Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
Speaker 2: your weekly podcast in which your host is very excited
Speaker 2: and happy because she thought that she was out of snacks.
Speaker 2: But then she went and she put a stool next
Speaker 2: to the cabinet and looked at the top, at the
Speaker 2: back of the top cabinet and found a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of protein bars that were just passed where my arm
Speaker 2: can reach.
Speaker 1: So I didn't think it take you to get desirable
Speaker 1: snacks these days, Like what's the You have to like
Speaker 1: plant it out in your week.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, this is a thing. I live early enough
Speaker 2: that shipping takes often about a week for anything I
Speaker 2: order online and then a lot of the stuff around me,
Speaker 2: if they don't sell it at Walmart, I probably can't
Speaker 2: get it, so I thought. I.
Speaker 3: But I will say, you don't have to live in
Speaker 3: a rural area. You just have to live with a
Speaker 3: tall man who likes butterfingers or whatever, because he will Matt,
Speaker 3: my husband will hide all of the snacks like out
Speaker 3: of my reach. Literally, there's like so much. There's a
Speaker 3: wonderland of like bad snacks that like a child would eat,
Speaker 3: like nerds ropes. Yeah, that are the top shelf, and
Speaker 3: I like, haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: We are getting you a step stool.
Speaker 3: A fucking kitchen. Yeah, I don't even want to know
Speaker 3: what's up there. I really don't.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I just befriend tall women.
Speaker 2: I even identify as a tall woman.
Speaker 3: You are a tall woman, but you needed a stool
Speaker 3: to get the snacks.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing is, I think I'm tall enough
Speaker 2: that I don't need a stool. When I finally I
Speaker 2: got a stool for other people so when people come
Speaker 2: over they can like get the stuff out of my cabinets.
Speaker 2: And then I left it in my kitchen after one
Speaker 2: of my friends left, and I was like, this is
Speaker 2: so nice. You know that the cabinet that goes above
Speaker 2: the fridge, that's like where you put stuff to die.
Speaker 2: You know that you are never ever going to think about, You're.
Speaker 3: Never gonna find you never get it.
Speaker 1: I just can't use it.
Speaker 2: Now thanks to the wonder of the step stool.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: See, for me, I've realized I am the only short
Speaker 1: person that I am friends with all of my friends.
Speaker 2: That's actually you have a lot of friends of all
Speaker 2: genders who are very tall.
Speaker 1: I have all I am I am inclusive with my
Speaker 1: tall friends. They're they're all tall, and I look like
Speaker 1: their child.
Speaker 3: They're just all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1: But I never have to worry about somebody reaching things
Speaker 1: for me because one of them is always around. And
Speaker 1: then I get to go, hey, can you do that thing?
Speaker 1: And they you know everything we talked about, the thing
Speaker 1: we talked about, and then they get something down for me,
Speaker 1: and then I watch and it's fun.
Speaker 2: And this podcast is based on the idea that you
Speaker 2: already listened to part one, so you know who's talking,
Speaker 2: but in case you don't, I'm Margaret Kiljoy. Guests here
Speaker 2: is Francesca Fiorentini Hi, and producer is Sophie Lichterman. Our
Speaker 2: audio engineer who's not here is Danel High. Daniel soub Sophie.
Speaker 1: Oh, Danel Hi, buddy, I love you.
Speaker 2: It's at the point I think I've mentioned this before.
Speaker 2: It's at the point where now I like, if everyone
Speaker 2: doesn't say Hi, Daniel, I get like it's confused and
Speaker 2: everything's going to be terrible. But our theme music was
Speaker 2: written for us by un woman. Yeah, and our heroes
Speaker 2: of today are act up and they we did the
Speaker 2: we did the like big picture a little bit on
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff they did on Monday, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get in some of the more of the
Speaker 2: specifics because they're really fun. One of the most famous
Speaker 2: actions was against the Catholic Church. Act UP was working
Speaker 2: to distribute condoms and schools and the Church was trying
Speaker 2: to stop them. And now you might be thinking, why
Speaker 2: would the Catholic Church have anything to say about what
Speaker 2: happens in public schools? And you would be right to
Speaker 2: think that, because they shouldn't have any say in what
Speaker 2: happens in public schools, right, No reason why they should keep.
Speaker 3: All that shit on your in your own lane, yeah,
Speaker 3: trying to get public funds for it.
Speaker 2: Still, I did read this analysis that basically claims, and
Speaker 2: I only found it in like one kind of anecdotal source,
Speaker 2: that the Catholic Church in New York City had an
Speaker 2: incredible amount of power before act UP and that act
Speaker 2: Up in these actions and basically how the Catholic Church
Speaker 2: behaved during AIDS crisis. And I'm going again, I'm going
Speaker 2: to say the Catholic Church, not Catholics, but the Catholic
Speaker 2: Church acted so badly that it has less political power
Speaker 2: in New York than it used to is one thing
Speaker 2: I read. But that was a very offhanded statement that
Speaker 2: I read.
Speaker 3: Why what did the Catholic Church ever do? Name?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one bad thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it came that the Pope kind of keeps uh
Speaker 1: san slurs and yeah.
Speaker 3: But that's because it's Pride month. He's trying to be
Speaker 3: down with the lingo.
Speaker 2: I just of all people to like forcibly out, that
Speaker 2: would be the fun one.
Speaker 3: He kind of wants to. Yeah, yeah, either forcibly outing him,
Speaker 3: I think he wants to forcibly out others.
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate the fact that he makes Biden
Speaker 1: look young. There you go, look at the positive said
Speaker 1: at least there's one person who's older than Biden.
Speaker 2: However, better position on Palestine than Biden exactly.
Speaker 3: Even even the Pope knows you shouldn't murder children.
Speaker 1: So you're like if you're like, oh my god, Biden's
Speaker 1: so old, and it's like, have you seen the Pope.
Speaker 3: He's just out here slurring. He's so old. He just
Speaker 3: simply cannot Yeah, he's slurring his words and then using slurs. Yeah, both,
Speaker 3: that's a great combination.
Speaker 2: And yet sorry, no, it's okay.
Speaker 1: I can't stop bringing up the Pope in conversations with
Speaker 1: people this week, because.
Speaker 2: I find I find it so fascinating because he's like,
Speaker 2: I know, and I'm like, and I I don't mind
Speaker 2: that I've been called an abomination or whatever. But it's
Speaker 2: also like kind of fun to have the Pope that
Speaker 2: pisses off all of the new converts to Catholicism from
Speaker 2: the right wing, because there's this whole like tradcast thing
Speaker 2: where people are like Protestants who are like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be Catholic because it's somehow more right wing, and
Speaker 2: then they join and they're like, what are all these
Speaker 2: people of color doing here? Why is the mass? In Spanish,
Speaker 2: You're like, do you know what the word Catholic means?
Speaker 2: It means universal, which has some problems like colonization problems
Speaker 2: behind the idea of believing that your faith is universal
Speaker 2: and should applied to everyone. But it also isn't nationalist. Okay,
Speaker 2: who would you rather get.
Speaker 1: A drink with Joe Biden or the Pope?
Speaker 4: It's the Pope. The Pope every time, every single time.
Speaker 4: Who knows what he's gonna like, what's gonna come out
Speaker 4: of his mouth? He's gonna have up so many people.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have He's gonna come up with a slur
Speaker 1: that none of us even heard of from the old times.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be sur Is against me and that sounds fun.
Speaker 2: So anyway, Act Up. A lot of the analysis around
Speaker 2: act UP that I read has to do with like
Speaker 2: people talking about the Catholics and the Jews and the
Speaker 2: Protestants within act Up and how people would behave, you know,
Speaker 2: in different situations. And so the Catholics and the Jews
Speaker 2: were like, fuck, yeah, let's go after the Catholic Church,
Speaker 2: and the Protestants were a little bit more like, oh,
Speaker 2: we should be careful around that. People will accuse us
Speaker 2: of being an anti Catholic organization, whereas like quite understandable,
Speaker 2: and whereas all the Catholics are like, oh, we don't
Speaker 2: care if we get accused of that, that's us who cares.
Speaker 3: Well. The Catholics have a more I mean, there seems
Speaker 3: to be more of a radical tradition. I mean, we
Speaker 3: talked about Daniel bar again the last time I was
Speaker 3: on oh yeah, one of the totes I was on
Speaker 3: a couple times ago, and it was just like the
Speaker 3: Catholic Church, Catholic workers are more of a like, yeah,
Speaker 3: working class radical tradition. I mean, I'm not saying it
Speaker 3: doesn't exist in the Protestant Church, but like it's not
Speaker 3: a movement you can really point to.
