Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network. This interview was taped in front
Speaker 1: of a live studio audience for our very first live show,
Speaker 1: and before we start, I just want to say thank
Speaker 1: you so much to everyone who made the time to come.
Speaker 1: It was awesome to meet every single one of you,
Speaker 1: and I've enjoyed building a relationship with you since we
Speaker 1: started the show. Because of you, we also won the
Speaker 1: Signal Award we were nominated for a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: so thank you again for that support, and thank you
Speaker 1: for writing into the show. I have enjoyed reading every
Speaker 1: single one of your letters telling me what you've overcome
Speaker 1: in your own life. They've touched my heart actually, and
Speaker 1: I want to hear more from you, So follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok and message me there at your
Speaker 1: Underscoregan sol this. You can also email the show at
Speaker 1: butw Looved at gmail dot com. Thank you so much again.
Speaker 2: You watch over the years and you would see aids
Speaker 2: kind of it would creep closer and closer like you.
Speaker 2: Of course, you hear about celebrities, and then in my twenties,
Speaker 2: I remember my best friend in high school calling me
Speaker 2: and telling me that our friend Tim had died, and
Speaker 2: hearing about our high school classmate Jeffrey Lewis who died
Speaker 2: or this, and so, you know, just coming closer and
Speaker 2: closer close friends being HIV positive and so it was
Speaker 2: really important.
Speaker 3: To see for people to see it's not a death sentence.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Patrick ian Polk, often considered
Speaker 1: the father of black gay cinema. We'll learn about how
Speaker 1: he broke ground in making the first show on television
Speaker 1: to center black a Life, how that show got canceled
Speaker 1: at its peak, and how his fan base was forever
Speaker 1: changed because of it. From My Heart Podcast, I'm Jordan
Speaker 1: go and Solves and this is what we loved. When
Speaker 1: I came out at twenty one, I had two best
Speaker 1: friends that were proudly gay, and even though they were
Speaker 1: my age, they mentored me through my coming out. At
Speaker 1: that time, I was shocked at just how confident they were,
Speaker 1: how proud they were to be something that I was
Speaker 1: so ashamed of. I had spent a lifetime trying to
Speaker 1: be anything but gay, fixing my walk, perfecting the timbre
Speaker 1: of my voice, training myself to look away anytime a
Speaker 1: handsome man walked by me. But for these friends, they
Speaker 1: did the opposite. They thought the world should conform to them,
Speaker 1: and for years I wondered why until I asked. Funny enough,
Speaker 1: they didn't know each other, but they both had the
Speaker 1: same answer, Noah's Arc. At first, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: the story from the Bible, But actually it was a
Speaker 1: TV show that came out in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: It was the very first scripted show about black gay men,
Speaker 1: and more than that, it showcased characters that were proudly out,
Speaker 1: proudly living with HIV, and proudly black. Despite it being
Speaker 1: a rating smash, it unexpectedly got canceled, but in the
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years since, new generations of queer people continue
Speaker 1: to find this timeless show over and over again. My
Speaker 1: next guest, Patrick ian Polk, is the creator of Noah's Ark.
Speaker 1: At a time when people in entertainment were losing their careers,
Speaker 1: for coming out. He doubled down. He knew from when
Speaker 1: he was a kid that he was destined to be
Speaker 1: a storyteller. I just want to say thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking time out of your busy weekend to
Speaker 1: come and see our show live. Ladies and gentlemen, please
Speaker 1: welcome our guests for today's live episode of But We
Speaker 1: Loved the Illustrious, the Luminary Patrick Ian Polk. So, Patrick,
Speaker 1: we start out every show pretty much the same way,
Speaker 1: and I think it kind of gives our audience a
Speaker 1: little chance to get to know where you're from and
Speaker 1: how you grew up. So take us to the moment
Speaker 1: where you knew you were.
Speaker 3: Gay, damn right out the box. Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, Probably the first sort of piece of pop culture
Speaker 2: or entertainment that I sort of connected to on a
Speaker 2: on a sort of sexual level was my uncle had
Speaker 2: just hundreds of record albums. I loved music as well,
Speaker 2: and so I would constantly go through and kind of
Speaker 2: pill for records.
Speaker 3: And one of them.
