean that's just how I've come to
experience the world, that there is something underpinning all of
our experience, and whether you call that like God or
the universe or source or joy, which is just another
word for it, you can readily tune to that wherever
you are. And so a lot of times when you're

(39:03):
feeling fear, the pathive least resistance to that is to
get really angry about the situation. That brings you closer
to a feeling of clarity and joy and that frequency
that's fully available.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
So to me, part of.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
That is just like a basis of manifesting. And so
there are people who are talking about manifesting or bring
things into the material, but I really believe that there
is a Marsha frequency, you know, like a joy frequency
that when we're feeling all of who we are and
we're inviting all aspects of ourselves into the room, we

(39:36):
have a clear, clear access to that.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
There's a really wonderful thing about listening to Marsha's voice
that I found I have like press play on videos
or just like in there's footage of her your in
your film Happy Birthday, Marsia, where I could just like
listen to her talk all day like sort of tour
it up on a podcast.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Literally, she's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
I mean she's so original.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Funny, original.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
And I was here yesterday because my friend Rachael Willis
is doing a podcast about Marcia called Afterlife, and she
was talking about seeing these YouTube clips of Marsham that
Randy Ricker was filming, and Marcia just has great timing,
you know, she's like, get your heart ready for heart
failure to the to the filmer right, and then she's
like and then I'll get the camera, you know, like
you're gonna you're gonna expire because of my outfit, and

(40:26):
then I'm gonna jack your camera. And it's just like
these fits that she was always doing. And she modeled
herself a lot of her performance work off of Billy Burke,
who was the original Funda exactly and was a vaudeville actress.
And so Marsham did this.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
She played the jets. She was like the bimbo. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, she.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Was playing the bimbo.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
And she was well aware, like there was a moment
when she was in the West End in London, the
only time she really traveled from the US, and she
was at drill Hall which is now Rada Studios, and
she was performing the Dits and the audience didn't get it,
Like people were writing like Marshall must have be having
an off night because she's not quite hitting the notes,

(41:07):
you know, or she's not really remembering her lines. But
that was her persona and she did it so well.
And just one week before she died, she said, I
love when people think I'm just a ditch or a
silly little street queen because I can work them out
of their money. But she was well aware from childhood.
She was in the chorus with her brother Bob and

(41:28):
her sister Jeanie and Elizabeth New Jersey, and they used
to go around to the neighbors and sing for money,
and she would sing and completely off key, and Jeanie
Michaels is like, but they always gave her the money.
And it was because she was doing this on purpose,
to see a little kid like go all over the
scale and they'd just be like, oh that's right, yeah, yeah,

(41:53):
a true performer exactly.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Speaking of conjuring up the childhood memories, we have to
ask you the question, the central question of lost culture, yes,
which is what was the culture that made you say,
culture was for me like that formative element of whatever
kind of pop culture or culture in general that you feel.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Well. We talked about Wizard of Oz, but also with
my dad, I went to Mattine Films because they were cheaper,
and I we saw literally like every single Eddie Murphy movie.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
That's so funny you say that, Really.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
I did the same thing with Eddie Murphy.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
It was the only movie it and my mother that
kind of styled himself off of Eddie Murphy. And so
you know, it was all of it, right, But I
remember Harlem Knights with Dela Reese in those costumes and
Richard Pryor, and then you know, later the Whiz with
Richard Pryor and the Emerald Secret scene. But it was
really those that humor and which I lost for a

(42:55):
little while, but I remember that we were we went
to have a good time, we went to have fun,
and it was like everything Eddie Murphy. And so that
really was like Jealousy is a good indicator for me
because it shows me what I want to be doing.
And so when I'm like jealous about someone's career, it's
not like I hope they don't have it. I'm like
I want to be doing that thing. Jealousy's really important.