Speaker 2: Right and if so, it's like a whole nomination like
Speaker 2: Quakers or something it exactly, rather than like mainline Protestantism
Speaker 2: or whatever. So most of the people are like, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to do this big die in at Saint
Speaker 2: Patrick's Cathedral and so on December tenth, because that basically
Speaker 2: the church is going around saying you can't distribute condoms
Speaker 2: in schools, and you can't talk about safer sex, and
Speaker 2: you can't encourage anyone to possibly have sex in any
Speaker 2: way or whatever because we're the fucking Catholics. And so
Speaker 2: December tenth, nineteen eighty nine, they plan this die in
Speaker 2: and they're like compromise.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: People are like, oh, let's do something rowdy, and people
Speaker 2: are like, no, it's not. So the compromise is going
Speaker 2: to do this dye in where they're going to go
Speaker 2: and then to not disturb everyone at prayer, but so
Speaker 2: kind of mess things up. They're all going to fake dead,
Speaker 2: act dead in the middle of it. You know, I
Speaker 2: think it's two minutes after the opening line of the.
Speaker 3: Service starts inside the service.
Speaker 2: Inside the service, yes, while people are also outside protesting.
Speaker 2: But when the time came, a couple individuals were like, now,
Speaker 2: fuck this, We're fucking angry, and they were not polite.
Speaker 2: Someone went up and took the Eucharus, took the you know,
Speaker 2: the the little bit of bread the Catholic seat that
Speaker 2: is literally Jesus' flesh, and they crumpled it up after
Speaker 2: they spit it out, and like, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a really big deal. And then someone started shouting, you're
Speaker 2: killing us, you're killing us, because they were those policies
Speaker 2: kill people. There's a body count attached to in the
Speaker 2: middle of the AIDS crisis refusing to teach safe sex.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, more than one hundred people were arrested
Speaker 2: of this action, and at first everyone's upset, including with
Speaker 2: an act up. A lot of people are like, oh no,
Speaker 2: we were like, we really screwed it up. We were
Speaker 2: you know, it made front page news all around the world.
Speaker 2: Most people were mad, but it changed things and it
Speaker 2: was actually one of the most successful actions they took.
Speaker 2: And actually some of the people who were within act
Speaker 2: Up who were mad, were like, yeah, I know, I
Speaker 2: was wrong, Like it was actually really sweet.
Speaker 3: Action turns out like a mass action inside of a
Speaker 3: mass is incredible, a mass action mass a mass action. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and taking the body of Christ and being like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is stale, gross, you're killing us.
Speaker 2: Another time, they stormed the CBS Evening News during the
Speaker 2: start of the first Golf War, shouting AIDS is news,
Speaker 2: fight aids not arabs.
Speaker 3: Oooh love it speaking of intersectional Yeah.
Speaker 2: When repeat villain of the show Rudy Giuliani came to
Speaker 2: power in January nineteen ninety four in New York City,
Speaker 2: his whole thing was he was the villain, like last
Speaker 2: week or the week before when we talked about community gardens.
Speaker 2: His whole thing is he wanted to cut public funding
Speaker 2: and privatize the city. He wanted to cut fifteenthoud city jobs,
Speaker 2: not cops, though cops, of course, we need all the
Speaker 2: caps never get And so the Human Resources Administration took
Speaker 2: a heavy cut, and the Department of Aid Services was
Speaker 2: under that. The Department of Aid Services had started in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, seven hundred and forty people work there,
Speaker 2: providing case workers for sixteen thousand AID patients. In the city,
Speaker 2: Giuliani was considering cutting it entirely. Act UP, fuck that plan.
Speaker 1: It is up.
Speaker 2: One thousand people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. They hung
Speaker 2: a thirty foot banner on City Hall that renamed it
Speaker 2: the AIDS Hall of Shame. Protesters blocked the Mayor's office.
Speaker 2: Protesters blocked the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Battery Tunnel,
Speaker 2: and the Midtown Tunnel. Nice and they they half won.
Speaker 2: They stopped the AIDS agency from being cut entirely. It
Speaker 2: was still cut by three point one million dollars in
Speaker 2: the city, started offering fewer services, but considering they were
Speaker 2: going to lose.
Speaker 3: It all completely lose that is wild. Yeah, when you
Speaker 3: still don't have it under control.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it's still this like and you are like
Speaker 2: the center of this crisis is New York City, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Act UP also built community health clinics and buddy programs.
Speaker 2: They formed buyers clubs for necessary drugs, including some that
Speaker 2: were smuggled into the country or produced illegally, so you
Speaker 2: have like whole underground labs producing AIDS drugs. Nice. And
Speaker 2: these clubs also would help people trade with one another.
Speaker 2: And when I I'm doing a little bit of conflation
Speaker 2: of the aid's movement. More broadly, with act UP, It's
Speaker 2: one of the things about it being an all volunteer
Speaker 2: organization is that a lot of things be like, oh
Speaker 2: act UP did this, and then someone be like, oh,
Speaker 2: it was actually this other group, and then later someone's like,
Speaker 2: well that group was part of act up, and then
Speaker 2: other people argue about it. So I'm a little bit
Speaker 2: blurry with some of this around.
Speaker 3: You know, let me get the street. So act up
Speaker 3: is not necessarily like again like a top down organization
Speaker 3: with staff, right, is it more of it's decentralized, so
Speaker 3: anyone can like be part of act up or do
Speaker 3: you an act UP action if you're in San Francisco
Speaker 3: or Philly or New York? Or is it kind of that,
Speaker 3: Like I know it's not occupy that's quite decentralized, but
Speaker 3: that same vibe.
Speaker 2: It's closer to that there is. Like I do know
Speaker 2: that act Up at its peak, Act Up New York
Speaker 2: had a million dollar budget that it was working with,
Speaker 2: and a lot of that came from like merchandise sale, right,
Speaker 2: mm hm. But I also know it's all volunteer, and
Speaker 2: so I'm I'm actually I'm a little bit uncertain about
Speaker 2: whether it was totally the UH franchise activism like food
Speaker 2: and nott bombs or occupy where anyone who agrees to
Speaker 2: the following can be this totally. I know that all
Speaker 2: the act Up groups were coordinating and that they were
Speaker 2: all autonomous, so I don't think that you had to
Speaker 2: get like permission, but I think you did. It was
Speaker 2: like part of something where act Up groups in one
Speaker 2: city would call on act Up groups in other cities
Speaker 2: and they would coordinate things together. They would plan these
Speaker 2: like huge actions, well five thousand people, but a direct action,
Speaker 2: you know, in different cities. By coordinating together. Volunteer medical
Speaker 2: workers were risking their licenses by administering drugs intravenously and
Speaker 2: patients like when it wasn't yet approved and things like that,
Speaker 2: all because government action was too slow and it wasn't
Speaker 2: centering the needs of patients. Act Up Philly took over
Speaker 2: an aid's hospice that had lost its funding. Act Up
Speaker 2: Boston squatted places for people to live, so a ton
Speaker 2: of people were losing their jobs because they're sick and
Speaker 2: then are suddenly homeless, right right. They fought the I
Speaker 2: in s the precursor to ice over, the banning of
Speaker 2: immigrants with AIDS. They more or less developed modern safer
Speaker 2: sex education.
Speaker 3: That's fucking wild, right, Like two things that we take
Speaker 3: for granted now that the you know, everyone, no matter
Speaker 3: what political stripe, takes for granted. Of course, yes, they're
Speaker 3: trying to like roll back right, the right is trying
Speaker 3: to roll back sexed and whatnot. But like the idea
Speaker 3: of like safer sex, of like learning how to use
Speaker 3: a condom, distributing condoms like to most degrees, that's like
Speaker 3: a settled issue. And the fact that we have like
Speaker 3: gay rights activists and AIDS activists to think for that
Speaker 3: is just incredible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Like I took so much of this for granted.
Speaker 2: I grew up, you know, in the nineties as this
Speaker 2: was happening, right, But I was, like I was a kid,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean I was a teenager, and so
Speaker 2: like I got sex education in school, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: and I don't you know, I couldn't tell you exactly
Speaker 2: where the line is of like how much they influenced
Speaker 2: my sex education in like you know, the mid nineties
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 3: But we also missed the like disease free fucking situation
Speaker 3: that was happening in like the early seventies. So you know,
Speaker 3: you take some, you lose some.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: I grew up like basically being like if I have sex,
Speaker 2: I will die because I grew up like at the
Speaker 2: peak of the AIDS crisis, and so it's like everyone
Speaker 2: sex dies. That's what I learned. And and it wasn't
Speaker 2: even people like I mean, you have to do a
Speaker 2: little bit of scaring people, right, yes, yes, but you
Speaker 2: know you can certainly take it too far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the nuns were like perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly totally. Sometimes act up participants when they would
Speaker 2: go to an action, they would bring or be given
Speaker 2: a photo and a name of someone who had died
Speaker 2: of AIDS to keep in their pocket during the action.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And if they were arrested, you would give the dead
Speaker 2: person's name instead of your own. Wow.
Speaker 3: That's just fucking deep.
Speaker 2: So beautiful, I know it. It's like there's nothing like
Speaker 2: remembering that what you're doing is like weighty and matters
Speaker 2: like that. You know, they weren't always of one mind,
Speaker 2: like AIDS activism in general. A lot of AIDS activists
Speaker 2: fought against government regulation and red tape. That's like what
Speaker 2: we hear the most about, right, but there was actually
Speaker 2: a bunch who were also fighting for regulations, specifically of
Speaker 2: all the alternative treatment, because anytime the medical establishment fails,
Speaker 2: grifters come in and sell snake oil, right, And so
Speaker 2: there's people who are absolutely there just to make money
Speaker 2: off the dying and desperate.