Speaker 2: That I gravitated towards was I was a big fan
Speaker 2: of Prince and I still am. It was the nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine album. On the sleeve that the album was
Speaker 2: in is a photo of Prince. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you know this picture, but it's like a bed with
Speaker 2: purple satin sheets and he's draped laying across the thing,
Speaker 2: you know, butt naked with the sheets kind of wow,
Speaker 2: just at the bottom of his butt cheeks, you know,
Speaker 2: laying you know, laying on his stomach, kind of like
Speaker 2: very sexy.
Speaker 3: And that picture was like, holy cow, wow.
Speaker 2: I just very distinctly remember, and I definitely kept that album.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's sort of the first kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But I always understood at a very young age, I
Speaker 2: don't know when what it was, and I also understood
Speaker 2: inherently that it was not something to share or be
Speaker 2: spoken about.
Speaker 1: You grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: you have a story that sort of epitomizes what it
Speaker 1: was like to grow up as a gay kid in
Speaker 1: a town like that in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 2: Hattisburg, I say, is it's like the Austin of Mississippi, Oka.
Speaker 3: So it's a college.
Speaker 2: It's less than two hours from New Orleans, so it's
Speaker 2: probably would I would argue, the most progressive city in
Speaker 2: the state, but it really was. I think around junior
Speaker 2: high into high school that I met some other you know,
Speaker 2: gay kids. We kind of found each other, or rather,
Speaker 2: this one kind of older gay kid kind of found
Speaker 2: me and just you know, and befriended me. And then
Speaker 2: I remember we were driving home one day. I was
Speaker 2: riding with him, and he was just like and suddenly
Speaker 2: he just pulls into the guy's driveway and said, we're
Speaker 2: just going to his house, and we went to his house.
Speaker 2: And then from that day on we were all kind
Speaker 2: of friends. And then eventually that guy and I became
Speaker 2: like best friends. He's like my best friend in high school.
Speaker 2: And he was a star of the church choir. I
Speaker 2: was not super religious because I was raised very very
Speaker 2: very permanent mom and so I was allowed to kind
Speaker 2: of explore. I could do what I wanted in terms
Speaker 2: of religion. But he was very much Baptist. Would travel
Speaker 2: all over the States, singing at churches and stuff, and
Speaker 2: he would be dating men in the church like pastors
Speaker 2: and deacons and this and that. And it was just
Speaker 2: amazing to me to see kind of this happening. And
Speaker 2: there were certainly examples of those kids who just either
Speaker 2: completely cannot hide or choose not to hide, and so
Speaker 2: you would kind of see those kids and you'd be
Speaker 2: kind of terrified for them and at the same time
Speaker 2: terrified that people would maybe identify you with that, But
Speaker 2: at the same time, there was kind of a quiet
Speaker 2: reverence and appreciation because they were the ones that.
Speaker 3: Were kind of like on the front lines.
Speaker 2: I remember there was a kid in my neighborhood who
Speaker 2: rode the same bus and his nickname was Miscotton Candy
Speaker 2: and I couldn't even tell you what his real name was,
Speaker 2: that was what people called him.
Speaker 3: And he was.
Speaker 2: Extremely, extremely flamboyant, and I would watch him and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, people would come for him and he would
Speaker 2: let them have it, and it was very bold, and
Speaker 2: so there was this sort of like respect that he commanded,
Speaker 2: and people kind of learned not to don't come for him,
Speaker 2: and if he was stupid enough to come for him,
Speaker 2: he would really lay into them, like a superhero kind
Speaker 2: of thing, and you kind of think, like, maybe one
Speaker 2: day I can be like that.
Speaker 1: Well, so fast forwarding a little bit now to the
Speaker 1: late nineties, and you've graduated from USC as a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: You're out and you write the precursor to Noah's Ark,
Speaker 1: which is punks, anyone in your herd of bunks, and
Speaker 1: you premiere it at Sundance. And this is at a
Speaker 1: time in America where people's careers are ending because of
Speaker 1: coming out in the entertainment in the stroom, thinking about
Speaker 1: Ellen DeGeneres at that time, and I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: this is all happening at the same time, what was
Speaker 1: driving you to create a film knowing that these themes
Speaker 1: might end your career before it could even begin.
