Speaker 1: Look, may oh, I see you my own look over
Speaker 1: there is that culture. Yes, goodness, lost culture, dang dong
Speaker 1: lost culture. Esta is calling. Now I have to really
Speaker 1: check in with you because you are, as of two
Speaker 1: days ago, officially a New York again. Yeah, it's now happened.
Speaker 2: Happened, but I will say the thing about moving is
Speaker 2: then you have to like do that process. And I
Speaker 2: can't believe what I'm finding in my closet. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: one of my best friends, Melissa, came over and we
Speaker 2: went through all of my clothes and really really really said,
Speaker 2: doesn't spark joy? I guess we did like a marine,
Speaker 2: so much of my ship did not spark joy. It's okay,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, all this stuff that I was around
Speaker 2: didn't spark joy, and it literally was You'll find it
Speaker 2: weighs you down, like have you done like a deep
Speaker 2: like donation moment.
Speaker 1: Like a quarterly purge, and it's krilled not enough. No,
Speaker 1: it's still not enough, and it's I don't consider myself
Speaker 1: someone who like shops egregiously. I guess like we've all
Speaker 1: been made to be like I guess I need that
Speaker 1: just because it's like you hit a call to action
Speaker 1: and then you head ad to card and it's in.
Speaker 2: It's you know what it is for me, It's like
Speaker 2: stuff you accumulate at things where they like give you
Speaker 2: a shirt. It's like, oh no, I need that Yankees
Speaker 2: Pride shirt. Oh no, I need that that shirt that says,
Speaker 2: like that niche phrase that I'm into this week.
Speaker 1: I found a shirt the other day that.
Speaker 2: I got from It was from the game show writer's
Speaker 2: room and it said you want to fuck me Barbara
Speaker 2: Notes on a scandal, which literally there would have been
Speaker 2: one time to wear it, and it's when we had
Speaker 2: Kate Blanchett on this podcast and I do dare do it.
Speaker 2: So I gotta say thank you to the writer's room
Speaker 2: of a game show for that gift.
Speaker 1: But it's gone. It had to go in the Murray Condo. Move. Hey,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Now, would you I'm gonna posit something, okay?
Speaker 1: Would you be okay with me? Let's say, looking at
Speaker 1: a shirt that says you're Lisa Barlow, I care a
Speaker 1: lot for me too, shirt, not that I've done this?
Speaker 1: Would you be okay with me disposing? I just got
Speaker 1: rid of it, that's okay?
Speaker 2: And I thought to myself because when you're on like
Speaker 2: the I remember watching I think probably was watching Salt
Speaker 2: Lake City Housewives.
Speaker 1: She said, what was it?
Speaker 2: She said? She said, care about me too, No, I
Speaker 2: feel for me. To feel for me, I feel for
Speaker 2: me too. And at the moment I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's amazing. You go on you know whatever it is,
Speaker 2: like Etsy or whatever, and there it is is a
Speaker 2: shirt and you say, well, I gotta buy that, and.
Speaker 1: Go on Red Bubble. It's there.
Speaker 2: If you buy every piece of merch that has a
Speaker 2: Cute Housewives saying you're gonna be living in shit, and
Speaker 2: that is rural culture number forty. If you buy every
Speaker 2: piece of merchant cute Housewives saying you're gonna be living
Speaker 2: in shit, and I've been living in shit, and I
Speaker 2: tell you I can breathe again.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: Isn't that nice? Yes?
Speaker 2: And Quarterly I'm gonna pick that up from Quarterly is nice.
Speaker 1: And it's just nice to be back in New York
Speaker 1: when you have sort of dusted off the internal cobwebs
Speaker 1: for yourself, like I hope it feels frustrated with we're
Speaker 1: getting some rain today, you know what.
Speaker 2: I was moving in the rain yesterday and they had
Speaker 2: closed down my street because of a bicycle race.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, Matt, you wanted New
Speaker 1: York back. You're getting it back.
Speaker 2: That's what it's all about. And I'm rappy, I'm thrilled.
Speaker 2: I love my new place. It's still slowly coming together
Speaker 2: as it's the process, but like returning to New York.
Speaker 2: And we were just talking to our guests about this,
Speaker 2: because our guest is an iconic New Yorkers, she has
Speaker 2: a prodigal return. Fact fantastic a book. Yes, the new
Speaker 2: book is actually it's not only very much like the
Speaker 2: definitive I would say biography on Marsha P. Johnson, but
Speaker 2: also this is a book about this is a queer
Speaker 2: history of New York. Yeah, and that is something that
Speaker 2: I really loved about it. And we were just saying
Speaker 2: before we got on, like specifically this area, you know,
Speaker 2: your Christopher Street, your West Village, your your Stone Wall area,
Speaker 2: like we have so much personal history there and I'm
Speaker 2: so proud to have that history. And reading this book
Speaker 2: made me so proud.
Speaker 1: She has such a deep history with this part of town.