Speaker 3: That's what I've remecked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, shit your pants, And I don't think
Speaker 2: in one week we can give every part of act
Speaker 2: UP it's due, but I want to focus on some
Speaker 2: of the individual groups now within it. One of the
Speaker 2: most influential affinity groups with an ACT UP was called
Speaker 2: Grand Fury, which is an art collective made up of
Speaker 2: eleven people. They took their name. I think this is
Speaker 2: one of those things where if of a certain age,
Speaker 2: you just know where their name came from, and I don't,
Speaker 2: so I had to look it up. There's a car
Speaker 2: called a Plymouth grand Fury and it was the model
Speaker 2: car that NYPD drove, and they were like, we're just
Speaker 2: going to take that name. Fuck it. They also took
Speaker 2: it because grand Fury sounds like grand Fury and it
Speaker 2: sounds like I'm very angry, and they liked it.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: They wound up becoming one of the most influential art
Speaker 2: collectives in history. They came from graphic design and advertising
Speaker 2: as much as anything else, but they were directly inspired
Speaker 2: by and consider themselves in lineage of the Situationists of
Speaker 2: France and the Gorilla Girls in the US. And maybe
Speaker 2: one of them still works in advertising and designed the
Speaker 2: ad you're about to hear, but probably not. But here
Speaker 2: you go. So grand Fury in the beginning, so you know,
Speaker 2: we have questions about structure, and I absolutely did too.
Speaker 2: Grand Fury started off as like because I would read
Speaker 2: some articles and be like six people, eleven people, ten people,
Speaker 2: like all of these different numbers were being thrown out
Speaker 2: and finally like their actual their own stuff is like
Speaker 2: eleven people. And they were like, it started off as
Speaker 2: whoever shows up to the meeting. It was kind of
Speaker 2: like a working group meeting. Basically, it's like who wants
Speaker 2: to go to like the propaganda meeting. You know. Then
Speaker 2: they became a fixed collective by the end of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, they were like, Okay, we are now a
Speaker 2: specific art collective. We have a specific name. We are
Speaker 2: doing this thing. It is this these eleven people. Half
Speaker 2: of them had or would lose their partners to AIDS
Speaker 2: like had already or would. Their most iconic piece of
Speaker 2: art is the Silence equals Death poster. This is the
Speaker 2: black poster with a pink triangle and the word silence
Speaker 2: equals death. Yes, every piece of art they did they
Speaker 2: put directly into the public domain for anyone to use.
Speaker 2: And they were intersectional as fuck. A lot of what
Speaker 2: I know about the intersectionality of act UP comes through
Speaker 2: their work. I'm sure there's other things written about it.
Speaker 2: They made posters pointing out that prisoners with AIDS suffer
Speaker 2: the worst of all that It's like the life expectancy
Speaker 2: of a prisoner with the AIGE is half of that
Speaker 2: of someone outside of prison.
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine that suffering.
Speaker 2: I know. I know. They fought the myth that women
Speaker 2: don't get HIV. Okay, my favorite posters is just like
Speaker 2: this photo of a big erect cock with the words
Speaker 2: sexism rears its unprotected head and men use condoms or
Speaker 2: beat it. This is a slogan they used all the time,
Speaker 2: and then AIDS kills women at the bottom. Another slogan
Speaker 2: they used a lot was women don't get AIDS. They
Speaker 2: just die from it. Ooh, and they took out a
Speaker 2: full page ad in the New York Times for that one.
Speaker 3: Fuck that's get them, get them. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: think that it's wild, like the idea that you'd like advocating,
Speaker 3: and again we just said that they you know, there
Speaker 3: are a lot of the origins of safe sex practices
Speaker 3: can be traced here, but like, it is still wild
Speaker 3: to me that, like, you know, at any point in history,
Speaker 3: using a condom would be considered radical, right, or considered
Speaker 3: you know, like subversive. Yeah, and this is a movement obviously,
Speaker 3: they're like literally taking care of one another. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think that's so, I mean, and that I think
Speaker 3: speaks to its success because oftentimes there are movements where
Speaker 3: you're not directly involved. It doesn't involve you know, you
Speaker 3: or your livelihood necessarily, and it can be harder, can
Speaker 3: feel more nebulous. You don't have the name of someone
Speaker 3: in your pocket and you're not fighting for your own
Speaker 3: survival and to keep yourself safe. So I love that
Speaker 3: about yeah, this movement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now there's so many things that we yet we
Speaker 2: take for granted, but it's like people fought and died
Speaker 2: over condoms. You know, right, like and it's like the weekend,
Speaker 2: like we well, we no longer take it for granted
Speaker 2: because everyone has to work like eight jobs. But you know,
Speaker 2: there was a period in America where because a lot
Speaker 2: of people got to take uh yeah, a lot of
Speaker 2: people got to take the weekend for granted. So another
Speaker 2: thing that they brought a lot of attention to the
Speaker 2: media at the time would talk about the innocent victims
Speaker 2: of AIDS to differentiate them from the gay man and
Speaker 2: the drunk the junkies. Right, if you got it from
Speaker 2: blood transfusions and heterosexual sex, you were an innocent victim
Speaker 2: of AIDS. So Grand Fury and the rest of the
Speaker 2: movement would use the slogan all people with AIDS are
Speaker 2: innocent and do like huge put the slogan everywhere they could.
Speaker 2: There was one shirt that they made that was ubiquitous
Speaker 2: among people in the movement and their supporters, which said
Speaker 2: read my lips and it was a photo of two
Speaker 2: sailor men kissing. They also really personified the act Up
Speaker 2: method of working both inside the system and against the system,
Speaker 2: because yeah, they took out full page ads and they
Speaker 2: also paid for some billboards. One billboard, but they also
Speaker 2: did a bunch of crime. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: In the second one billboard, they did read welcome to America,
Speaker 2: the only industrialized country besides South Africa without national health care.
Speaker 3: Still true, although maybe in South Africa there's national healthcare.
Speaker 2: Well, they put the same billboard back up in twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen and they just modified it to remove beside South
Speaker 2: Africa because South Africa and now the nationalized hellsware.
Speaker 3: Ah. I knew it.
Speaker 2: I used to all the time, like just basically threatened
Speaker 2: to my health insurance plan for a very long time
Speaker 2: was to move to a developed nation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that's going to be mine very soon.
Speaker 2: They also weep pasted and did other crimes. They did
Speaker 2: a New York Times wrap around, which is where you
Speaker 2: print it. It's funny. It's the style of protests that's
Speaker 2: going to be mostly gone soon, which is fine. Things change.
Speaker 2: You print a fake front page for a newspaper and
Speaker 2: then go through the city and replace all the newspapers
Speaker 2: in the newspaper bins and shit and theirs was really
Speaker 2: fucking well done. This was just a front page done
Speaker 2: super professionally that actually showed what the news should be.
Speaker 2: And they called it the New York Crimes, and the
Speaker 2: subtitle was not to be confused with The New York Times.
Speaker 2: The headlines read things like, thousands of New Yorkers may
Speaker 2: be dying in the streets because they're going to pay
Speaker 2: attention to the homeless issue. Women and AIDS are government's
Speaker 2: wilful neglect. Inmates with AIDS inadvertent political prisoners. What about
Speaker 2: people of color, race effects survival?
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: But they did an awful lot more than just art.
Speaker 2: They believed in art for the sake of action. There
Speaker 2: was this drug. It was the first drug, the first
Speaker 2: approved drug for AIDS was called azt and had terrible
Speaker 2: side effects and it didn't work long term. When it
Speaker 2: was brought to the market, it was the most expensive
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical ever brought to.
Speaker 3: Market Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker 2: Which is funny because now it's like not that expensive
Speaker 2: by like it costs ten thousand dollars a year for patients,
Speaker 2: which is about twenty five thousand dollars in today's money.
Speaker 2: And so this is like the first company that did
Speaker 2: the like, what if we fleece the shit out of
Speaker 2: people who are fucking.
Speaker 3: Sick or in Diana, that's so cruel yeah.
Speaker 2: The company that owned AZT Burrow Welcome. It was one
Speaker 2: of their biggest money makers, so they could profit off
Speaker 2: of the dying and marginalized. So on September fourteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, seven members of Grand Fury snuck into the
Speaker 2: New York Stock Exchange using falsified badges because they're fucking
Speaker 2: professional artists and printmakers. Two of them pulled out cameras.
Speaker 2: The other five climbed up to a balcony then handcuffed
Speaker 2: themselves to I couldn't figure out exactly, but I'm guessing
Speaker 2: the railing. They dropped a banner that read cell Welcome
Speaker 2: after Burrows Welcome. Then they blew air horns over the
Speaker 2: sound of the opening bell and dropped fake money onto
Speaker 2: the stock trade floor, which their money read shit like
Speaker 2: fuck your profiteering. People are dying while you play business nice.