Speaker 2: So when I left Mississippi, graduated high school, and I
Speaker 2: always knew I would go I was going to go
Speaker 2: away to college, like outside of the South, and I
Speaker 2: got a full scholarship to Brandeis University in Boston. And
Speaker 2: I got on the plane in Jackson and as the
Speaker 2: plane took off and I looked out and watched, you know,
Speaker 2: Jackson kind of getting smaller and smaller. I said, very
Speaker 2: clearly to myself, when you step off this plane, every
Speaker 2: person that you meet from this day fourth will know
Speaker 2: that you are gay.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Why that came to my mind, but that that was
Speaker 2: the thing. It was like, this is what it's going
Speaker 2: to be. And then that's what I did. I went
Speaker 2: to college. I was out. I remember going to the
Speaker 2: bookstore Harvard Harvard Square, the co Op, and there was
Speaker 2: a whole section. I remember marveling, like, Wow, there's a
Speaker 2: whole sort of section of these are all gay books.
Speaker 2: And there was one book that I could see on
Speaker 2: the spine had an illustration of brown skin, and I
Speaker 2: grabbed that book. And that book was Blackbird by Larry Duplachan.
Speaker 2: And it's this amazing coming of age story set in
Speaker 2: the seventies, this gay black boy and he sings in
Speaker 2: the choir and it's just beautifully written. If you haven't
Speaker 2: read the book, I highly recommend it if you, it's
Speaker 2: it's amazing. And so as I was kind of studying
Speaker 2: film and learning to teaching myself to write, I adapted
Speaker 2: that book as sort of an exercise. I mean, I
Speaker 2: love the story, and I thought, oh, this would be
Speaker 2: great to do as a movie, but I don't know
Speaker 2: that I thought it would really happen. So I think
Speaker 2: I looked at it as more of an exercise. I
Speaker 2: wrote that script. Script was good. Fast forward. I'm in
Speaker 2: LA I've done film school at USC. Right out of
Speaker 2: film school, I kind of fell into a job as
Speaker 2: an executive a junior executive at MTV Films. I'm in
Speaker 2: the industry. I'm on the inside. I'm learning how movies
Speaker 2: get made. Studio system. So I'd written Blackbird, had gotten
Speaker 2: some good notices, had a couple of agents interested, whatever,
Speaker 2: but I knew again, no one's going to make this
Speaker 2: black gay high school story.
Speaker 3: In the nineties, so.
Speaker 2: I met a black gay British writer director named Ricky
Speaker 2: beatle Blair who wrote a movie called Stonewall, the original Stonewall.
Speaker 3: So Ricky had.
Speaker 2: Come in to meet with us because Stonewall had come
Speaker 2: out and in the film festivals, and my boss had
Speaker 2: seen it and invited and was like, this amazing guy
Speaker 2: is coming from London, you know. And he walked in.
Speaker 2: If you've ever seen him, he's just long blonde dreadlocks,
Speaker 2: and he had on these tight suede sort of Native
Speaker 2: American types, fringe down the side, spaghetti strapped top, you know,
Speaker 2: just completely out and you know whatever. We became fast friends,
Speaker 2: and he became sort of a big brother and like
Speaker 2: an artistic mentor. And I asked him, I said, so,
Speaker 2: you know, I've written this Blackbird script. It's gotten some
Speaker 2: good notices, people like it. No one's going to make
Speaker 2: this thing. I'm trying to decide what to write next.
Speaker 3: What do you think? What do you think I should write?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking I need to write something that's going to
Speaker 2: sell like and he said very simply, and I've kind
Speaker 2: of lived by this. He said, write the story that
Speaker 2: only you can tell. And so I think that straight away,
Speaker 2: Like that week, I started and I wrote the script
Speaker 2: for Punks in like eight days, and then.
Speaker 3: I didn't really do much with it.
Speaker 2: I was working, we were making movies, and I got
Speaker 2: hired by Babyface and Tracy Edmunds to come and work
Speaker 2: at their film company. And while I was working there,
Speaker 2: by this time, I'm like, okay, you're it's just like
Speaker 2: ninety six, ninety six ish. I've been in La now
Speaker 2: four or five years going on, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're getting You're getting farther and farther away from your
Speaker 2: goal of being a filmmaker. So if you take this
Speaker 2: job working for Babyface, you have to The deal I
Speaker 2: made with myself was that I would start making films.