Speaker 1: Truly definitive, which I want to talk about this because yes,
Speaker 1: there's like a Nashville vocation of the West Village that's
Speaker 1: happening right now, and I would love to talk about this,
Speaker 1: but we should talk about it. Our guest is a
Speaker 1: filmmaker and artist, one of the great queer archivists that
Speaker 1: we have. I reached out to her for the first
Speaker 1: time because I was reading Faggets in The Friends Between
Speaker 1: Revolutions and you wrote such a beautiful introduction to that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I have to reach out to her,
Speaker 1: like this is one of the most beautiful pieces of
Speaker 1: queer writing that I've ever read, and I think I
Speaker 1: DMed you, and then I was like, Hi, I'm just
Speaker 1: like a fan, like you wrote such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: And then when when it was announced that you were
Speaker 1: writing like the kind of the first the first ever,
Speaker 1: the first ever Johnson biography, I got so excited. And
Speaker 1: then I'm so glad this worked out so that you
Speaker 1: were on.
Speaker 2: The book is Marsha The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P.
Speaker 2: Johnson A twenty. It's just one of the most important
Speaker 2: icons we've had in our history. And to know that
Speaker 2: such an exhaustive, brilliant piece of writing now exists, it's
Speaker 2: just beautiful and we are so proud to welcome you
Speaker 2: to the podcasts tormally.
Speaker 4: Bye. Thank you both for having me so much.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really excited to dig into it. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it's not just Marcia, it's that area. You bring it
Speaker 3: to life beautifully.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I have spent so much time on
Speaker 3: Christopher Street. I started going there as a teenager when
Speaker 3: I was at Columbia, taking that slow one train down
Speaker 3: and that's where I found my people. That's where I
Speaker 3: found like queer, transgender, not conforming young people just taking
Speaker 3: up space. We were turning up the volume in of
Speaker 3: our life, like we were being all of who we were,
Speaker 3: and also we were getting you know, noise and resistance.
Speaker 3: The people who lived there weren't into us, the police
Speaker 3: weren't into us. And yet, similar to Marcia, that was
Speaker 3: just a jumping off point for turning up the volume more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1: Beautiful way to put it though. It's really beautiful. I mean,
Speaker 1: like if you're lucky in life, like it's just a
Speaker 1: big opportunity to just like gradually turn up the dial
Speaker 1: or have someone like knock it down and then you
Speaker 1: just keep turning it the other way. Wait, wait, I
Speaker 1: need to know about the the commute from Columbia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the one train commute pre iPhone just long. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just but you know I was saying before, like
Speaker 3: I live in Miami right now, and I drive up
Speaker 3: to Disney World all the time because that's like my
Speaker 3: place of But commuting for me is a place where
Speaker 3: I find clarity. It's like I fall into the day dream.
Speaker 3: I fall into the imagination as an artist. You know,
Speaker 3: some of us have studios, but for me, like New
Speaker 3: York City was my studio and the subway train was
Speaker 3: my place of like rest and rest.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I still get my best reading, not on
Speaker 1: the trade, Yes I got. I think I read most
Speaker 1: of the book on the train.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt right. Yeah, I did feel like it
Speaker 1: was connected and rooted in this whole. Like oh, like
Speaker 1: I'm I am a citizen, a denizen of the city absolutely,
Speaker 1: and like I am I'm part of this grand fabric
Speaker 1: of people. And like you would pass literally the Sheridan
Speaker 1: Square stop, yeah, like I would be on the one
Speaker 1: and like past shared in square is like it all
Speaker 1: happened upstairs.
Speaker 3: Literally, And Marcia, I have a dear friend Augusta Machado
Speaker 3: who is part of the Angels of Light, Hot Peaches,
Speaker 3: early drag culture, and right and Augusto talks about how
Speaker 3: Marcia would be above the Christopher Street stop and be
Speaker 3: a symbol for anyone who this is like the early sixties,
Speaker 3: right seventies, a symbol for anyone who is coming from
Speaker 3: a place where they had to turn.
Speaker 4: Down the volume.
Speaker 3: Right when they saw Marcia, they knew all of them
Speaker 3: was welcome in that space. And then so that goes
Speaker 3: to what you're saying, it's like it happened right above us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you ascend, it's like it's like it's
Speaker 1: like what you see, you see that, you see the vision.
Speaker 2: I mean, you write like so vividly about, you know,
Speaker 2: the time, like I'm in reading about the Stonewall riots,
Speaker 2: like it's it's just you forget when you're there now,
Speaker 2: or like maybe it's more top of mine now as
Speaker 2: things get, you know, more tense, and over the past
Speaker 2: few years, things get more difficult. But it's so you
Speaker 2: read about the violence in that area, Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: associate it with so much joy and it is all
Speaker 2: of those things, and you write so beautifully about like
Speaker 2: Marcia's lack of correct recollection also speaking to the fact
Speaker 2: that she is in that way, like a living document
Speaker 2: and it is all those things.
Speaker 1: So it's really.
Speaker 2: Kind of it's important, I think, to realize like as
Speaker 2: you walk around with that joy, it does hold that history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and like trauma shapes our memory, right, Like
Speaker 3: there's so many beautiful writings and teachings about how violence
Speaker 3: and trauma affect not just you know, like how we
Speaker 3: feel about ourselves, but how we recall ourselves in our community.