Speaker 2: And then they put Grand Fury as the signature. They're like,
Speaker 2: slogan was like a cursive thing. I think it was
Speaker 2: just that literally the logo of the car, but I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. Grand Fury and cursive in place of the
Speaker 2: treasury signature. Within days, the price of AZT fell down
Speaker 2: to less than seven thousand dollars year. WHOA, so that's
Speaker 2: still way too high. But you're talking like thirty percent drop.
Speaker 2: I've read one place that was twenty percent drop, and
Speaker 2: then I read another place at a very specific number
Speaker 2: that was way more than that. And I don't know
Speaker 2: the actual number. But I like grand Fury. Now I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about the least splashy group related to
Speaker 2: act UP that I like.
Speaker 3: Grand Fury too very much. A contender for dopest group thus.
Speaker 2: Far, I know, but hear me out as next group.
Speaker 2: It's not a competition, but it's kind of a competition.
Speaker 2: Not nearly so splashy. But one of the groups I
Speaker 2: think we could learn the most from. Chicago. Act UP
Speaker 2: formed the Committee for Sustainable Activity and Care or SEASACK,
Speaker 2: which was one of the first hay activism burns people
Speaker 2: out groups I've ever heard of. I'm going to quote
Speaker 2: about them from one of their spiritual successors, which is
Speaker 2: called the Jane Adams Collective, to a group that currently
Speaker 2: does work in New York City. Seasack realized that the
Speaker 2: continue theyknewed stress of activism, along the trauma of the
Speaker 2: AIDS epidemic and the violence of the police, was taking
Speaker 2: a toll on the organization. They noticed not only a
Speaker 2: greater degree of burnout from core organizers, but also greater
Speaker 2: inter group conflict. Despite numerous successes, Seesack was made up
Speaker 2: of mental health workers and lay people and it was
Speaker 2: charged with ways of reducing stress and post traumatic dysfunction
Speaker 2: within act of Chicago. They only existed for a short period,
Speaker 2: less than a year, but they helped usher in some
Speaker 2: innoative techniques to reduce the negative effects of trauma that
Speaker 2: were used by ACTUP chapters not only in Chicago but
Speaker 2: other cities. So basically, they got together a bunch of
Speaker 2: mental health professionals and shit and were like, how do
Speaker 2: we stop the traumatic trauma of this activism? And so
Speaker 2: they came up with a bunch of ways to do it.
Speaker 2: They hosted monthly, a monthly free talk series where you
Speaker 2: could show up and talk about what's stressing you and
Speaker 2: I don't think it had to be like activism related.
Speaker 2: And this was extra good for the people care taking
Speaker 2: people dying of AIDS, right, because there's this whole thing
Speaker 2: that Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, were there support groups? I can only imagine there
Speaker 3: were there. There are like support groups for people dying
Speaker 3: of AIDS. Yeah, I know, there's support groups for people
Speaker 3: who are caring for those who were terminally ill. But
Speaker 3: it's just like that, Yeah, that was that's so much
Speaker 3: plus repression from the cops, plus New York City in general.
Speaker 3: Let's be real, like I've organized there. It sucks. It's
Speaker 3: just kind of like it's fun, but it's also sort
Speaker 3: of real. It's just draining.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well this started in Chicago, but it did go
Speaker 2: to New York. But yeah, no, like realizing and learning
Speaker 2: and thinking about what to do about the fact that
Speaker 2: the people care taking the people also need care to
Speaker 2: be cared for you. They brought in veterans from other
Speaker 2: movements to talk frankly about the trauma they'd face through repression,
Speaker 2: which also of course ties you into the lineage of
Speaker 2: all these different protest movements, right, so that people didn't
Speaker 2: feel so alone, you know, you get to talk to
Speaker 2: some like former Black Panther about how horrible and traumatic
Speaker 2: what they experienced. Was maybe you feel better about the
Speaker 2: trauma you're experiencing. They had after every big action, within
Speaker 2: a couple of days, they had what were called affirmation parties.
Speaker 2: All the participants of the action would show up and
Speaker 2: to quote Jane Adams collective again quote. No matter the
Speaker 2: success of the action, individuals would get up and say
Speaker 2: what it meant to them to be part of it,
Speaker 2: thus reconnecting to the solidarity on the street with After
Speaker 2: the action, in a social setting, there's drinks and music
Speaker 2: and dance. Often tokens, flowers, coins like an AA, et
Speaker 2: cetera of thanks would be given to the participants of
Speaker 2: the protests.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so sweet. I love as eye. Why didn't
Speaker 3: I have that one?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: This is this is kind of what I was saying about.
Speaker 2: How like I think that there's like some stuff that
Speaker 2: we need to reconnect with from this era.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because also the other thing people do is after
Speaker 3: an action, there's always or anything, really I mean literally
Speaker 3: anything a show, uh, you know, an event, fundraiser, whatever
Speaker 3: it is. You always have this like, okay, let's do
Speaker 3: like a debrief for whatever it is, or a post mortem.
Speaker 3: And you're like, I don't like post Like this feels
Speaker 3: like more work. Why does this? Why do we have
Speaker 3: to do more work? Why don't we just be positive
Speaker 3: about what we just did a party exactly and throw
Speaker 3: a party and reconnect, especially if you were out on
Speaker 3: the streets you might have gotten arrested, you might have
Speaker 3: got brutalized, like shit might have been scary, you know,
Speaker 3: And so having reconnecting with the community and also being like, hey,
Speaker 3: there's good stuff here. It's not just us getting like
Speaker 3: roughed up in the streets is so important, and the.
Speaker 2: Like tokens of appreciation, Like I feel like this is
Speaker 2: you were talking earlier about how movements need to be sticky,
Speaker 2: and I know that that was like a little bit
Speaker 2: like externally focused, but I think internally matters too. Someone
Speaker 2: comes to their first action and someone is like, thank
Speaker 2: you for being at that action, like here's a flower,
Speaker 2: or here's a coin that you only get for having
Speaker 2: been at that action or whatever. Like. Also, organizers would
Speaker 2: reach out to the action participants, either in person or
Speaker 2: in phone, to check up on them a couple days after.
Speaker 3: Hey, that's a lot of work. That's like a million
Speaker 3: dollar budget, that's nothing. These all volunteers. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: also saying like, look, we don't see you just as
Speaker 3: like bodies, you know, we don't see you just as
Speaker 3: like people who can get arrested. We want you in
Speaker 3: this for the long haul. We want you to know
Speaker 3: you're valued. Right, which is God, that's so much work,
Speaker 3: I know, but it also probably like kind of feels
Speaker 3: good when you're like, first, we're building this thing.
Speaker 2: Right Before the party would start, they would start by
Speaker 2: reading the names of those in the community who had
Speaker 2: dietabates and one more quote from Jane Adams the Jane
Speaker 2: Adams Collective, which is named after a person named Jane Adams.
Speaker 2: So I don't know as much about as I want to,
Speaker 2: but Jane Adams Collective said quote. Finally, participants that face
Speaker 2: traumatic situations, police abuse, arrest, or a recent death of
Speaker 2: a friend from AIDS would be invited to speak as
Speaker 2: a veteran at the next organizing meeting. This changed their
Speaker 2: status from isolated victim to appreciated and connected veteran with
Speaker 2: experiences to share with the group. It allowed the individual
Speaker 2: to organize their feelings and find value and lessons for
Speaker 2: them to share. This reduces the effects of learned helplessness
Speaker 2: while creating context for their experience. Which all of these
Speaker 2: quotes are not from a like here's about act up.
Speaker 2: It's from a manual about movement mental health. That's why
Speaker 2: it is written. It's like written by mental health professionals.
Speaker 3: There was something you said earlier about like the cop
Speaker 3: part or like not policing people that I think is
Speaker 3: really interesting because I think that's another sort of thing
Speaker 3: that a lot of movements can fall into today. And
Speaker 3: my line on it is like, you know, there's everyone
Speaker 3: wants to defund the police except for the police, the
Speaker 3: cop in their.
Speaker 2: Head, you know, like yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: We kind of we're shitty to each other and we
Speaker 3: are perfectionists with one another. We definitely try to like
Speaker 3: cancel each other for this that you know, transgression rather
Speaker 3: than kind of like making it broader, checking in being
Speaker 3: like understanding and like so much of toxic I think
Speaker 3: movement culture comes from like undiagnosed and untreated like mental
Speaker 3: illness or distress, you know, or trauma of the work itself.
Speaker 3: So they knew it. They were like, we need we
Speaker 3: have to actually be well, Like if we're alive, we
Speaker 3: fucking better live good. Yeah, because so many people are dead.
Speaker 3: So it's like that's kind of the other thing. It's
Speaker 3: like not to be too much like this is COVID,
Speaker 3: but COVID absolutely, you know, drove home, Like what is
Speaker 3: the value of like living? Like what do we do?
