The Sewers of Paris
Revealing stories about the books, movies, tv, music and more that have changed the lives of gay men. Each week, a guest plucks a piece of entertainment from their past, and answers the question: how did it change your life?
Episodes
My guest this week is author Jumata Emill, whose new novel is entitled I Don’t Wish You Well. It’s about a true-crime writer who uncovers a queer coverup in his hometown — based in part on Jumata’s prior work as a real-life crime reporter, before he made the jump to fiction.
I can think of few better ways to spend the holidays than seeing some live queer theater, whether it’s Golden Girls Live, a sing-along to Mame, or shows with some of my local Seattle drag legends like Dina Martina and Scott Shoemaker. And one of the most iconic holiday duos to emerge from the Emerald City is Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme. Every year they create a new ...
My guest this week is Steven Milliken, author of a book of autobiographical essays entitled Late Bloomer Baby Boomer. Steven was a class clown who grew up to become a teacher in some fairly rough schools, and had to move in and out of the closet over the years as he navigated sensitive careers alongside alcoholism and sobriety
My guest this week had his big screen debut alongside Adam Baldwin and Matt Dillon in 1980; made a career getting gays online with PlanetOut in the 90s; and today work for TED Talks, bringing together who are doing, as he describes it, some of the weirdest work in he world. Tom Rielly’s had a lot of jobs, and one of the constants has been figuring out new ways to bring...
For this week’s Sewers of Paris, I’m chatting with four Oz superfans about their intense connections to films like The Wizard of Oz, books like Return to Oz, and adaptations like Wicked. These conversations are all part of my new video about Oz and queer culture that just went live on YouTube — check that out at YouTube.com/mattbaume . In this episode, you’ll hear from...
To mark the recent release of the second Wicked film, for this week’s episode we’re revisiting my 2020 interview with Dee Michel, author of the book Friends of Dorothy: Why Gay Boys and Gay Men Love the Wizard of Oz. Dee’s book is an in-depth examination of queer Oz fandom, which for him has its roots in happy memories of watching the movie with his dad. Dee grew up in...
I am delighted to welcome back a friend of the Sewers, film critic and holiday aficionado, Linoleum Knife’s Alonso Duralde. His book, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, is now out in a revised and updated edition, gathering even more expert recommendations for holiday films to enjoy this season and year-round. We chatted about how Christmas movies have changed sin...
The second of the Wicked films comes out later this month, and so for this week’s episode we’re jumping into the Sewers archives to hear my 2017 chat with Tony winner Stephen Oremus, who was the music director for Wicked on Broadway and conducted the orchestras for the two Wicked films. He was also music director for the Academy Awards, taught Idina Menzel how to sing ...
My guest this week is Trung Le Nguyen, author of the new graphic novel Angelica and the Bear Prince. Trung’s books emerge from his lifelong love of fairy tales, some of them quite dark, and also his fascination with people figuring out how to take care of each other.
My guest this week has been giving a lot of thought lately to what he was born to do. Wellington Love is one of the producers of the new documentary I Was Born This Way, which tells the story of Archbishop Carl Bean. That might not be a household name, but you’re certainly familiar with his work and the people he’s influenced — from his pioneering activism aro...
My guest this week is Jim Farmer, festival director of Atlanta’s Out on Film fest. Jim’s a longtime arts reporter in Atlanta, though he got his start in journalism doing just-the-facts newsgathering — a beat that bored him to tears, until he decided to take the reins and create his own career doing what he loved.
Read more
Now that we’re in October already, it’s a fine time to reflect on the uncanny grasp that horror has in the hearts of so many queer people. So for this week’s episode, we’re heading into the Sewers archives for a chat with director Jeffrey Schwarz, for whom horror is just one small slice of the story. Jeffrey’s made a lifelong study of film, starting with an early job e...
My guest this week is writer Mark Waddell. His novel, Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World, comes out next week on October 7 — a queer story about an office worker whose career advancement involves world-ending consequences. There’s an autobiographical edge to the story, since in his real life Mark had a dream job going back to childhood… and it was only after he ac...
As you may have seen, I have a new video premiering this weekend about the 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman, which features an iconic performance from a then-obscure actor named Raul Julia. Thanks to my research into Raul’s career, I’ve had another of his iconic roles on my mind lately — that of Gomez Addams in the Addams Family films.
My guest this week is David Secter. As a student in the 1960s, David bluffed his way into getting equipment, money, and crew to make a groundbreaking queer film called Winter Kept us Warm. And despite the fact that he went in with zero filmmaking experience, the movie wound up becoming the first English-language Canadian film to screen at Cannes … and went on to inspir...
I’m chatting this week with two guests: TV producer David Moor and historian Dr. Lee Arnott of the delightful podcast The Problematic Gaze — that’s “gaze” as in an intent stare, though they’re the other kind of gays as well. David and Lee both grew up in small towns where it felt like life would never begin, but the lure of London called them to greater, gayer things…a...
My guest this week is the Reverend Joseph Peters-Mathews, the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick Episcopal Church in Lynnwood Washington. Joseph’s path to the clergy took him from the small-town South to New York City, along the way developing a love for musical theater that he puts to work in his sermons … and that inspired him and his husband to propose to each ...
I have two guests on this week’s Sewers of Paris, both of them connected to a secret society of mutants. JP Karliak is the voice of Morph on X-Men ‘97, among many other roles; and Anthony Oliveira is a writer of many Marvel comics, among many other books. I spoke to them both about why the X-Men hold particular importance for them — part of my research for a new video ...
My guest this week is David Duffield, who simultaneously lives in the past, the present, and the future. David’s work as a historian excavates queer histories that had previously been withheld from public view. It’s a project that gives those of us alive today a connection to the lives of people who came before us. And it’s inspired, in part, by David’s connection to v...
My guest this week is Jon Kinnally, author of the new memoir I'm Prancing As Fast As I Can: My Journey From a Self-Loathing Closet Case to a Successful TV Writer With Some Self-Esteem. Jon knew from an early age that he wanted to entertain people, and he got his shot in the ‘90s when, barely making ends meet as a cater-waiter, he landed a dream job writing for a new sh...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.
"SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!