Speaker 3: And so Marcia talked about that really beautifully. She talked
Speaker 3: about being lost in the music. Right, there's this beautiful
Speaker 3: clip where she's being interviewed in the basement of a
Speaker 3: West Village house and she's talking about being lost in
Speaker 3: the music ever since the nineteen sixty nine Stone Wall
Speaker 3: ryots and she couldn't remember what date, you know, first
Speaker 3: she's talking about the seventies, and then like nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 3: and then she's like lost in the music the Stone Wall,
Speaker 3: and then she recalled Marvin Gaye heard her through the
Speaker 3: grape vine, Ryan, and that was the music playing on
Speaker 3: the jukebox when the police raided Stone Wall.
Speaker 4: And so it's this beautiful malleable.
Speaker 3: Like kind of piscy and she was a virgo, but
Speaker 3: this piscy and way, you know, are you your.
Speaker 4: Cancer?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? That always god was oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's so funny. We don't want to try I want
Speaker 1: to try that ad a lot.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, well that took it to the next novel,
Speaker 3: next level.
Speaker 1: But her her sort of reconceiving that moment is piscing
Speaker 1: in the sense that it's just like, but you know what,
Speaker 1: because it's trauma shapes's memory, but like that memory for her,
Speaker 1: like she's you. You write about how she kind of
Speaker 1: like conflicts that with her birthday exactly, and it's like
Speaker 1: still joyful in this way.
Speaker 3: And it's a birthing too, like Stonewall birth a new
Speaker 3: era for her and so many Right, it was a
Speaker 3: moment where three articles of law, three articles of clothing laws. Right,
Speaker 3: the police were using these laws to repress and make
Speaker 3: small transgender not conforming people. Right. I have a dear
Speaker 3: friend Ms Major who was also at Stonewall trans elder
Speaker 3: and she talks about, you know, you would get arrested
Speaker 3: just for going outside.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Marcia would be regularly picked up by the police, whether
Speaker 3: it was in Times Square or on Christopher Street just
Speaker 3: by going outside. And what is so beautiful about that
Speaker 3: moment too, is like she was reaching for a bigger
Speaker 3: sense of knowing that she mattered, and she did it
Speaker 3: from a place of turning over the table right when
Speaker 3: we're feeling really afraid. It can be so powerful to
Speaker 3: reach for anger, righteous anger, righteous revenge. Was what Stonewall
Speaker 3: for her really was about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this thing that happens where injustice is happening
Speaker 1: writ in front of you. Yeah, something bad is happening,
Speaker 1: writ in front of you, and there is just this
Speaker 1: like stasis and like being a bystander, yeah to those
Speaker 1: things like someone needs to break, that someone needs to
Speaker 1: be in order for anything to happen exactly, And uh,
Speaker 1: it like calls upon you to be like a brave
Speaker 1: person and the fact that like there were obviously brave
Speaker 1: people before Marcia, before Sylvia and before anyone who was
Speaker 1: there that night, of course, but it does just take
Speaker 1: this like transcendence beyond yourself that Marsha was very tapped
Speaker 1: into spiritually to make you go, well, let's fucking like
Speaker 1: let's start the revolution.
Speaker 3: Because it's like also unbearable to live in a place
Speaker 3: of fear. Yeah, right, like it is. I've experienced this.
Speaker 3: I remember like in you know, I've lived in New
Speaker 3: York for a long time and I had many different
Speaker 3: kinds of expressions in New York. Like sometimes the volume
Speaker 3: of my life I came out of organizing, right, so, welfare, healthcare, housing,
Speaker 3: you know, police in prison issues. Those were the things
Speaker 3: that I was doing for a real long time before
Speaker 3: I became an artist. And it was so important for
Speaker 3: me to be with my community in that and we
Speaker 3: were doing campaigns and kind of raising visibility, but the
Speaker 3: volume of my life and my expression was really turned down, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it was this kind of dichotomy between that, and
Speaker 3: so I remember these moments where I was like, this
Speaker 3: is I how can I show up for other people
Speaker 3: if I'm not gonna actually be the most authentic version
Speaker 3: of myself.
Speaker 4: It's it's so it costs.
Speaker 3: More for my soul to be fearful than it does
Speaker 3: to actually like tap into my power and be exuberantly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Speaking of power, you there's a line in this book
Speaker 2: which really I like had to read it many times
Speaker 2: because it meant so much to me and I thought
Speaker 2: you put it so well, and I'm gonna if I
Speaker 2: butcher it you'll keep correctly. But some power can be
Speaker 2: wrestled out of someone who's wielding power thoughtlessly or carelessly.
Speaker 2: And it's something I think it was speaking to the
Speaker 2: fact that like there was obviously I mean Stonewall was
Speaker 2: a riot, there was a breakout, but it's almost like
Speaker 2: the police at the time didn't know what to do
Speaker 2: with it because then they were thinking, like, wait, why
Speaker 2: exactly are we oppressing these people? What exactly? I know
Speaker 2: we're following and maintaining the rule of love, but why
Speaker 2: is the law what it is? Maybe that's worth questioning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: can you just talk about the connection between those thoughts.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's like when someone is tapped into
Speaker 3: who they really are, they have more power fastly and
Speaker 3: more clarity and better sense of timing than all of
Speaker 3: the people who don't. It takes it severs your power,
Speaker 3: I think, on a spiritual.
Speaker 4: Way and an.