Speaker 3: Like where do I want to be if the shit
Speaker 3: is ending or if you know, what do I want
Speaker 3: to do with my time? And I think if you
Speaker 3: see people dying all around you, you live so differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I like, I think that's such a good
Speaker 2: point that the stuff comes from people who are very
Speaker 2: smart and very good at organizing, whose backs are against
Speaker 2: the fucking wall, right, And I yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: this idea of like I talk about it sometimes with friends,
Speaker 2: is like like mental health first aid. You know, like
Speaker 2: I grew up learning how to put a band aid
Speaker 2: on a wound or even you know, I grew up
Speaker 2: learning how to treat punctual wounds and reasonably serious injuries, right,
Speaker 2: But no one told me after you experience a traumatic event,
Speaker 2: here are some basic steps you can take to keep
Speaker 2: the wound from infecting. You know, I know how to
Speaker 2: wash out a physical wound, but I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to wash out a mental wound. And one of the
Speaker 2: main answers is always comes down to things that encourage
Speaker 2: people to have agency. So if like you're in a crisis,
Speaker 2: when you act with a agency, it causes less of
Speaker 2: a lasting traumatic effect on you, which isn't to say
Speaker 2: the trauma isn't real and the trauma doesn't happen. You know.
Speaker 2: It's like if someone slashes you in the arm. You're
Speaker 2: not going to be like, ah, I'm going to just
Speaker 2: not have been slashed, But you have to deal with
Speaker 2: the slash and how you do that changes how it
Speaker 2: impacts you going forward. You know. Yeah, I really like
Speaker 2: I learned actually almost all of that from some of
Speaker 2: the people involved in a Jane Adams collective, and I
Speaker 2: just want to like shout them out. They're a collective
Speaker 2: of anarchist mental health workers, both social workers and psychologists
Speaker 2: who focus on mental health care for people in social movements,
Speaker 2: and they've written a bunch about it, and I think
Speaker 2: they're cool, so you should check their books out.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: The next group that I'm going to have compete for
Speaker 2: coolest would be the group that is most angry. That
Speaker 2: before I talk about them, I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: a word from our sponsors, and we're back, because now
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about some of the spiciest of
Speaker 2: the people. This group is called Queer Nation. Its founders
Speaker 2: come from act Up in New York and they got
Speaker 2: their start at the same LGBT Services Center, the center,
Speaker 2: but they are more militant, and a lot of people
Speaker 2: from act UP don't like them, and they like are
Speaker 2: an aren't part of act Up in kind of an
Speaker 2: interesting way. They were formed on March twentieth, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: They are not AIDS focused. They are queer rights focused
Speaker 2: in the middle of the AIDS crisis. As far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, you know, I've already basically said ACTUP
Speaker 2: invented everything. I'm going to add to that list. I'm
Speaker 2: going to add two things to that list. I'm going
Speaker 2: to add the reclamation of the word queer and I'm
Speaker 2: going to add queer theory. So this group, more than
Speaker 2: anyone else that I've been able to find, is responsible
Speaker 2: for the popularization of the reclamation of the word queer.
Speaker 2: They're not the first people who are like, oh, this
Speaker 2: insult I'm called I'm gonna go buy it on purpose,
Speaker 2: like people have been doing that forever, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I like it's actually a dope word because
Speaker 3: it's got the cue, you know, it's it's just a
Speaker 3: kind of a good word.
Speaker 2: I know, it rules. It's my favorite word for my
Speaker 2: sexuality for two reasons. First, it doesn't answer any specifics
Speaker 2: like I could be like, yeah, I'm a pan romantic,
Speaker 2: somewhat saffic, trans, feminine, lesbian or something right, all these
Speaker 2: like specifics. Yeah, and I get why that's useful for
Speaker 2: some people or not sexy. Yeah, I just tell you
Speaker 2: I'm queer, which says who I'm attracted to is between
Speaker 2: me and the people with whom I have mutual attraction,
Speaker 2: which is sexy as hell. I agree, And I am
Speaker 2: totally fine with being like my sexualities. I'm a queer
Speaker 2: trans woman. It's fucking fine. I also like queer because
Speaker 2: as a history of militancy, it comes out of reclamation.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of my friends identify as faggots, queer
Speaker 2: used to have a not dissimilar connotation as something sketchy
Speaker 2: and edgy to say or identify with. And I like
Speaker 2: that about it. And I owe that word and its
Speaker 2: reclamations to some really angry queers who started doing that
Speaker 2: shit in nineteen ninety. Queer Nation set out to basically
Speaker 2: force people to come to terms with homosexuality, but put
Speaker 2: it in people's faces, all the stuff that the right
Speaker 2: wings like. People are like, well, I don't mind what
Speaker 2: people do behind closed doors, but why do they have
Speaker 2: to be so in your face about it, and almost
Speaker 2: everyone is like, we're not in your face about it.
Speaker 2: I just want to hold hands with my fucking girlfriend, right.
Speaker 2: Queer Nation was like, yeah, we're gonna be in your
Speaker 2: fucking face about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should see it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first action that they took was they went to
Speaker 2: a heterosexual bar, Flutie's Bar on April thirteenth, nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: and uh showed up and played Spin the Bottle at
Speaker 2: a straight bar.
Speaker 3: That's great. Yeah, I mean that's basically like I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't mean that like equate it, but that's like
Speaker 3: kind of and you know, that's an action of integration, right,
Speaker 3: that's like we deserve to be here, we deserve to
Speaker 3: be on all spaces, like deal with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And it's it's wild to think about how
Speaker 2: for so many people of so many different marginalizations, just
Speaker 2: existing in public is confrontational and edgy. Right, Like if
Speaker 2: I wear a dress to the store, depending on where
Speaker 2: I am, I'm like doing a political action, not because
Speaker 2: I want to be, but because it's like dangerous for
Speaker 2: me to do. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Another thing that Queer Nation invented or developed the chant
Speaker 2: we're here, we're queer, get used to it.
Speaker 3: Great chance. I know, I can't say we're here without
Speaker 3: wanting to say we're queer. Get used to it. And
Speaker 3: I'm not queer, and I don't think I should be
Speaker 3: saying it that much, but it's my favorite chant.
Speaker 2: It's still a good chance. Unfortunately, I'm so grow up
Speaker 2: the Simpsons that I think we're here, we're here, we're queer,
Speaker 2: and we don't want any more bears.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like all I remember about the episode. It's
Speaker 2: not about bears. Is in like a large, hairy homosexual
Speaker 2: needs to be clear, it's it's it was like an
Speaker 2: episode of The Simpsons where like bears are attacking the
Speaker 2: town or something I don't remember, and so people protest
Speaker 2: against it and someone chants that, and it's in my head.
Speaker 2: It's probably the first time I heard that chant. One
Speaker 2: of the ideological successors of queer Nation is the modern
Speaker 2: group Bashback, and I remember the first time I was
Speaker 2: out as queer was at a Bashback convention in Chicago.
Speaker 2: I was there with my boyfriend. I wasn't out as tranced,
Speaker 2: even to myself at the time. I was just a
Speaker 2: boy named Margaret and I held his hand as we
Speaker 2: took to the streets in all black and pink, chanting
Speaker 2: one in ten is not enough. Recruit, recruit, which is
Speaker 2: I think the modern version of we're here where queer
Speaker 2: get used to it, which is the like, We're going
Speaker 2: to take these things you say about us and like
Speaker 2: throw them at you, be like, yeah, we are at recruiting,
Speaker 2: what do you want? And I really liked it because
Speaker 2: I had just and recruited. I met a really cute boy.
Speaker 2: I thought I was straight, So anyway, Queer Nation. They
Speaker 2: also almost certainly where Bashback has its name. Queer Nation
Speaker 2: went to protest with banners that read things like dikes
Speaker 2: and fags bashback, I.
Speaker 3: Fucking love that, Like that's so great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They're also pointed to regularly as one of the
Speaker 2: founders of queer theory. They showed up at the nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety Pride Parade in New York City, where the Manifesto
Speaker 2: printed a long, double sided sheet I think called queers
Speaker 2: read this, or read some of it? It opens. How
Speaker 2: can I tell you? How can I convince you, brother sister,
Speaker 2: that your life is in danger, that every day you
Speaker 2: wake up alive, relatively happy and a functioning human being.
Speaker 2: You are committing a rebellious act. You, as an alive
Speaker 2: and functioning queer, are a revolutionary There is nothing on
Speaker 2: this planet that validates, protects, or encourages your existence. It
Speaker 2: is a miracle that you are standing here reading these words.
Speaker 2: You should, by all rights, be dead. Don't be fooled.
Speaker 2: Straight people own the world, and the only reason you
Speaker 2: have been spared is that you're smart, lucky, or a fighter.
Speaker 2: It also said queer can be a rough word, but
Speaker 2: it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can
Speaker 2: steal from the homophob's hands and use against him.
Speaker 3: Ooh, that's so brilliant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a sly and what is it? Ironic weapon we
Speaker 2: can steal from the homophob's hands. Yeah. And then the
Speaker 2: last piece in it is the reason it was controversial
Speaker 2: even among act up. The last piece on it was
Speaker 2: called I hate straits, and it includes the line I
Speaker 2: hate having to convince straight people that lesbians and gays
Speaker 2: live in a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb blasts.