(43:18):
And so it's like I can remember being jealous, you know,
as a little kid of all these people who got
to act on stage and you're like.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
I want to be doing that.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
You get it in your head like you hate them.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
You get in your head.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
That you hate them, but you really just want to
do what they're doing but don't know how to do it.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
That's all that jealousy is.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
And so to me, I was like, I can just
remember being Harlem Nights, you know, Beverly Hills, all of
the Beverly Hills clops, you know, like Golden Child, all
of them, where I was just like I want to
be one of these people on screen, like having a ball.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
I was jealous of Raven for being and Doctor Dolittle too,
Oh my god, yeah, because like she gets to play
Eddie Murphy's daughter. I don't know why. It was like
I want to.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
My dad put me in that car and said get
in the car and we went to see Nutty Professor.
To Janet, I could tell it was for him, yes,
But I had so much joy because my dad was
sharing something explicitly with and he never took me in
the movies.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
It was that I told you drag and so many
movies it mind blowing.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, it really did you grow up? I grew up
in Roxbury, which is part of Boston.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah. Yeah, so then also so cool that mass like
that you're exactly But okay, can we do an assessment
as a group about the movie Norbid? Because I thought
stowed out of my mind in high school and I
to rewatch it and I'm nervous to revisit it because
I'm like, this is gonna be so, this is gonna
be so chaotic for so many reasons. But is it work?

(44:58):
Like I'm like, do I just like a home and
watch Norbits? I?

Speaker 5 (45:01):
So?

Speaker 4 (45:01):
I think So he's a genius.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
He's a genius.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
He's a literal and he's also kind of ahead of
the curve in a very particular consistent way where I
feel like, so much later you might be picking up something, yeah,
that you didn't see it first.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
I feel like something though that like fucking sucks to
have to tackle this type of thing. Yeah, I feel
like we're talking about a couple of things where there
are like, there's elephants in the room, right, there's an
elephant in the room with Eddie Murphy's homophobia. Yeah, there's
an elephant in the room with Epic Universe having Harry
Potter and the JK rowing. Absolutely, I just wonder like,
how do you personally navigate that and filter that, because

(45:37):
I find myself having a really hard time with Yeah,
of course these are in the past, but I think
it's you know, it's interesting because when I say my
dad really like styled George Gossip Junior himself off of Eddie,
like it was all of it, it was also the
homophobia in transphobia, right, Yeah, and he.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Died in twenty ten. And in a similar way that
I have a kind of like spiritual relationship with Mars,
I have one with my dad where it is really
easy to see now that people who are saying the
most kind of like intense file things also around HIV
and AIDS and you know, like it's all of course

(46:15):
are either like not surrounded by our community, right, which
in and of itself is you're missing out on such
a blessing.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yea.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
So that's like a place of girl like you were
really missing out, you know, like it sucks for you.
And then also when people are doing that, it's so
clear no one who's feeling really good about themselves is
consistently attacking another person. I just don't think I can't.
I don't think that you can be in a place
of joy and also be pushing against them.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
She's not happy sitting in her house, That's what I'm
saying Twitter all day.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
And so to me, I'm like, I just have a
place of I think I give like maybe Eddie Murphy
a lot of grace around.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
Okay, you are young.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
And and doing a long time ago fame from a
family that maybe I don't know. I'm just like, you're
a famous young black person and all of a sudden,
everything that you're saying is the talk of the task,
and so it's not like my dad who says homophobic
things and then no one knows about, but it's everywhere.
And so to me, I'm like, oh, this, this is

(47:20):
so sad for you. And also I just I don't know,
I have such a warm spot in my heart around
Eddie Murphy because sure and with JK Rowling, she seems
so miserable and I'm just like, what's going on there? Girl?
Like you, something is going on because you are so
going out of your way to attack like my community

(47:43):
when we're literally just being alive. And then you know,
the celebration of the UK Supreme Court. I don't know
if you all saw. Yeah, it's disgusting. There's something so
intense going on if a symbol of freedom, a symbol
of expansiveness is causing such a knee jerk response that
you have to go out of your way to attack it.

(48:04):
And so I'm like, you were not connected to what
I'm about, right, like you, you can't be in a
place of pleasure and happiness and joy when you're going
out of your way to do that. And so with her,
I'm just like, blessed you on your journey. You're either
going to figure it out now or like when you're immaterial.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
And huh yeah material. It's like my only well, the
only way I can rationalize it with her is that
it's like, oh, you got so rich and famous off
of writing this morality tale, that your set of morals,
your code of morals is sort of indisputable, and it's
the only thing, it's the only correct thing in the world,
and that she the mechanism by what she's putting down

(48:42):
trans people is by victimizing CIS women in a way
that is like more dire than what's it's literally in
a way that is that it's like not happening. It's
like it's it's it's fabricated.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
It's fabri it's completely all of it is fabricated.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Right.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
The fear is completely fabricated because the scary thing that
they're talking about aren't being committed or produced by transgender
not conforming people, which are such a small part of
the population and are like, we're just trying to live.
This is a fabricated like fear respond to either not
being able to figure out the economy, so you're blaming

(49:16):
like transfids, you know, it's and or whatever is going
on with JK, like not being able to figure out
her own stuff. And so to me, yeah, it's it's
completely did y'all go into the Harry Potter rat?