Speaker 3: Energetic way to be pushing someone down relentlessly. And so
Speaker 3: the people who were plugged into who they were, like
Speaker 3: Marcia and took that like fearless moment or like actually
Speaker 3: this is not okay. Have are connected to a well
Speaker 3: of resource that that shapes worlds and you saw it,
Speaker 3: So I think about that all the time. It's like
Speaker 3: it's everything that's going on right now. People who are
Speaker 3: trying to like erase our lives have a real kind
Speaker 3: of like they're not tapped in now at all. They're
Speaker 3: not tapped into who they are. And so when we
Speaker 3: meet that with an abundance of spirit, an abundance of
Speaker 3: connection to those that came before and also those who
Speaker 3: are being pushed down, I think we have we have
Speaker 3: the resources.
Speaker 1: We do because the oppressor is not dialing up the
Speaker 1: volume on their life.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's exactly.
Speaker 1: Right, but like we are kind of forced to. I'm
Speaker 1: saying we in this sort of general sense, like we
Speaker 1: in our oppression are our only option is just to
Speaker 1: turn up the volume. That's exactly like despair is like
Speaker 1: the thing that's supposed to happen. Despair is supposed to
Speaker 1: be like a transitional place for me. Like that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing that like in my queer experience that I've learned.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that you and your drives up to
Speaker 1: Disney World are tapping into your spirituality?
Speaker 3: Like literally I'm listening to like my manifesting tape, like
Speaker 3: you know, listening to like Laraji and my music and whatever,
Speaker 3: and it's that to me, I'm absolutely tapping into it.
Speaker 1: What are you doing at Disney?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I'm doing all.
Speaker 2: Of it, But where are you most spiritually tapped in
Speaker 2: the Rise of the Resistance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's literally art.
Speaker 3: I'm reading Walt Disney's biography right now going through because like,
Speaker 3: honestly that I want to make art like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I hope and aspire that my art builds a
Speaker 3: world that people feel invited to. That's what the point
Speaker 3: of the book is is like, come in to Marcia's
Speaker 3: world that is expansive where you get permission to actually
Speaker 3: be who you are. And so to me, I think
Speaker 3: about other people who create on that scale, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's really my desires, like to create culture and
Speaker 3: aren't on that scale, whether through a photograph, a film,
Speaker 3: a book, or like a theme bar.
Speaker 1: I feel because I think because you had it, you
Speaker 1: had an exhibit somewhere, you just show somewhere where it
Speaker 1: was like a portal, right, yeah, so.
Speaker 4: The Whitney Biennials portal.
Speaker 3: And then also I have work up with the met
Speaker 3: in the Afrofuturist Period Room, and it's two photographs, two
Speaker 3: self portraits, one where I'm floating in mid air in
Speaker 3: a space suit and the other where it's like I'm
Speaker 3: back in time in the eighteen hundreds, kind of evoking
Speaker 3: this early transfigure Mary Jones lived in on Green Street
Speaker 3: in Soho in the eighteen thirties. And so the Afrofuturist
Speaker 3: Period Room is also like a portal. Right, you get
Speaker 3: to step into a space that imagines that Seneca Village,
Speaker 3: which preceded Central Parks, still exists.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: This is this question of like what if we got
Speaker 3: to live freely? And then my hope is that people
Speaker 3: see in their own life, like what if I act
Speaker 3: more freely right in this moment, in this moment, in
Speaker 3: this moment.
Speaker 2: So do you think like it's just to speak about
Speaker 2: like because we're talking about Disney and now it's funny
Speaker 2: because we were just talking before we got on like
Speaker 2: they opened Epic Universe and they.
Speaker 1: Used the.
Speaker 2: Portals like that's the that's the language that they're using.
Speaker 2: Portals into worlds, lands, not like bridges. And there is
Speaker 2: something about immersion in the sort of you know, oh
Speaker 2: my god, the girl who did the very long four
Speaker 2: hour thing about Disney the Hotel.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, lindsay something.
Speaker 3: She does all these long content but yeah, and they're
Speaker 3: so good. We love the hotel.
Speaker 1: The hotel was.
Speaker 2: She talked about this concept of immersion, about how like
Speaker 2: it really feels like as entertainment and as experiences and
Speaker 2: as technology goes on and on and on.
Speaker 1: I think this is kind of what West World was.
Speaker 2: Obviously, it's like the kind of final frontier of entertainment
Speaker 2: and in enjoying, you know, these experiences, the goal being
Speaker 2: like full immersion. Yeah, what do you think that that is?
Speaker 2: Why do you think we're there? Well?
Speaker 3: I think you know, for me, like I make art films,
Speaker 3: right and or kind of like short films, and so
Speaker 3: I always think about it's gonna sound strange, but the
Speaker 3: first one of the first films I saw was' was
Speaker 3: It of Oz? Right? And I think about this moment
Speaker 3: right where it goes from black and white to technicolor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it did something to my mind.