Speaker 2: Only we seem to hear that our bodies and souls
Speaker 2: are heaped high, dead from fright, or bashed or raped,
Speaker 2: dying of grief or disease of our personhood. I hate
Speaker 2: straight people who can't listen to Queer Anger without saying, hey,
Speaker 2: all straight people aren't like that. I'm straight to, you know,
Speaker 2: And it ends with go tell them until they have
Speaker 2: spent a month walking hand in hand in public with
Speaker 2: someone of the same sex. After they survive that, then
Speaker 2: you'll hear what they have to say about queer Anger. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: tell them to shut up and listen. It's really interesting
Speaker 2: because this piece, it starts off like I hate straits, right,
Speaker 2: it actually does a fairly good job of saying, like, no,
Speaker 2: I hate straight people who don't let me be angry
Speaker 2: about heterosexuality compulsively running the world right, Like it even
Speaker 2: includes it's like I hate everyone who says hashtag not
Speaker 2: all straits, you know, basically like it uses that same
Speaker 2: terminology that I think people like later developed when they
Speaker 2: were like complaining about not all men or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, not all men. All lives matter. It's just
Speaker 3: like the fragility of the powerful is just you know,
Speaker 3: so it permeates every single movement. And also to see that,
Speaker 3: you know, it sounds like some allies even are like well,
Speaker 3: just so you know, like I'm I'm cool, and it's like,
Speaker 3: this is not about you and your feelings, right, And
Speaker 3: it kind of like abdicates responsibility when you just want to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, save your own ass and make sure everyone
Speaker 3: knows you're you're the cool straight right. And I think
Speaker 3: that is sort of the emotional labor of like we're
Speaker 3: tired of doing some of this work because you'll never
Speaker 3: know what it's like. And that's how I tried to
Speaker 3: explain too. I mean, I sometimes try to explain it,
Speaker 3: and I'm I'm better, I'm worse at it. But I
Speaker 3: think for me, when it dawned on me that like,
Speaker 3: like if I was confused about queer theory, if I
Speaker 3: didn't get it, it was because I'm not queer. If
Speaker 3: I didn't understand like you know, like trans people, it's
Speaker 3: because I literally would never understand what it was like
Speaker 3: to feel like you were in a body that was
Speaker 3: not yours, that was the wrong body. I will and
Speaker 3: I will never understand that, just like pure and once
Speaker 3: you sort of like let that wash over you, I
Speaker 3: feel like then you can really be a better person
Speaker 3: and an ally because it's not fucking about my understanding,
Speaker 3: it's about whether I believe in human rights or not.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Like, I I don't know what it's like
Speaker 2: to be a personal color. I never will, like right, okay,
Speaker 2: I you know, I will just listen to people about
Speaker 2: their experiences and believe them, you know, right.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. You don't have to like go I mean
Speaker 3: you can, like me, like do some testing and figure
Speaker 3: out whether bigotry exists. But it does. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that's I don't know, but yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: even that radical. But I can imagine that for at
Speaker 3: the time when they're like really trying to build and
Speaker 3: like gay Straight Alliance, right, that was that, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that was a lot of people's kind of
Speaker 3: liberal on ramp to you know, activism, and that had
Speaker 3: to include straight people. It was a gay straight alliance,
Speaker 3: like we're working to get right.
Speaker 2: But hear me out, Okay, So I started the Gay
Speaker 2: Straight Alliance at my high school as a as a
Speaker 2: straight kid. There was no gay people in my gay
Speaker 2: straight alliance. We most of us were gay. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: but it's interesting thing where Gay Straight Alliance is like one,
Speaker 2: it is actually good to be an alliance with people, right,
Speaker 2: It is like genuinely good, but it's also it's an out.
Speaker 2: It's a way of saying like, you don't have to
Speaker 2: come out of the closet to join the Gay Straight
Speaker 2: Alliance in a way that you have to come out
Speaker 2: of the closet in order to join the gay club
Speaker 2: or whatever, right, right, right right, because like when I
Speaker 2: came out, like the next school over, the head of
Speaker 2: the GSA was an out gay kid and it was hospitalized,
Speaker 2: you know. Fuck. And it's funny. The way we started
Speaker 2: my Gay Straight Alliance was I had been going to
Speaker 2: these regional GSA meetings and these two teachers who were
Speaker 2: so obviously in retrospect lesbians, They weren't out. One was
Speaker 2: the woman gym teacher and the other was the like
Speaker 2: butch social studies teacher with a hyphenated last name. They
Speaker 2: weren't together, no, I don't think so, and they like
Speaker 2: cornered me in the stairwell where like the bad kids
Speaker 2: hung out in the morning, you know. And they were like,
Speaker 2: did you know that teachers can't start student groups? And
Speaker 2: I was like huh. And they were like, here's all
Speaker 2: the paperwork, it's all filled out. Do you want to
Speaker 2: start the Gay Straight Alliance? And I was like I
Speaker 2: do what a brilliant idea I have had.
Speaker 3: That's so funny they got to the credit. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: so great. Slash did all the work for you. Yeah
Speaker 3: I didn't. Yeah, but teachers could like join later on.
Speaker 3: I felt like.
Speaker 2: They were advisors. So these were the teacher this like
Speaker 2: the the group had to be started by students, but
Speaker 2: it needed teacher advisors.
Speaker 3: Any right, right right, Yeah, I'm like trying to remember
Speaker 3: how the politics of clubs worked in my school, right,
Speaker 3: But anyway, Yeah, No, that's a really good point about
Speaker 3: gay straight alliances. But yeah, I think that's interesting because
Speaker 3: like liberals wouldn't like that because you don't want to
Speaker 3: demonize the people you're supposed to be, you know, lobbying.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally exactly. And so a lot of people an
Speaker 2: act up were really upset by by this, and other
Speaker 2: people were really excited by it, you know. And and
Speaker 2: that's actually one of the things that I hearing people
Speaker 2: who are in act up talk about it that they
Speaker 2: kind of in retrospect, they're really excited about. They're like,
Speaker 2: we could disagree about things like we It wasn't everyone
Speaker 2: had to accept everything that everyone else did. It's that
Speaker 2: you didn't kick people out so you were like, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think I'm sure some people were kicked out, but like,
Speaker 2: you know, overall, you were like, Okay, well, these people
Speaker 2: are doing things that isn't how I would do it,
Speaker 2: you know, and that doesn't stop. But it doesn't occur
Speaker 2: to you to then be like, now I'm going to
Speaker 2: put all of my effort into fighting queer nation, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but again that's sort of part and parcel of like,
Speaker 3: you know, dire circumstances requires more alliances and requires more
Speaker 3: diversity of tactics, right, because what the fuck do we
Speaker 3: have to lose?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you're gonna kick that person out. They're dying,
Speaker 2: you know, right, right, and queer nations started. This is
Speaker 2: the era where homosexuality hit mainstream discourse in the US,
Speaker 2: and it is a dangerous moment. Trans people are discovering
Speaker 2: this now. I mean, it was still part of the
Speaker 2: earlier stuff too, So once homosexuality entered the mainstream discourse,
Speaker 2: violence spiked. By April nineteen ninety, violence was up one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty two percent since the start of nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Like in a four month period, violence went up one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty two percent on April twenty eighth. I
Speaker 2: wrote twenty twenty four into my script, but that's not
Speaker 2: when it happened. I will bet money it's nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: but it might be nineteen ninety one. I'm so sorry
Speaker 2: the future listening to this. A guy named a gay
Speaker 2: bar named Uncle Charlie's I'm so good at my job.
Speaker 2: It was bombed with a pipe bomb and this injured
Speaker 2: three patrons. It sent them to the hospital. It was
Speaker 2: like minor injuries and the police were immediately like, oh,
Speaker 2: this isn't a bias related crime, just a regular run
Speaker 2: of the mill, not hate related bombing of a gay bar.
Speaker 3: Jesus.
Speaker 2: Within hours after the blast, Queer Nation had a thousand
Speaker 2: queers in the street to protest. Wow and actually eventually
Speaker 2: the bomber was caught. It was one of the first
Speaker 2: attacks on you of soil by a radical Muslim group
Speaker 2: that had targeted the bar for homosexuality. Alongside a bunch
Speaker 2: of other like New York City landmarks. Queer Nation soon
Speaker 2: spread across the country also, but they also took field
Speaker 2: trips like individual groups. On May twelfth, they launched the
Speaker 2: Queer Shopping Network, where they went to a Jersey City
Speaker 2: mall to flyer about queerness with info about like famous
Speaker 2: queers in history and safe sex tips, and it was
Speaker 2: titled we're here, We're queer and we'd like to say hello.
Speaker 2: Oh And I like that because it's they're doing both.
Speaker 2: They are going to put out the flyer that says
Speaker 2: I hate straits and then explain its position. They're also
Speaker 2: going to a you know, a mall in Jersey City
Speaker 2: to be like, hey, queer people exist and we're fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: You could even be one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting. That's sort of
Speaker 3: it reminds me like the I think it was a
Speaker 3: Z's who has like a bit about you know, Muslims,
Speaker 3: just like there need to be more positive images of them,
Speaker 3: just like eating a sandwich, like yeah, talking about a
Speaker 3: video game. You never see those depictions. But yeah, It's
Speaker 3: what's incredible about this is how much these movements are
Speaker 3: meeting people where they're at, Like, even if they're very
Speaker 3: radical themselves, and even if their tactics are radical, it's
Speaker 3: like the targets are so a mall also media massive target.