Speaker 2 (49:27):
I mean we did?

Speaker 4 (49:28):
Speaking of.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
The thing is like this is my and I struggle.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yeah, And my thing was like, you know what, I
just thought about relatives that I have that now have
really gone hard for Trump, and I can't recognize them
from what they were when I was growing up. And
the fact is they're not the same person, but they
will not take my memories of them from when I
was a kid, and so I kind of just said, like,

(49:56):
you know what, she is not going to ruin this
thing for me that like me again, made me want
to be creative, made me want to be who I am.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
And my thing is just like I'm just not gonna
let her have that. I'm not gonna let her cloud
like ruin this like experience for me.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
And the thing too is just like, you know what's
great the Dark Universe. The Dark Universe is amazing, and
your Dragon Universe, which we had I've never seen the movies.
I loved it totally.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
The fun thing is I understand why they did it
because it's such a catch.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
And I will say the ride.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Is actually kind of cunty because it's like Dolores Umberge's
trial and I'm like, God, damn it, why am I
walking in here? I haven't thought feelings When it's like
a trial ride, It's like it's like so gay, you.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
It's like you're walking in and it's like she's on trial.
We're gonna watch her being made guilty and she catches
free and Emel just Staughton comes back and gives like
a fierce performance and you're like, god, JK, shut the
fuck up.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
The up.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
That's odd.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
But where are you at? Will you go in there?

Speaker 4 (51:03):
I mean?

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, you know, because you because it's like you would
not be abandoning anything about your transnists going there necessarily.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
It was it a kind of revolution, isn't Like people
showing up to places where they're not wanted is kind
of like, yeah, not the revolutionary thing to do, but
kind of like.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
That's transformative to be in a place where they're not
up to speed with your beauty or your value or
your worth or your deserving this, and to just not
turn your dial to that, but to like, actually I
belong everywhere I go and exactly including this.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Place that I love.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, especially as like as someone who's like, it's such
a crazy moment in theme park history.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
It's like the epic universal of at all.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
By the way, it is that good, Like the hype
is so real, like the first time in twenty five
years that they've opened like a major new like that,
and it's like it's just what they've done with the
theme parking technology. You're going to be so gagged for
this Monster's on change right, Like it's really good and
just like the story that they tell with that, we've

(52:03):
been joking about Victoria Frankenstine on this podcast for a year.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
It's a gag definitely cultural culture, but it's a lot
of fun.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah, And we are the ambassadors of Celestial Park, that's right,
which is the Hobland's official title.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
It was also like that the Hobland's pretty chill.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
It's very chill.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Yeah, and so it's like if you're over stimulated, maybe
you go to Celestial Park or whatever.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
It like cut in that way.

Speaker 5 (52:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
I was just at.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Epcot for the Flower Garden festivals. Beautiful, so beautiful. I
felt like the Brook and Botanic Gardens was Guardians of Galaxy.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I know.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
It was the most gagged by. Were those Bondsie.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Trees are just out there.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
Ye oh my god.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
I love to go for food and wine. Yeah, I'll
just go in there by myself and knock down some mapsally,
oh my god. They were in technical rehearsal when we
did it, so I can tell there was like some
fog effects and some stuffs turned off.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Okay, they're gonna figure out.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Does newness kind of like have this like counter force
to it where it's like it makes you nostalgia because
now because it going to Epic made me want to
like go to Universal and just go in the old
rides or just go to Disney. Yeah, the Classic rights too,
and I'm just like, oh, this kind of opens it
up to like everything for me, where I'm like, I
want to do it all.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
Honestly, part of you know, not to with Marcia's like
part of one drag became so pop culture. I was
so interested in the origins. Yeah, right, Like I don't
know if you're familiar with the Angels of Light, but
they came out of the Cocketts and the Bay glitter beards.
Like so many of the looks that we're seeing these
days came from like Marcia Angels of Light and also