Speaker 5: Ye.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a paradigm shift. And so I think immersion
Speaker 3: is really a paradigm shift. So I have a film
Speaker 3: Silesia that's at Tate Modern and it goes from eighteen
Speaker 3: thirties New York to Sylvia rivera on Christopher Street along
Speaker 3: the Hudson River, which we called the River Jordan. And
Speaker 3: I was hoping to evoke that where's it of oz
Speaker 3: feeling that is like black and white to technicolor, because
Speaker 3: when I'm immersed in something, I'm seeing it differently, right,
Speaker 3: like you are kind of like hacking or editing your
Speaker 3: reality in a popular way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that almost speaks to to Marsha P. Johnson's
Speaker 2: recollection of the time, because she was fully immersed in
Speaker 2: the experience and so she cannot see it clearly because
Speaker 2: she is existing within it. Whereas that side, there are
Speaker 2: of course facts about when someone all happens. But when
Speaker 2: you're immersed in the experience and therefore part of the atmosphere,
Speaker 2: you can't really be expected. And also there's some joy
Speaker 2: in that, and you're losing yourself into the moment.
Speaker 3: When artists are a musician is performing on stage, it's
Speaker 3: like you're fully there, you're fully channeling or parameters change.
Speaker 3: The parameters change, and.
Speaker 1: It says something about the fact that the collective recollection
Speaker 1: collective recollection of stonewall of the Riot is that no
Speaker 1: one quite knows exactly.
Speaker 2: What happened exactly.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 1: It's not just one person that's Marshall like not being
Speaker 1: able to recall it, but a lot of.
Speaker 3: People because it's not my friendly Alacsmi writes really beautifully
Speaker 3: about how riots are not sane events, the not neuro
Speaker 3: normative events. You're in an altered state, and I think
Speaker 3: that speaks to but you're saying, it's like you're not
Speaker 3: going to have total recall, You're fully in this altered place. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there was not like a first brick exactly exactly exactly,
Speaker 3: even though there were people who were first rippling out,
Speaker 3: like Marcia in the back room or store may or
Speaker 3: you know, like Nova, there were people rippling, but there
Speaker 3: were these were popping off simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you write so well in the book about the
Speaker 1: community that was built not even around Marsha, but just
Speaker 1: with like horizontally with Marsha just sort of like there
Speaker 1: as a leader in this in this space. But it's like,
Speaker 1: it's really wild that it all is contained in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood or on Christopher Street. Like her whole life, her
Speaker 1: whole life began in a way, like her parameters changed
Speaker 1: on Christopher Street at Sheridan Square and then you know,
Speaker 1: has this tragic, almost beautifully mysterious ending too right on
Speaker 1: Christopher Street, and like and then that's where everyone celebrated
Speaker 1: her life. Yeah, you know, they spread spreader ashes at
Speaker 1: the river. Like the fact that it's so local and
Speaker 1: yet so globally like impactful is always what's kind of
Speaker 1: crazy to me. Yeah, like it happened right there, like
Speaker 1: like the start of queer liberation happened on the street
Speaker 1: where like there's a Donald's two blocks down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it used to be a stream, Like it
Speaker 3: was one of the longest streets in New York. I
Speaker 3: kind of go into like the history of the city
Speaker 3: a little bit, and it was like a water us
Speaker 3: all being water signs. It was a water pathway. Christopher
Speaker 3: Street was way hundreds of years ago, and it had
Speaker 3: a flow and kind of like in a lyrical sense,
Speaker 3: it mirrored Marsha's flow. When I was writing the book
Speaker 3: at the end, I lived on Christopher Street. I lived
Speaker 3: on Christopher and Hudson, and it just it was so
Speaker 3: trippy to experience, how you know, Marcia had a birth
Speaker 3: of becoming right at Stonewall and then there was a moment,
Speaker 3: you know, an ending, not the ending of her, but
Speaker 3: an ending of and Christopher and hunting in the water.
Speaker 3: And so it just is it's so profound in it.
Speaker 3: How could it not raise these kinds of spiritual questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really do like believe that, And this is
Speaker 2: where I'll get pricing in WOOO. But like there are
Speaker 2: places that just have energy, like and I do think
Speaker 2: that that intersection has energy, Like there is an energy there.
Speaker 1: It is thick.
Speaker 2: You are more powerful there. I will always have such
Speaker 2: gorgeous memories. This is when Bowen and I were in
Speaker 2: our mid twenties. I was dating Henry Koperski shout out,
Speaker 2: and he would play the piano at the downstairs duplex. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we would go and Bowen would do the most
Speaker 2: incredible performance of Lady Gaga's rendition of Bang Bang And
Speaker 2: I will just never forget the people coming up to
Speaker 2: the window and looking in, not knowing it would be
Speaker 2: you know, future superstar bow and Yang. But like it's
Speaker 2: just there was something about it like we were all
Speaker 2: performer there.
Speaker 1: We were all stars there.
Speaker 2: Like that's right. I remember that's where I started. Literally
Speaker 2: I started the Christmas Show. Yes, like from seventy people upstairs,
Speaker 2: like and just seeing people go up and express themselves.
Speaker 2: You are lended that because of the history, even if
Speaker 2: you're not conscious, that's because it's woven into the place.
Speaker 3: It's woven into the energy of the place. I think
Speaker 3: that's exactly right. My friend Randy, Randy's like eighty three now,
Speaker 3: but he was, do you ever go to Julius? Yeah,
Speaker 3: of course, So he led the sit in before Stonewall.