Speaker 3: I mean that was that to me feels like a
Speaker 3: very distinctly eighties thing, right, Like Yeah, that understanding that
Speaker 3: you have to fuck with the media because they are
Speaker 3: driving this narrative broadly. And if you don't hold The
Speaker 3: Times accountable or hold Cosmopolitan accountable, you know, like they're
Speaker 3: legitimate targets and you can affect thespective, the perspective of
Speaker 3: the country if you do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And I'm going to talk about one final
Speaker 2: aspect of act UP that they were heavily involved in
Speaker 2: to save even more uncountable lives because act UP, along
Speaker 2: with others during the AIDS crisis, developed needle exchange programs
Speaker 2: and fought for the legalization of needle exchange programs, which
Speaker 2: they did in that order, which is the correct order
Speaker 2: to do life saving work. Start when it's illegal, if
Speaker 2: it needs to be done, and then demand that it
Speaker 2: become legal. Possession and non prescription sale of needles was
Speaker 2: illegal in a bunch of states, eleven of them in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. These are the states with the highest
Speaker 2: incidents of AIDS, so illegal needle exchanges started up, providing
Speaker 2: clean works to intravenous drug users. Some of these actually
Speaker 2: pre date act UP, like the National AIDS Brigade in
Speaker 2: Connecticut that started in nineteen eighty six. San Francisco had
Speaker 2: Prevention Point act Up, Boston had the Ivy League, plus
Speaker 2: New York and the East Bay act Up also did
Speaker 2: needle exchange.
Speaker 3: That was probably more that's great and it's just a good,
Speaker 3: good pun.
Speaker 2: Especially in Boston.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, but I mean that's so that's so radical
Speaker 3: in itself, like first start doing something illegally. It's like
Speaker 3: abortion clinics were the same thing. I mean, underground abortion providers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Study after study was showing even back then
Speaker 2: that access to clean needles greatly reduced the spread of
Speaker 2: AIDS among needle drug users and it did not increase
Speaker 2: the incidents of drug use. So there's like, like at
Speaker 2: one point in the mid nineties, they were referencing six
Speaker 2: different studies that have been done because Clinton kept being like,
Speaker 2: oh well, I'll get to it. So some of these
Speaker 2: exchanges started to be run by cities, which was complicated.
Speaker 2: A journalist writing at the time named Liz Hileyman wrote
Speaker 2: about the needle exchange for the Love and Rage Anarchist
Speaker 2: Federation in nineteen ninety one. She wrote, state programs tend
Speaker 2: to exclude activists, and her tailored to meet the needs
Speaker 2: of bureaucrats rather than drug users. For example, a pilot
Speaker 2: needle exchange program in New York City required drug users
Speaker 2: to come to a central facility located across the street
Speaker 2: from the police station. Why would anyone come to my drug?
Speaker 3: Come on now?
Speaker 2: And this is like around the same time that you know,
Speaker 2: as they're trying to do activism to help street sex
Speaker 2: workers have access to condoms. Yes, cops are going around
Speaker 2: and you know, arresting women for having condoms pocket because
Speaker 2: that could be seen as evidence that they are doing
Speaker 2: sex work, which of course meant that fewer sex workers
Speaker 2: use condoms, which meant that HIV continued to x sex workers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but the government, the federal government wouldn't help out, even
Speaker 2: as cities did their like awkward and sort of sometimes
Speaker 2: well intentioned and sometimes not things. Congress passed its first
Speaker 2: law that said or statute that said no federal money
Speaker 2: for syringe distribution in nineteen eighty eight. That same statute
Speaker 2: is still in effect in some ways today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's gonna say.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six, the Foundation for Aids Research determined
Speaker 2: that syringe exchange programs dropped HIV infections in New York
Speaker 2: City by two thirds Jesus Christ, Clinton still wouldn't. Like
Speaker 2: Clinton had said something basically like, oh, once we have
Speaker 2: evidence that it'll it doesn't cause more drug use or whatever,
Speaker 2: we'll do it. And so then they were like, here's
Speaker 2: six studies, and he was like no, never mind.
Speaker 3: Still no, yeah, and yeah, anyway you might get to it.
Speaker 3: But I'm just reminded of the most recent freak out
Speaker 3: during the pandemic, where I think the Biden administration included
Speaker 3: like clean needles in a kit for drug users. I
Speaker 3: believe it was like federally funded in part, and the
Speaker 3: right freaked out about it. Yeah, and they were removed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 3: They keep doing it, like they're they're trying to pass
Speaker 3: more legislation. They keep on trying to rescind federal funding
Speaker 3: for safe drug use while simultaneously, you know, decrying the
Speaker 3: fentanyl crisis. It's like, you literally have no plan and
Speaker 3: you're not serious about stopping this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. In nineteen ninety seven, Act Up New York
Speaker 2: started a campaign for federal funding of needle exchange, and
Speaker 2: to be fair, this is one of the ones they
Speaker 2: didn't win, but they sure drew attention to the issue.
Speaker 2: A thousand people marched on Clinton's birthday party in Manhattan
Speaker 2: in June. They formed the National Coalition to Lives Now,
Speaker 2: with an exclamation mark at the end because it was
Speaker 2: the nineties, and they marched on like the Department of
Speaker 2: Health and Human Services. By October nineteen ninety seven, a
Speaker 2: bunch of the Presidential Advisory Council on AIDS, so they
Speaker 2: were going to resign and mass if he didn't start
Speaker 2: funding needle exchange. Activists interrupted the president to ask about
Speaker 2: this policy, and they were like willing. They'd like go
Speaker 2: to his fundraisers and shit, and they would get like
Speaker 2: tackled and attacked by supporters in order to do so.
Speaker 2: And what they were successful at they didn't get the
Speaker 2: federal funding. The New York Public Department of Health said
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety sixty percent of injection drug users had HIV.
Speaker 2: After a decade of syringe activism, it went down to
Speaker 2: ten percent by two thousand and one. That is how
Speaker 2: you save lives.
Speaker 3: They didn't still being discussed. I'm sorry, I'm just like
Speaker 3: there's been there are just these things that like and
Speaker 3: I think this safe drug use and needle exchange and
Speaker 3: harm reduction is one of like the biggest no brainers,
Speaker 3: next to like, do we need more money for cops? No?
Speaker 3: But that one is like, there is so much evidence
Speaker 3: this saves lives, but it is so politically somehow still
Speaker 3: politically toxic, even though everyone has family members, everyone has
Speaker 3: friends who've suffered, who've died. Like, you know, you've got
Speaker 3: fucking Gavin Newsom in California vetoing laws to create like
Speaker 3: statewide harm reduction programs even though it's been approved by
Speaker 3: the legislature and the studies are there, But no, he
Speaker 3: cannot do it. It's just seen as politically toxic. There's
Speaker 3: too many of these issues where people can be just
Speaker 3: so fucking cowardly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. In two thousand and nine, the federal band was
Speaker 2: like briefly rescinded, but then Republicans to control of the House.
Speaker 2: In twenty eleven, it was reinstituted. And I asked a
Speaker 2: friend of mine who works in harm reduction about this.
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, do you like where's that currently?
Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of news articles, but they're all
Speaker 2: like two years old, three years old, at least the
Speaker 2: ones that I found. And so my friend told me
Speaker 2: that In twenty eighteen, the consolidated Appropriations Act allowed for
Speaker 2: federal funds to support syringe service programs, but those funds
Speaker 2: can't be used to buy the actual needles. You can
Speaker 2: do everything else, but you can't buy the needles, even
Speaker 2: with federal funds, which is one of the cheapest parts
Speaker 2: of running a harm reduction clinic.
Speaker 3: What does that even mean? Would you like, like here
Speaker 3: you can three D print a needle and they give
Speaker 3: you the blue print.
Speaker 2: I think you go out and buy the needles yourself
Speaker 2: with with other funds, but the you know, and then
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 3: Of civic funds can't be used for needles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's their like way of threading that needle, uh,
Speaker 2: running the needle. I love harm reduction services because they
Speaker 2: operate when it's when it's legal and when it's illegal.
Speaker 2: I like drove up to an HIV place once to
Speaker 2: get tested and this like guy met me in the
Speaker 2: parking lot was like, do you need some needles? I
Speaker 2: was like, what, No, I'm here for HIV testing. He's like, oh,
Speaker 2: never mind. And it was it was during a period
Speaker 2: where the state I was in it was illegal. There
Speaker 2: was like a it constantly happens right where harm reduction
Speaker 2: services will be like doing their thing and then like
Speaker 2: some Republican will be like, now it's a crime, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then they just keep doing it. It just means
Speaker 2: that someone who's not associated with the clinic is hanging
Speaker 2: out in the parking lot giving away needles, which yeah.