(53:48):
the Hot Peaches, right, these like early sixties seventies performers,
And so to me, I'm always about like that nostalgia.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
I'm a cancer, so like.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Yeah, the nostalgia of it all, but yeah, I fall
into that. I went to Islands of Adventure for the
first time when I was sixteen in two thousand and
it blew my mind, there was like the dueling dragone
and all of that, and then I went I hadn't
gone back for so many years, and I wasn't sure,
like how's it going.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
It's gonna feel comfortable? Is it going to feel safe?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
And the thing that I really was paying attention was like,
I remember when this when I was this year old,
and I was blown away, and now it's like evolved
into this other beautiful things capturing my imagination. So I'm
kind of like in between that that nostalgia and the wow,
totally evolution.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
Of it all.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
And like I think I went to like a La
Mama show, Oh yeah, like ten years ago or something,
and like I think you like shed light on like
the way that like all these different theater communities were
intertwined together, especially in the seventies, yeah, or especially when
Marsha was performing in them. So like was it was
hot Peaches and Angels of Light? Was that coming from
like theater for the New City? Know, like like like

(54:54):
break it down for me?

Speaker 5 (54:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (54:55):
So okay, So Marsha performed at Theater of the New City, Yes,
with the Angels of Lying so like the Jane Hotel
right now. So and also LaMaMa and all of these
really beautiful places. The hibiscus came out of the cockettes
and Angel Jack and so they really created something that
had never been seen before. Right. Their performances included like

(55:16):
the Enchanted Miracle, where a big storybook was on stage
and for each new scene, the page.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Would be turned.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
It was this like you know technology, right, this immersive
experience that the audience was really getting into. And Marcia
did this really great thing of direct address with the audience,
let her rift.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
She was so good. She'd be like, hello, Sylvia, you know.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
And there's this beautiful recording of Sylvia Rivera, who I
think a lot of times we just think of as
an activist.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Sure, but she's.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Talking about seeing Marcia on stage dressed as a queen
from a faraway land and like going after this person
who stole her lover and is just screaming at the
top of the lungs, at the top of her lungs,
and the audience is growing and getting more and more ecstatic,
and Marcia was plugging in the light for so many

(56:04):
people in that moment. So I think that was that
early kind of drag performance work, was plugging in the light.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
For the audience that was growing.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Yeah, I love that you speak in this in this metaphor,
and I that's such a great model for like anyone
would be so lucky to create a space where people
go to plug to plug.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
In exactly, you know what I mean exactly, And I
think that's what culture at its best does, and that's
what your podcast does.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
Like you're both doing it all the time. I was
watching episodes of Game Show.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know what I mean, And you know, like you've
been like, we're all doing it right like, and I
think that's what we're aspiring to do, is like create spaces,
whether it's a podcast or a game show or SNL
or a film, where we're at we're able to plug
in and we're able to leave transformed. We're able to
go from black and white to technical, or we're able
to like go through the portal and experience something incredibly

(56:57):
immersive and then be like I can do that, can
do that, and it doesn't have to stay right here,
I can do it everywhere.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
One of my favorite lines from any piece of art
I've seen I've heard over the past couple of years
is there's this play the Hills of California that's on
Broadway now, and there's this beautiful part where she goes
over to the piano with the character and she says,
you know, talking about music and talking about songs. She's like,
a song is just a place to live for three minutes. Yeah,

(57:25):
And I was just like, that's why music is my escape.
And that connected to everything from when I was younger
about that thing of like walking into this area where
all of a sudden there was something else. It was
just like, I think that that is another reason why
a lot of queer people gravitate towards that does theme park.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
There is a big gay community.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Because I think what I was saying earlier was I
didn't realize it, but I needed a place to be
that wasn't my own head or my own reality, because
there was this thing encroaching, which was you don't belong here.
I don't belong here, you don't belong here. And suddenly
it didn't matter what the rules were in a world
that's fake and immersive. Exact, a song is a place

(58:07):
to live for three minutes. It's like, when I feel
like I want to escape whatever it is, I will
put on a song that it listits to a certain emotion
because in that emotion, it's also changing the reality.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
And you're moving from sometimes a place of despair to
a place of anger, to a place of like, you know, optimism,
to a place of hope, and then to a place
of like positive expectation and knowing that things are going
to be okay.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
And that's the song's power.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Yes, or even if it's not escaping, Yes, I'm angry
and I want to feel this at fifteen out of
ten exactly like yeah, on kinkis Karma by Chapel, Right,
I hate boyfriend, you know what I mean? Like it's
like I need to stop because I'm grieving.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I need I want to party. Saw this song.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
I want to feel like I you know what I'm
saying is it's like it's turning up the volume.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
That's exactly right that emotion. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
I am curious to know, like, yeah, are you done
with New York for good?