Speaker 3: Wow at Julius, you know, like this was nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: five or something like a few years before Stonewall. Julius
Speaker 3: was a straight bar that refused to serve openly gay people.
Speaker 3: And he went there and he led, you know, borrow
Speaker 3: tactics from the black liberation movement, the civil rights movement,
Speaker 3: and he led this beautiful sit in. And so there's
Speaker 3: all of these spots that pop off like that, so
Speaker 3: much so that it's like it's not one place. It
Speaker 3: is an abundance of places creating a very particular vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost feels like in that it's like a
Speaker 2: true circle of queer bars and like a queer community.
Speaker 2: It does feel protective, almost like a witchy spiritual circle.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's like you it's like any anything
Speaker 2: uncouth untoward, Like it's like if yeah, it's just it
Speaker 2: would feel like a true violation. We are protected there,
Speaker 2: and I honestly feel like the entire thing needs to
Speaker 2: be historically landmarks. Fear for the duplex, I do.
Speaker 1: I I like it.
Speaker 2: It bothers me to know that like it's just a
Speaker 2: building that could get taken down because it's not.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, And I think it's interesting too, you know,
Speaker 3: like we are creating also the new places in that space.
Speaker 3: When hundreds and hundreds of people showed up at you know,
Speaker 3: in Sheridan Square and we're like, you cannot erase the
Speaker 3: tea from the National Park Service websites or erase Marcia
Speaker 3: and Soviet Right exactly, I think we're creating you know,
Speaker 3: it's like it was powerful then and it's powerful now
Speaker 3: and it's summoning force.
Speaker 1: But then you can have it show up in any
Speaker 1: form where you either have hundreds of people show up
Speaker 1: a Sharn Square or you have fifteen thousand people show
Speaker 1: up at the Brooklyn Museum in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: That was a moment where I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like this this is how we show up now because
Speaker 1: we always were like it's so hard to like visualize
Speaker 1: what it was like back then in the absence of
Speaker 1: like documentation or photography. But it's like the way proliferates
Speaker 1: now is even more sort of functional because it's like
Speaker 1: anyone could see that from anywhere, that image anywhere and
Speaker 1: then go there now or just know where to find
Speaker 1: their people or resources now, which is probably most important.
Speaker 2: I'm sortly just thinking about how if there were like
Speaker 2: just this, they'd be reading this in high school, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And I just I feel like
Speaker 2: I'd be remiss not to talk about with you hear,
Speaker 2: someone who's so involved in the literary and art community
Speaker 2: and like someone who's like you know, out here writing
Speaker 2: really important work about queer historical figures, if you could
Speaker 2: just speak to and talk about what you're seeing in
Speaker 2: terms of like attacks on these types of books and
Speaker 2: like things like that, and the removal of these types
Speaker 2: of really important works that explain and you know, include people.
Speaker 2: And I feel like Marsha P. Johnson's legacy, well, we're.
Speaker 3: Seeing it from obviously the highest office political office right
Speaker 3: with Trump executive orders that are having a real material
Speaker 3: effect on our community. You know, ever since the inauguration
Speaker 3: where he was talking about their official policy of two genders. Right.
Speaker 3: I have a dear friend who tried to travel through
Speaker 3: the airport two weeks ago and she was the TSI
Speaker 3: didn't allow her to enter because she has an X
Speaker 3: on her ID state issued ID, and they also wouldn't
Speaker 3: let her leave the airport. And so we're actually seeing
Speaker 3: these it's not just rhetoric. It's having a real concrete
Speaker 3: effect in our lives. It's also really affecting. I always
Speaker 3: want to make sure we're including like our trans siblings
Speaker 3: who are incarcerated, and so that it's having our huge
Speaker 3: effect on incarcerated people. And it's also affecting the classroom, right,
Speaker 3: and these institutions of art and creativity. We saw the
Speaker 3: National Endowment of Arts today, museums where my work is up,
Speaker 3: mass Smoka just made an announcement that the NEA is
Speaker 3: withdrawing funding. So we're really saying in real time effect yeah,
Speaker 3: our political landscape.
Speaker 1: So many organizations of any size or like losing out
Speaker 1: on all this NEA stuff where Baffo I heard, is
Speaker 1: losing stuff Like a lot of these the only way
Speaker 1: that I have known how to be present because of
Speaker 1: scheduling stuff, and like I literally can't even like show
Speaker 1: up like in any place outstead of work. Right now,
Speaker 1: It's like okay, like Baffo is raising funds, let's go there,
Speaker 1: Let's let's drop some cash there, Let's drop some cash
Speaker 1: for the doll invasion in August. Like, let's just like
Speaker 1: PLoP some little some little windfalls wherever we can, like
Speaker 1: we as in me like I'm trying to do that,
Speaker 1: and the only way that I know how now, because
Speaker 1: it's like we cannot feel helpless in this moment exactly.
Speaker 1: It just spare has to be a transitional phase. It
Speaker 1: cannot be the terminus.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, I think to me.
Speaker 3: You know an organization that's near and dear to my
Speaker 3: heart is the trans Justice Funding Project. So I've been
Speaker 3: raising funds for trans Justice Funding Project, which funds gives
Speaker 3: fund to rural grassroots organizations throughout the South First Nation,
Speaker 3: organizations which are really important places that are not necessarily
Speaker 3: just on the coast. And so I always like to bring.