Speaker 2: So we had a holiday coming up, and I had
Speaker 2: started raising money and my old boss at MTV gave
Speaker 2: me some money. Another friend of mine who came from
Speaker 2: a wealthy Hollywood family, gave me a little bit of money,
Speaker 2: and I was asking Babyface and his wife to give
Speaker 2: me the rest of the money so I could do
Speaker 2: this short. And we had this meeting like they were
Speaker 2: getting ready to go on a tour of Greece for
Speaker 2: their Thanksgiving holiday, and we had a little project meeting
Speaker 2: and go over everything, and one of the things on
Speaker 2: the agenda was me presenting this idea because what I
Speaker 2: did was I was going to do a short version
Speaker 2: of Punks. So I kind of boiled this story down
Speaker 2: into the base, the little basic, and I pitched it
Speaker 2: to them. I told them what I needed. It was
Speaker 2: like twenty thousand and oven something and I pisched the
Speaker 2: idea to them and they said, well. They kind of
Speaker 2: looked at each other and they said, well, I mean
Speaker 2: the idea sounds cool. Why do the short as opposed
Speaker 2: to doing the feature because any was based on the feature.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, because I don't have the money
Speaker 2: to do a feature. So and then they were like, well,
Speaker 2: I mean the story's kind of I mean it sounds good,
Speaker 2: like right, well, I mean we prefer to just do
Speaker 2: the feature. And I was like, I mean, okay, sure,
Speaker 2: that's fun. So I gave them the script, and I
Speaker 2: fully expected they're going to come back and be like,
Speaker 2: there's no way we can make this movie. And to
Speaker 2: the contrary, they came back from this sort of yacht
Speaker 2: tour around the Greece islands and their entire family everyone
Speaker 2: had the script, the brother, the mother, the grandmother, the dah.
Speaker 3: Dah dah, and they just loved it.
Speaker 2: They thought it was so funny and they were excited
Speaker 2: and we were off and running and so yeah, so
Speaker 2: they paid for they paid for the movie, produced it,
Speaker 2: and we made it, and you know, it did what
Speaker 2: it did. Obviously, it did incredibly well in New York
Speaker 2: and Atlanta, Atlanta and d C. And it was at
Speaker 2: the Quad here, it's like a legendary independent movie theater.
Speaker 2: So the movie played there. Literally the lines were around
Speaker 2: the entire city block to see that film. And so
Speaker 2: it did really well in these five or six like
Speaker 2: you know, we're black, gay cities. We got into Sundance,
Speaker 2: which back then in two thousand was a huge deal,
Speaker 2: much bigger than it is even now. And then, of course,
Speaker 2: you know, expecting maybe doors to open and things to happen,
Speaker 2: and they did not. You know, none of the studios
Speaker 2: or any any Hollywood people wanted to buy the film
Speaker 2: or distribute the film. And we had you know, Baby
Speaker 2: Faith and Tracy Edmonds, we had William Morris our agents.
Speaker 2: But you know, this black gay film. Nobody was biting.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Patrick makes Noah's Ark. In two thousand,
Speaker 1: Patrick premiered his first feature film, Punks, at Sundance. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the success that he had hoped for, but he
Speaker 1: discovered that there was a huge audience for his work.
Speaker 1: A few years later, he was inspired to build on
Speaker 1: that and create Noah's Ark. In two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: Noah's Arc premiered on Logo TV, a subsidiary of MTV Networks. Immediately,
Speaker 1: the show was a massive success. Fans likened it to
Speaker 1: their own version of Sex and the City trade gay
Speaker 1: black life in a refreshing way, characters that were quirky
Speaker 1: and intellectual and sexy. But Patrick didn't originally set out
Speaker 1: to be groundbreaking. He just wanted to make a show
Speaker 1: that reflected his own life. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you Patrick about Noah's Ark. Now, so not many people
Speaker 1: may know this, but Noah's Ark was pretty difficult for
Speaker 1: you to get produced, but you were going to make
Speaker 1: it into a web series, it was going to be
Speaker 1: a DVD show. Take me back to those hustle years.