Speaker 4 (59:06):
Or are you like totally?

Speaker 3 (59:07):
So I moved to Miami because my partner is an
environmental lawyer, and she is that's where she's working, and
there's so I moved after twenty two years. I was
saying like I hadn't left New York for longer than
three weeks ago. Yeah, I like the time I left
the longest was I was working for de Reese, who

(59:28):
directed Pariah and Bessie and Mudbound, and I was her assistant.
Wow it was a great film, so for Mudbound, and
you know, so I was in Louisiana and that was
a really clarifying experience. And I came back to New York, like,
you know, ready to direct Happy Birthday Marsha Part two.
And I think I'm having a similar powerful experience where

(59:49):
I'm so grateful for the artists and the organizers and
the friends in Miami who are really received me so warmly.
There's so much happening in that city that people organizing
around and are affected by. And also I don't know,
I do feel this is my home, like my mom
lives here and my siblings and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
So you know, this is it's home.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, exactly, it's But I live
in this beautiful neighborhood of Miami called Coconut Grove. It's
like oh, historically Bahamian community. Yeah, and it's so lush
and I feel it in my body, like how much
it makes sense, And there's like hundreds of peacocks walking
around my neighborhood and my cat is so happy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Yeah, yeah, I mean honestly, sometimes I feel like you
just get used to a certain pace of life that
you realize it's unreasonable once you go somewhere else and
just allow yourself to It's like I needed to leave
New York when I did, Yeah, and I was, I
just it's really interesting because I came back. And what
I've been saying to people that are like, oh, why
did you come back, It's like, because the things you

(01:00:56):
didn't like or don't like about New York are all
kinds of things you can change, Like they're all individual.
It's like everywhere else, it's like you're gonna have to
deal with what it is. But New York is a
lot more multifaceted and yeah, much many more experiences. There
are many kinds of lifestyles there than I think I
thought totally, And so I think I needed to go
away and have my shoulders drop to come here and

(01:01:18):
understand how to drop them. In New York City, you know,
you're on guard all the time and ready to go
all the time, and like, you know, got your armor
on and you know, ready to go. But then you
can come back and be like, now that I've like
as an adult lived somewhere else, I can be an
actual adult.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
That's right. Yeah, No, it's that transition moment so unnecessary.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Yeah, truly. Yeah, I did feel in reading the book though,
like everything about my life in New York, it's like
you end, you end with the thank you, you say
thank you, Marsha, and the whole time, even before I
got to the ending, I'm just like, I I owe
everything to this one person who has been in like
my consciousness for as long as I've like read up
on queer history. But I also like I cannot even

(01:01:58):
begin to understand like all the material things about my
life that like wouldn't be possible without her.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Yeah. No, that's why I ended with thank you Marcia.
It felt like, you know, I started learning about Marcia
over twenty years ago, and it's just felt like a gift.
So to know her in a particular kind of like
spiritual sense and to get close to the people who
I named who are still around here right now kind
a physical sense. And so that's the spirit that I

(01:02:28):
hoped to offer through the book. It's like I received
this gift. I would love to share this gift with
everyone and take it how you will. But for me,
it just it felt really important to move through that
spirit of generosity.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Even parted that in such a huge way and like
just down to like my own individual history. And I'd
like Matt's too of like, oh my god, like that downstream.
Was it a sit in or what would you call it?