Speaker 1: Up, Yeah, God, I mean, is it how much of
Speaker 1: this do you have to sort of like hold in
Speaker 1: your in your mind, like at any given time, I
Speaker 1: feel like you are in your work. You're so expansive
Speaker 1: and the people that you think about that I feel
Speaker 1: like there must be some weight to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think part of it is I've been doing this
Speaker 3: for a long time, right, and there are moments that
Speaker 3: evoke amount of grief seeing loved ones die from lack
Speaker 3: of care or from violence. It's definitely like a part
Speaker 3: of my story this moment. For whatever reason, I also
Speaker 3: feel tapped into a sense of hope because I have
Speaker 3: come to a place where I firmly believe the bigger
Speaker 3: the problem, the bigger the solution, and that solutions are
Speaker 3: created from problems, and that when we pivot our focus
Speaker 3: from not you know, it's really important to talk about
Speaker 3: the bad things going on, but also when we pivot
Speaker 3: to well, how are we showing up in the world,
Speaker 3: you were just doing that. I think that's really magnetic,
Speaker 3: compelling energy. More and more people are looking for who
Speaker 3: are the helpers. I think it was like mister Rogers,
Speaker 3: He's like, look for the helpers?
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: I firmly believe that now it's like, who are the
Speaker 3: helpers in our community? We know things are so hard
Speaker 3: and when I do that, I feel lighter, like I
Speaker 3: have a greater sense of clarity. It's like when I clean, similarly,
Speaker 3: I have a greater sense of clarity. And also when
Speaker 3: I'm looking for the helper and looking for the solutions.
Speaker 4: And driving to Disney literally honestly driving to Disney.
Speaker 1: Seven by You Adventure.
Speaker 4: I really it broke down when I was on the.
Speaker 3: Days breaking down, days breaking But it was really cool
Speaker 3: because we got to leave through the back door and everything,
Speaker 3: which was I mean, I love the backstage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were on Tower of Terror when it broke down.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: We were high as a kite and we were.
Speaker 2: Like, uh and like they come they come out of
Speaker 2: like you know, like a hallway with fluoresca like lighting,
Speaker 2: like hey, you guys have to come down, and you
Speaker 2: literally walk down. It was we were, but it was
Speaker 2: hilarious because then we took an actual elevator.
Speaker 1: Down to the ground.
Speaker 4: We were we were like, okay, drop along the way.
Speaker 2: We all we did was rise, and so then there
Speaker 2: was that thing of like in your head when you're
Speaker 2: expecting one thing, but then it.
Speaker 4: Never so we kept that was we were. We stopped
Speaker 4: literally before the one Jennifer is like, yes, I have.
Speaker 1: To go for so many reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's my star.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 1: Jennifer is a legend.
Speaker 2: But it's like aoc on her like Fight the Oligarchy
Speaker 2: Tour one of the things she's been speaking to And
Speaker 2: I do think it's so important and it's something that
Speaker 2: I struggle with, you know, over the past six weeks,
Speaker 2: Like I find myself like traveling a lot and like
Speaker 2: doing some things that are making me happy and taking opportunities,
Speaker 2: and I there is like a degree of guilt because
Speaker 2: every time I turn on the news, it feels like devastation.
Speaker 2: It feels like depression, it feels like more darkness encroaching.
Speaker 2: But one thing she said was that you have to
Speaker 2: take your opportunities to feel joy.
Speaker 4: I remember hearing that because.
Speaker 2: Because it could be so easy right now to forget
Speaker 2: and then you forget what you're fighting for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also when you I have found I don't
Speaker 3: know if you have, but when I'm in a more
Speaker 3: joyful place, I have a greater capacity to show up for.
Speaker 4: People in my life.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's like my the plug is plugged into
Speaker 3: the electricity in my joy and so I can be
Speaker 3: channing solutions more and when when I'm just vibing in despair,
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily lose that capacity, but it shows that
Speaker 3: it's diminished, at least for me.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And is this part of the imagination for the theme park,
Speaker 1: which is that is kind of the ultimate place?
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you for seeing me, of course, girl.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, from a young age, and I do think
Speaker 2: it did come out of like honestly, I think my
Speaker 2: obsession with it started when I was seven or eight.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about this because Bowen and I
Speaker 2: went to Epic Universe. They were kind enough to invite
Speaker 2: us to see it, and we're going to be at
Speaker 2: the grand opening. Oh my god, it's so exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: So we're going to be there.
Speaker 2: And we were being asked because they filmed us doing
Speaker 2: they filmed us on the go pro doing the stardust racer.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: We were asked, we were online like about our experiences
Speaker 2: with the im person. I said, I've been at Universal
Speaker 2: Parks fan since I was seven or eight and I
Speaker 2: went on the Back to the Future ride and I
Speaker 2: remember it. I didn't understand that immersive entertainment like that,
Speaker 2: and I think it made me want to be creative,
Speaker 2: And I think that's why it's important, and that's why
Speaker 2: I get on my soapbox so much about them lowering
Speaker 2: those goddamn prices because families need to be able to
Speaker 2: experience that. That is what what would have wanted, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But my thing is it is really formative for a
Speaker 2: young kid. Like we went into the Super Nintendo World
Speaker 2: and I was like, my sister, who's a grown ass,
Speaker 2: like walked in and here's a horizon. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: imagine being.