Speaker 1: What was it like trying to get this show produced?
Speaker 1: And was there a point where you almost gave up
Speaker 1: on getting it produced? And what was it like to
Speaker 1: kind of overcome that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I don't know, it's interesting to hear
Speaker 2: you say that ask the question that way, because I
Speaker 2: don't really I don't think it was difficult to get
Speaker 2: it produced at all. Really, Well, here's the thing, so
Speaker 2: I take it all the way back to being a
Speaker 2: child and sort of like having a young mother who
Speaker 2: she was twenty one when she had me. I was
Speaker 2: just never really told no. So when I came home
Speaker 2: at like first grade, and I wanted to play the
Speaker 2: cello because you know, my little white best friend who's
Speaker 2: her father was a doctor, she played the cello and
Speaker 2: every Tuesday and Thursday she would go off to music
Speaker 2: class and I would be like, what's that you know?
Speaker 2: And she didn't say as I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 2: parents would be like, boy, what the.
Speaker 3: Fuck are you talking about? If you don't go outside
Speaker 3: and play in that yard? Or whatever. We went to
Speaker 3: the music store and got a cello.
Speaker 2: And so I was raised with this sort of idea
Speaker 2: that I could do what I set my mind to do.
Speaker 2: And so with Noah's ark, I'd done Punks. So it's
Speaker 2: like I certainly knew there's an audience for this stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, my goal really was just to see myself
Speaker 2: on screen, or see my friends on screen, or to
Speaker 2: see black gay stories. I wanted to see myself represented.
Speaker 2: And so after Punks and and it kind of didn't
Speaker 2: break down doors for me, I decided that would be
Speaker 2: my jumping point. I'm gonna leave my job. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go do this full time. So right out the gate,
Speaker 2: I sold a T show idea to MTV, the network.
Speaker 2: It was a college show. I had written this college
Speaker 2: this feature script set in college, based very loosely on
Speaker 2: my experiences at Brandice, and they decided not to make.
Speaker 3: It, and I was just kind of like, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: what am I gonna do?
Speaker 2: So I'd gone to Phil Wilson had started this organization
Speaker 2: called the Black Aids Institute, and they had this summit
Speaker 2: where they invited blacka men from all different disciplines medicine, entertainment, media, journalism,
Speaker 2: whatever business to come and think tank for a weekend
Speaker 2: at a hotel in Beverly Hills about ways that we
Speaker 2: could from in our es help them in the battle
Speaker 2: against HIV. In the Black A community, there's a kickoff
Speaker 2: party boor Trade at the l Ray Theater on Most Boulevard,
Speaker 2: And if you've been in the l Ray, it's got
Speaker 2: a sunken danceler in the middle.
Speaker 3: So I'm kind of standing and I'm seeing this whole
Speaker 3: crowd of black, gay and lesbian people.
Speaker 2: And as I'm standing there, the thought hit me and
Speaker 2: I said to myself very clearly, I'm going to.
Speaker 3: Make a show about these people.
Speaker 2: Like it's just to me, like, Okay, these people are
Speaker 2: coming from all over the country. They're buying plane tickets
Speaker 2: and hotel rooms, are renting cars, and there's a market
Speaker 2: here that no one's making programming aimed at this group
Speaker 2: at us.
Speaker 3: So I said to myself, I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to do a show Black A sex in the city,
Speaker 2: and I'm not gonna pitch it to Hollywood because no
Speaker 2: one's going to make this. I'm just gonna make it,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to figure out how to make it.
Speaker 2: And then I'm going to bring it directly to the
Speaker 2: community and they can buy DVDs and that's how we'll
Speaker 2: do it. So yeah, so just started doing it. I
Speaker 2: Rodney Chester, who plays Alex, who had been in Punks.
Speaker 3: I was a friend of mine by this point.
Speaker 2: He worked at a dance agency and so he said,
Speaker 2: we can use our offices on the weekend. So we
Speaker 2: had the casting in the offices, like over one hundred actors.
Speaker 2: I think, and mind you, this is the time when
Speaker 2: mainstream actors is nobody's trying to play gay any even
Speaker 2: gay actors who are working in Hollywood are certainly not
Speaker 2: trying to play gay. So it was a lot of
Speaker 2: newer actors whatever whatever, we had these we saw all
Speaker 2: these people. I cast it. We shot this six minutes
Speaker 2: short with no money. You know, again favors from people.