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Yeah, so they Marsha and Silver, Yeah, they had an
occupation in nineteen seventy September of Weinstein Hall.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
They took it over, right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
They were the street queens living in Washington Square Park
and they were like NYU, New York University is refusing
to have gay dance parties in the heart of this,
you know, haven for queer and trans people.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
That's not okay. We're gonna take it over.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
And it was this really beautiful moment where they were
modeling what they dreamed up in those hourly hotels. They
dreamed up a sense of connection and community. Marsha was
making food. They were, you know, kind of modeling after
the Black Panther Party two where everyone was invited to eat,
and so they were just like creating the world that
they wanted to live in. Sometimes we call that prefiguring

(01:03:41):
the world that we want, right, and they were doing
that kind of prefiguration.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Yeah, and they were in the basement. They're in the basement,
which is where the buffet dining hall was when we
went there. It was where you would go to like
get your hangover omeland. Like the fact that like, yes,
that's where they were living. It all, like it all
like start like a year after Stone while this is
where like this was like the the extension the continuation

(01:04:07):
that was happening, like where like I was like eating
my home fries.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Bitching about the craft of writing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
You know what, wouldn't we wouldn't have gone to it,
like Ny you probably like I think you already right
at time. Like also wasn't really even admitting a lot
of queer students exactly. It's like we're and like we're there.
We're there because of them.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
And also they were doing these incredible like they were
dreaming about things in the basement of n y U
where y'all were hungover about, like access to gender firm
and care. Right, they were literally talking about access to
medical care. They were talking about also for things that
didn't directly affect them, for you know, sist women to
have daycare so they could attend college, for college to

(01:04:50):
be free, for you know, housing. It was really important
for them to dream up because they knew that you
two would come along and be the benef fisheries of
the dream and you need to necessarily do the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
I think you write about this in the book where
it's like their transness was the thing that like was
able to confer like possibility onto like a huge mass
group of people, like the world exactly the literal world,
literal world. I learned so much reading this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, thank you for reading it. I'm engaging in this
space should be on the dollar, and it amazing and
you did incredible work. And I have to imagine that
this was not easy and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
It must years.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Well, I was writing for five years and then before
that it was like fifteen years of research. But it
felt like a gift, Like it honestly felt every time
I learned something new or I met someone who was
grumpy and lived you know, like and who knew Marsha
but lent ended the conversation really joyful.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
All of it. It just felt like all of.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
That is exactly what we were talking about earlier with
like you know, the lack of quote unquote correct recollection.
It's like people are all the things and that is
that is what makes her not just you know, someone
who's a source on stone Wall and that area in

(01:06:11):
that time, but she is that time and it is
it is all those things, and so we're gonna do
I don't think so, honey, But Marsha, Okay, I have something.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
But I don't think so honey.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
And it involves my sister.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Hey you all right, this is oh me, all right,
this is I don't think somebody this is the one
minute segment in which we take one minute to rage
in the culture. Matt Rogers has something, is Matt Rodgers.
I don't think so. Many's time starts now.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
I don't think so honey. Why haven't they got my
girl Bowen Yang at the mcdala.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Oh, my boy should have been at No.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
I want the invitation in the mail for next year.
Already you would have got a suit you tailored Michael
Fisher at m John f scroll through. Look at my
girl slaying every look. You know he's a fashion icon.
What was that photo show you did with the Pikachu backpack?

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
That was on Ryan McGinley for New Yorker.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
That was an award winning photo shoot with award winning
styling and an award winning subject. Why isn't my girl
at the med Gala? I want to see my girl
walking up the steps. I want to see him ignoring
the press. I want to see him in a hat.
I want to see him doing a daring fashion.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
And here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
If Bowie nan inviting, I'm never getting invited.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
And I want to go to the Meddala. I don't understand.
This makes my chances of being.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Invited much less.

Speaker 4 (01:07:42):
A weekend.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
I'll tell you his address. It's that's beautiful. Well, listen,
I kind of preferred this watching from home.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Yeah, but you know what, Just go to the carpet,
get the phone out on the side, don't get in trouble.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Megan the Stallion. Did I've seen Oceans eight? I know
what what's going on inside.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
To go.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
I don't need to go to the Macala. I've seen
ocean that's a lottal culture number sixty. I need to
go to the Medala. I've seen oceans A.

Speaker 4 (01:08:14):
Literally it's shocking.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
I thought you had I just wow, my goodness, but
it doesn't it just make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
I feel like.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
This because it was all about suiting. I mean, what
did you think of the mecal?

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
I thought it was fab.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Yeah, it was really great. It was a great. Yeah great, Yeah, no,
I think that. To quote Marcia, it's like the party
is wherever she goes.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
You're right, the party. The party was at at your
dress last night.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
The party was that was that my I had people
over invited you over? How many people did you have?

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Order?