Speaker 3: That's actually like wonderful. And like I was saying, do
Speaker 3: you think yeah, and I think that I do feel
Speaker 3: like the abortion rights and reproductive rights movement needs to
Speaker 3: take a page out of that. It's like, these are
Speaker 3: going to be happening no matter what. And if y'all
Speaker 3: can like ping pong with the fucking legislation as much
Speaker 3: as you want, but people need this life saving care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And that you know, no idea that guy
Speaker 2: in the parking lot was. That man was like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go do a crime every day that SAMs like
Speaker 2: get caught or until the laws change, because he was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna fucking stop people from dying, and like that
Speaker 2: anonymous hero is my fucking hero.
Speaker 3: You know, hell yeah, anonymous hero.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen ninety six, AIDS deaths took their first
Speaker 2: dip in the US thanks to new drugs, safer sex education,
Speaker 2: harm reduction, and just all the things that act UP
Speaker 2: fought for. Like there's no I mean yes, there's other
Speaker 2: people involved, absolutely, the researchers, absolutely, the people doing this
Speaker 2: other work who weren't necessarily part of act UP. Act
Speaker 2: UP is not alone in having done this, but they
Speaker 2: were part of a movement that worked. Act UP New
Speaker 2: York is still around, it is still non hierarchical and
Speaker 2: all volunteer. It's not as big as it used to be.
Speaker 2: They're also nonpartisan and they don't endorse politicians, but they
Speaker 2: are very vocal about supporting Palestine. And so all the
Speaker 2: like silence equals death with the triangle watermelon like act
Speaker 2: UP seems to fucking approve. You know, that's not a
Speaker 2: misappropriation of that iconography. And I want to end by
Speaker 2: describing one more action, the final action that was taken
Speaker 2: by a guy named Steve Michael, the founder of the
Speaker 2: DC chapter, because before he did this action, on May
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, he died. He died due to AIDS
Speaker 2: related pneumonia. His last wish was a political funeral, So
Speaker 2: one hundred people proceeded in silence for half a mile
Speaker 2: up to the White House holding his open casket while
Speaker 2: he wore an ACT up shirt, his loved ones gave
Speaker 2: eulogies in front of the White House and condemned the
Speaker 2: Clinton administration for their legacy of.
Speaker 3: Inaction and amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just fucking beautiful. Like we all die, you know,
Speaker 2: like let's figure out how to make it mean something.
Speaker 2: And that is the story about how a nonpartisan, politically pluralistic,
Speaker 2: horizontal direct action group has saved millions of lives and
Speaker 2: even continues to do so from actions they took thirty
Speaker 2: forty years ago, and.
Speaker 3: The struggle continues. I mean, this is fucking wild. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is like the kind of militancy that we need
Speaker 3: about everyday human rights and health rights that we don't
Speaker 3: always have and see, and the kind of bravery that
Speaker 3: we need. But like, what I love about this movement
Speaker 3: is also that it kind of laid the groundwork for
Speaker 3: the future, so that yeah, we're still fighting these harm
Speaker 3: reduction fights. We're still fighting for you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 3: safe injection sites and whatnot. We're still fighting I mean
Speaker 3: for equal access to like healthcare or universal care right,
Speaker 3: or the lowering of you know, pharmaceutical prices and all this,
Speaker 3: and for visibility and for human rights, for queer people.
Speaker 3: So it's just I don't know, there's not to again
Speaker 3: go back to the and I know, the like, you know,
Speaker 3: reproductive rights movement was militant at some point, but it
Speaker 3: feels like it hasn't been. Like the act of is
Speaker 3: still radical, Like this is still a rat desire to
Speaker 3: like harm reduction is still radical. And I don't feel
Speaker 3: like every movement that can can say that that is one,
Speaker 3: you know, won these gains over the you know, the
Speaker 3: last few decades. Yeah, one random thing I was watching,
Speaker 3: there's a Netflix stock on Hulu called like the Dark
Speaker 3: Side of Comedy and being a stand up. I was like,
Speaker 3: I gotta watch this. It's actually a it's it's a
Speaker 3: Netflix stock. What did I say? It's a Vice doc
Speaker 3: on Hulu and and like the third episode is about
Speaker 3: Andrew Dice clay right, a massive like homophobic and sexist,
Speaker 3: you know whatever, shock comic, and the gay community was
Speaker 3: trying to protest because he was like invited to host
Speaker 3: on SNL and blah blah blah, which was seen obviously
Speaker 3: as a massive you know, you know, condoning of his
Speaker 3: fucking rhetoric and all this shit. And they basically like no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it wasn't snl. It was he was gonna have this
Speaker 3: whole movie series. And they targeted execu katives in Hollywood
Speaker 3: who they knew were gay and went and plastered posters
Speaker 3: around the town being like you endorse Andrew dised Clay's homophobia,
Speaker 3: Like you endorse like homophobic haate and like their faces
Speaker 3: these random executives, and it fucking worked. It was like,
Speaker 3: oh shit, we like you're making money, You're profiting off
Speaker 3: of this. So in that same I don't know the
Speaker 3: idea of like having a community, I know, the gay
Speaker 3: community not a monolith, the queer community not a monolith,
Speaker 3: but being able to like call out those folks in
Speaker 3: high places, you know, whether it is in yeah, the CDC,
Speaker 3: or in industries or in newspapers and be like even
Speaker 3: outing them, like I know you're gay. Are you literally
Speaker 3: going to make a profit off this? Are you literally
Speaker 3: going to ignore the death in the street. That's just
Speaker 3: such a strategic tactic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, and androdised Clay is these movies didn't get made, but.
Speaker 2: All poor guy, he's a tour and make them of
Speaker 2: money that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, him and Rob Schneider can go co headline the
Speaker 1: shittiest comedians in the country.
Speaker 3: Tour Rob Schneider getting kicked out of some like some
Speaker 3: hospital in Canada, like was like, hey, you want to
Speaker 3: do a fundraiser for us? Like what are you doing?
Speaker 3: What is this a terrible idea? And they like ended
Speaker 3: as set after ten minutes or some shit.
Speaker 1: I saw something that was like, why the fuck are
Speaker 1: people still booking Adam Sandler's eighth closest friend.
Speaker 3: He had a Netflix special, Rob Schneider next Netflix special,
Speaker 3: like a couple of years ago. Like Rob Scheider couldn't
Speaker 3: have got a Netflix special when he was popular, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Like, yeah, what are we doing?
Speaker 3: They literally go after boomers who are losing their mind
Speaker 3: about whatever woke? But I fucking love act Up. I
Speaker 3: think it's it's such an incredible model. But for sure,
Speaker 3: the affinity groups, the things that have something to do
Speaker 3: with like your direct life, your livelihood, you can unity that,
Speaker 3: I feel like is the takeaway?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so much the set up, the systems for care,
Speaker 2: keep the people engaged, who the people who are engaged,
Speaker 2: make sure that they specifically feel welcome and special for
Speaker 2: being part of your movement. Like there's just so much,
Speaker 2: like the fact that they managed to create this like open, warm,
Speaker 2: inclusive movement of angry people yelling at people, you know,
Speaker 2: without I mean, yes they yelled at each other too,
Speaker 2: but they had like I don't know, And there's so
Speaker 2: much more. A lot of work has been done more
Speaker 2: recently about act Up and there's like all kinds of
Speaker 2: stuff you can look at and different takeaways that people
Speaker 2: have come from it. Have whatever. Have I claim that
Speaker 2: I got a snack between the first half and the
Speaker 2: second half, but the snack is starting to wear out
Speaker 2: and I'm beginning, so.
Speaker 3: We should do plugs.
Speaker 2: It's time for plugs. That's what it is.
Speaker 1: Plug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what do you got?
Speaker 3: Just what do I got? I got a podcast called
Speaker 3: The Bituation Room. It's news comedy. It comes out every
Speaker 3: Wednesday morning and then there's a couple other Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 3: So listen to that or watch it on YouTube or
Speaker 3: twitch at Franny Feo fr A and i fio, which
Speaker 3: is where you can follow me on all the things.
Speaker 2: So you're saying, if people who listen to my show
Speaker 2: but I only talk about history, want to know about
Speaker 2: what's actually happening, they can go to your show. Is
Speaker 2: that what you're suggesting.
Speaker 3: Totally trying to interesting. I'm here get more news.
Speaker 2: My news that isn't news is because I've told you've
Speaker 2: been telling me about it for a month. Is that
Speaker 2: I am kickstarting my debut novel called The Sapling Cage.
Speaker 2: I've written many novella's and at one being Adventurer of
Speaker 2: your own choosing legally distinct from Chooser and adventure who
Speaker 2: sent me a seasoned assystem at letter At one point
Speaker 2: that was a long time ago. But now I have
Speaker 2: a novel coming out. It's called The Sapling Cage, and
Speaker 2: it is coming out from Feminist Press in September twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, and it is being kickstarted now. When listen,
Speaker 2: you're listening in the future, in which case I hope
Speaker 2: that everything's okay in the future. Sure, and uh, you
Speaker 2: have enough food and water. That's what I got. See
Speaker 2: you next week.
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