Speaker 2: Oh we can shoot in this store. Rodney's friend owned
Speaker 2: the store on Melrose. We shot in there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was all these different just the streets and doing it.
Speaker 2: Shot the thing, put it on the internet Gangbusters. The
Speaker 2: site kept getting shut down. I had to keep buying
Speaker 2: more bandwidth because it was being watched that much.
Speaker 3: You could see where it was being watched right in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: And it was literally all over the world. It would
Speaker 2: be like military bases all over the world if people
Speaker 2: were watching it. Wow, And so I knew, okay, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well there's definitely a market for this, Like, there's clearly
Speaker 2: a market out there, So full steam ahead. Then I decided, okay,
Speaker 2: now I need some money. So, thinking back to that summit,
Speaker 2: I went to Black As Institute, where I first got
Speaker 2: this idea that oh, there's.
Speaker 3: A whole community of black gay men who.
Speaker 2: Are successful, who were like doctors and lawyers and Wall
Speaker 2: Street people and all this stuff, and they have money
Speaker 2: and they are all fans of punks. They told me so.
Speaker 2: So I wrote to all of those people and some
Speaker 2: other people that I knew, and eighteen eighteen people I
Speaker 2: raised you knowsd dollars.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So thousands of people saw this, and at this point
Speaker 2: then we started getting press. And then I got a
Speaker 2: call that oh, MTV is launching this game and lets
Speaker 2: me a network called Logo and we want to meet
Speaker 2: with you. I went into a meeting with the president
Speaker 2: and she explained to me that new network smaller budgets.
Speaker 2: We don't have the money to develop scripted television but
Speaker 2: you've already developed it, You've made the pilot.
Speaker 3: We want to do the show. So I said, okay.
Speaker 2: So the next thing I knew this thing that I
Speaker 2: never intended to be on TV. I always thought, this
Speaker 2: is not going to be on TV. No one's going
Speaker 2: to do it. It's going to be done this way.
Speaker 2: So then next thing I knew, we were shooting it
Speaker 2: the series in La.
Speaker 1: So, you know, talking about Nozarc, one of the things
Speaker 1: that struck me so much is how you approach the
Speaker 1: topic of shame. It's interesting because when you think about
Speaker 1: the characters, they're not ashamed of themselves, the ones that
Speaker 1: are living with HIV, the homophobic violence that happens in
Speaker 1: the show. Noah is not ashamed of his sexuality. It's
Speaker 1: clear that the way you write the show is that
Speaker 1: we as the audience, understand it's everyone else that's ashamed,
Speaker 1: it's not these characters. And I wonder how did you
Speaker 1: develop that approach, What made you want to take that approach,
Speaker 1: because that was a pretty bold approach for these very
Speaker 1: stigmatized identities in the early two thousands.
Speaker 3: So when I was out of film school and you
Speaker 3: were in.
Speaker 2: LA, I met a guy in Mickey's and you know,
Speaker 2: and I would go. I was very young, I was
Speaker 2: I was very shy. I was kind of a I
Speaker 2: wasn't a late bloomer. I wouldn't call it late bloomer.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you really know me, then you know
Speaker 2: that I'm an introvert and you know that I'm not
Speaker 2: the life of the party in a big crowd. But
Speaker 2: I would go because again, I'm you know, I'm gay,
Speaker 2: and it's interesting and I want to kind of you know,
Speaker 2: this is the.
Speaker 3: Community, this is what you do.
Speaker 2: So I would go and I just kind of would
Speaker 2: watch people, and I kind of be in the corner
Speaker 2: and this guy who was kind of tall and very
Speaker 2: very dark skinned.
Speaker 3: Gorgeous, like model beautiful body.