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
It's just four of us. It's just me, josh oh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Okay, but I was in the weeds moving again, like
you know how it is.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
We talked about it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
But another time we'll hang out. Okay, bohen Yang, do
you have and I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Think I haven't. I don't think so, honey. I love
to hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Okay, this is Bowen Yang's I don't think so, honey.
His time starts now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
I don't think so, honey. Make Time Square dirty, filthy
horny again. Yes, Times Square at Times Square, Blu. This
is why Time Square is so important the city. You
need cross class interaction in every great city. That is
how you engender solidarity. That is how you get people
to work together to solve problems. We can't be silent
in our neighborhoods now, and I especially don't think so. Honey.

(01:09:27):
Another neighborhood, the West Village, being overtaken by these girlies
who are like just doing their silly little tiktoks. Nothing
wrong with that, it's just it cannot be all the
tone of that neighborhood anymore. That is a rich neighborhood
in terms of history and wealth, let's say. But it's
just we need our neighborhoods to retain some of their authenticity.
Times Square being all like eminem Storre McDonald's is funny

(01:09:49):
and ironic, and I think there's a huge opportunity or
to make those spaces fun and crazy and absurd, Like
let's make those like weird, sexy, horny places, you know
what I mean. I catch me cruising at the Olive
Garden at the Madame.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Tusso's, and that's one minute, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Like, when't be fun to just like make Time Square
a little bit like filthier again, bring back, just make
that fun because because we used to work here all
the time, we're down there like by the drop of bookshop,
and I can i can see the bones of when
this was. This had like character to Yes, you can
still feel it, but it's like but otherwise it's like sanitized,

(01:10:28):
and I'm like exactly, like it's still there.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
It's like, yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Can still smell the cum on the wall, A little
old rose.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
There.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
You go.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
All right, so it's yours, it's your turn. Okay, do
you have something? I have a little bit of something.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Okay, let's let's blow it out to a lot of
bit of a something.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
Okay, help me, you know, all right?

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Okay, so this is tomaling. I don't think some money.
Her time starts now, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
I don't think so honey, to this small time dreaming.
We are literally in a moment as the empire is
collapsing in, our economy is dusted, dusting that like, we're
all saying it's time to go after your dreams. There
is no point carving out a small space on a
sinking ship just for our survival. Now is the time
to dream. As big as the problems are. This is

(01:11:19):
how we transform the world.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah, she's a fucking writer, a poet.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
Test said it in less words and more poignantly.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Yeah, I mean something about you saying like big problems
call for inspire big solutions, Like that's tea.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
I really feel that way, you know, like I really
really feel that way.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
And this is the this is the actual time.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
Exactly and you can feel it right like we can
feel this thing not working. It is so clear that
this moment is illuminating. How it's not lasting? Yeah, So
why not, like why not be inspired to think of
a dream that's a little bit bigger than the empire
that's crumbling around it?

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
Totally like, well, what is there to lose?

Speaker 4 (01:12:09):
What is there to lose?

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
Yet?

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Absolutely literally nothing?

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
I mean, Arthene Perks, You've really done something here. I mean,
this is Marcia The Joy and Defiance of Marshall P.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
It is out May twentieth, and you would enrich yourself
to read it. You don't have to be queer, you
don't have to be a New Yorker, you don't have
to be someone that's interested in history. You could be
all those things and more and you would get so
much out of this. It's beautiful work, and we thank
you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
Thank you so much for having me. It really means
a lot, and it means a lot that you read
and engaged the book and shared so much about how
it affected you and your own stories. And I'm just
thinking about Marcia and you in the basement of Weinstein's
time traveling with the two drunk you know, up and
coming girly.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Yea circle we did.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
That's exactly right, Yeah, yeahlations being.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
Every episode of the song. We end every episode of
the song. Don't you know that I heard the great Bye.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
Long Well?

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
You know I'm realisting now? Is that the melody?

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
This is the one marketing I don't I mean, you know,
I used to know it because I used to do
it on the American Idol all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
That's my little white lay and singing.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
Bye ye.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
Last. Culturists is the production by Will Ferrell's Big Money
Players and The Heart Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Podcasts, created and hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yet
executive produced by Anna Hasni and

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Produced by Becker Ramos, edited mixed by Jack bam Manicho
Boord and our music is by Henry Komerski, yahm

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Bowen Yang

Matt Rogers

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