Speaker 2: He I think he just kind of came up to
Speaker 2: me and was like and just engaged me because he
Speaker 2: saw me standing alone, and you know, and he was
Speaker 2: from Tennessee, He's from Memphis, and so we just became
Speaker 2: fast friends. And I think he would I know, I think,
Speaker 2: I know, I come. I certainly came to find out
Speaker 2: that he was certainly used to picking up guys left
Speaker 2: and right because he had that you know who he
Speaker 2: looked like Jaimund Hunt Sue and the Janet Jackson leve
Speaker 2: will never do without your video. That's what he looked like. Literally,
Speaker 2: he looked like that, and so he was constantly picking
Speaker 2: up picking up people. But we we it was friends
Speaker 2: from the beginning, and eventually we became roommates and I
Speaker 2: lived with him in a house in West Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: I was with him through the entire experience of getting sick,
Speaker 2: being told he's HIV positive, dealing with getting on the medications,
Speaker 2: with all the different side effects from the medications and everything.
Speaker 2: And I saw him go through this process of coming
Speaker 2: to terms with it and activating to this new way
Speaker 2: of living. And then at the same time, he's continuing
Speaker 2: his sex life and continuing to have just as robust
Speaker 2: a sex life as ever. And all we saw about
Speaker 2: HIV was death and sadness, and it was a it
Speaker 2: was a death sentence. And I literally witnessed someone just
Speaker 2: actively living and thriving with the disease. So I really
Speaker 2: wanted to represent that. I wanted to see that. I
Speaker 2: knew it was important to see that. You watch over
Speaker 2: the years and you would see aids kind of it
Speaker 2: would creep closer and closer like you of course, you
Speaker 2: hear about celebrities, and then in my twenties, I remember
Speaker 2: my best friend in high school calling me and telling
Speaker 2: me that our friend Tim had died, and hearing about
Speaker 2: our high school classmate Jeffrey Lewis who died or this,
Speaker 2: and so, you know, just coming closer and closer close
Speaker 2: friends being HIV positive, and so it was really important
Speaker 2: to see for people to see it's not a death sentence,
Speaker 2: because again, what I wanted to show was what I knew,
Speaker 2: the people that I knew. Chance in Noah's Ark is
Speaker 2: very loosely based on my best friend from college, who
Speaker 2: is a professor teaches at a wonderful university political science
Speaker 2: and is very kind of a bit straight laced and everything,
Speaker 2: and I never saw him on TV or in a film,
Speaker 2: and so it was really about showing these people that existed,
Speaker 2: that were real.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, Noah's Arc became the highest
Speaker 1: rated show on its network, but unexpectedly it got canceled.
Speaker 1: Logo decided to go in a different direction, and fans
Speaker 1: were devastated because the season left off on a major cliffhanger.
Speaker 1: But Patrick was able to get a movie deal a
Speaker 1: few years later that picked up where the series left off.
Speaker 1: It's been nearly twenty years since Noah's Ark has been
Speaker 1: off the air, but fans have continued to push for
Speaker 1: it to come back, and this year it was announced
Speaker 1: that the show will return in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: You know, when the show was canceled, they commissioned a
Speaker 2: movie and then and then when that sort of outperformed
Speaker 2: overperformed expectations, they then commissioned a spin off. So it
Speaker 2: was sort of like Frasier to Cheers where and I
Speaker 2: wrote a script where no n Way moved to New York.
Speaker 2: And then by the time I finished developing that, they
Speaker 2: decided they weren't going to do scripted. Logo was getting
Speaker 2: completely out of the scripted game at that point, and
Speaker 2: so that didn't go anywhere, and I was completely disillusioned
Speaker 2: again with like a Hollywood and the pandemic happened.
Speaker 3: And then someone who had worked who had been.
Speaker 2: Our big high up exec at Logo, he was the
Speaker 2: number two at Logo, had reached out to me and said, oh,
Speaker 2: what do you think about doing something a little Noah's
Speaker 2: Ark reunion or something, you know, zoom skyping. And I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, sure, But then I got to thinking
Speaker 2: about it, and very quickly I was like, no, we're
Speaker 2: not doing that.
Speaker 3: We're going to do you know, Noah's arc.
Speaker 2: So we're going So I wrote a whole script for
Speaker 2: the Pandemic where you know, we caught up with all
Speaker 2: the characters and we see what they're up to, and
Speaker 2: everybody was down to film it, you know. So we
Speaker 2: made we shot the Rona Chronicles and it turned out
Speaker 2: really really well. I mean we've seen it. It's like
Speaker 2: an episode of it's like a full on episode. And
Speaker 2: that had like the first night, I think it was
Speaker 2: over half a million viewers on the first night, and
Speaker 2: that was like better than that's better than cable TV viewers,
Speaker 2: you know, So I think that.
Speaker 3: Was probably a factor.
Speaker 2: But basically they reached out to me a few years
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago and said we want to
Speaker 2: commission something, and I said, okay, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So last question, Patrick, you have really spent
Speaker 1: your entire career making content and media that is dedicated
Speaker 1: to centering black and brown queer stories, and you know,
Speaker 1: even when there's been fallout and loss for you from that,
Speaker 1: and I wonder what has kept you so faithful to
Speaker 1: that commitment all these years.
Speaker 2: I think there's certainly things I could have done that
Speaker 2: would have been more lucrative or mainstream. I don't know,
Speaker 2: because I look back and think, God, maybe he was
Speaker 2: kind of a bit of an idiot, and maybe you
Speaker 2: should have done fucking, you know, a procedural or something else.
Speaker 2: You know, But that's just not the kind of artist
Speaker 2: that I have been or who I was. It was
Speaker 2: just what I would, you know. I just did what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. I told the stories that I
Speaker 2: wanted to tell, and I was kind of lucky enough
Speaker 2: that Noah is our hit big enough that it afforded
Speaker 2: me the opportunity to kind of continue working. Obviously, blazing
Speaker 2: trails is difficult work and it's often thankless. Often the
Speaker 2: ones who blaze the trails don't really get to enjoy
Speaker 2: the fruits of that labor, just because it's just kind
Speaker 2: of just not how it works. It's beat you down,
Speaker 2: it takes its toll, and you're lucky to come out
Speaker 2: the other side of it.
Speaker 1: For Patrick, he simply created a show that reflected his
Speaker 1: own life, but for many people across America and the world,
Speaker 1: he told a story that people saw themselves in for
Speaker 1: the very first time with three dimensional characters that defied
Speaker 1: tropes and stereotypes. For fans, he validated their friendships, their dreams,
Speaker 1: and their love.
Speaker 2: Certainly, I've enjoyed hearing over the years from all of
Speaker 2: the people who tell me that the work has somehow
Speaker 2: influenced them or moved them, or saved them, or helped
Speaker 2: them come out, or help them help their parents come
Speaker 2: to terms with their sexuality. The scores of people that
Speaker 2: have told me they literally were hiding in the closet
Speaker 2: watching the little TV or standing by with their finger
Speaker 2: on the last channel remote button, you know, in case
Speaker 2: someone walked in. Like I've heard those over and over
Speaker 2: and over and over, and even as young people continue
Speaker 2: to discover the series. So I certainly understand and have
Speaker 2: a sense of how important the work is to a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the community. And so, you know,
Speaker 2: it means it means a great deal to me to
Speaker 2: have the work appreciated like that, And in many ways
Speaker 2: it is the thing that that has kind of fueled
Speaker 2: me and kept me going in those times when maybe
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't as easy, and so yeah, it's
Speaker 2: always kind of reminded me of just how important. The
Speaker 2: work is And I remember when I was working at
Speaker 2: MTV in my early twenties. I remember it was around
Speaker 2: the same time. I think I was trying to decide
Speaker 2: what to write before I wrote Punks, So it was
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2: I remember saying to myself and someone that you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of at the end of what I
Speaker 2: hope will be a long, storied career as a filmaker, like,
Speaker 2: what do you want to look back on? And looking back,
Speaker 2: I think the fact that twenty almost twenty five years later,
Speaker 2: people are still talking about Punks, people are still talking
Speaker 2: about Noah's Ark.
Speaker 1: You know that?
Speaker 2: Again, it lets me know that this is important. The
Speaker 2: work is important, the work is lasting, the work has
Speaker 2: made a significant impact, and for that I am very grateful,
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 1: What We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us but We Loved at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com, or send us a message on Instagram
Speaker 1: or TikTok at but we Loved. We are a production
Speaker 1: of the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We
Speaker 1: Loved was originally developed with pushin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Bone
Speaker 1: special thanks to Jay Bronson and rockl Willis. If you
Speaker 1: loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.