Speaker 1: A child exactly.
Speaker 2: Like it's crazy, those those those experiences are so special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can only go so often because of the
Speaker 3: Florida discount. Well, yes, which is incredible. It's like it's
Speaker 3: much more discounted. Everyone should have access to places of
Speaker 3: that helped them plug in their line to have a
Speaker 3: greater sense of like imagination. You know, there's this moment
Speaker 3: where I think it's Kevin Costner talking about riding the
Speaker 3: original Disney rides over and over and over again. My
Speaker 3: whole YouTube about Algorithm is theme parks.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll just literally that's the only thing that comes up.
Speaker 2: Podcast.
Speaker 1: You are amazed.
Speaker 2: She's a legend, but like I'm not biotic construct looking
Speaker 2: at the what is your what's your algorithm?
Speaker 3: Okay, so it's all like epic Disney and then like manifesting.
Speaker 5: That's a great, that's really good. And they talk to
Speaker 5: each other, literally talk to each other because you have to, like,
Speaker 5: for me, at least, I have to imagine it into
Speaker 5: being right. And while she was doing that, I write
Speaker 5: a little bit about the hot spring hotels in Times Square.
Speaker 5: These were hourly hotels where, you know, you literally would
Speaker 5: be arrested if you were a trans person expressing any
Speaker 5: part of your authenticity in Times Square.
Speaker 3: Because they would assume it was solicitation exactly. And these
Speaker 3: laws actually stayed into the books, you know. Twenty twenty
Speaker 3: was when the three articles I was going to say,
Speaker 3: Andrew Cromo, former governor, right, and so Marcia. When they
Speaker 3: could hustle a little bit of money, they would rent
Speaker 3: these hourly hotels. And they call them hot spring hotels
Speaker 3: because whether whatever season it was, it was always really hot.
Speaker 3: But these were places where they would dream their life
Speaker 3: into being right. They would have a little bit of
Speaker 3: relief from the police and violence on the street, and
Speaker 3: they would ask each other again and again and again,
Speaker 3: like what would it feel like to be able to
Speaker 3: move through the world with a greater sense of ease
Speaker 3: or a greater sense of freedom. And so to me,
Speaker 3: those places, whether it's the Hourly hotel or a Disney
Speaker 3: theme park or epic, those are the places that we
Speaker 3: get to, at least for me, imagine a world where
Speaker 3: we get to show up more free and more playful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the site specificity is important because I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: like even like the porn theaters in Times Square, Yeah,
Speaker 1: places where like they would just stay all day exactly
Speaker 1: and think just and just like they were being like
Speaker 1: a little black box space whatever. Like, yeah, the world
Speaker 1: was at some remove exact that they could like access
Speaker 1: this like imagination.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And Samuel Delaney, I don't know if you've read
Speaker 3: like Time Square, read Times Square right about it really
Speaker 3: beautiful but you know, and also Marcia came from a
Speaker 3: place of like kind of naivete right like she was
Speaker 3: you know, she's working at Child's restaurant, so she was
Speaker 3: a waitress, and then she was befriending these treet queens
Speaker 3: like Sylvia, who was thirteen I can only imagine literally,
Speaker 3: and then was going to these theaters and there's this
Speaker 3: interview where she was talking about, oh.
Speaker 4: Like you won't lick that man's toes.
Speaker 3: You know, she mind kept getting blown by this imagery
Speaker 3: and being like, oh, like, I guess people are doing
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 4: So it was really powerful to read that part.
Speaker 1: It's a portal, it's a portal's portal. And how do
Speaker 1: you feel this way about children's literature? Like our friend
Speaker 1: Julia was telling us, like he he wrote this beautiful
Speaker 1: children's book and whatever I did, like a like like
Speaker 1: a book of it with him, was like, like, what inspired
Speaker 1: you to children's literature? And he was like, it's the
Speaker 1: most politically powerful medium that we have.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I also wrote a children's books that comes out
Speaker 3: the same day. It's called One Day in June, and
Speaker 3: it starts with a caretaker with a little one on
Speaker 3: respeech I don't know if y'all go to Queer Haven Sanctuary,
Speaker 3: and then it goes up to Raquel Willis's speech at
Speaker 3: the Brooklyn Museum with fifteen thousand people, And it's really
Speaker 3: about channeling that frequency just like a radio station of
Speaker 3: Marsha and how she is in the every day, she's
Speaker 3: in the permission to be all of who we are.
Speaker 3: She's in you know, worker who is giving her tips
Speaker 3: to someone who can't afford to buy their kid ice cream.
Speaker 3: She's in the dancing at Raoul, she's you know, or
Speaker 3: their club.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like all of this five is very available and
Speaker 3: to me, in a moment when young ones, kids are
Speaker 3: being told really firmly that either they don't exist, that
Speaker 3: their truth is wrong and they need to change, or
Speaker 3: they're just you know, turning the dial of their of
Speaker 3: their life and truth down, it's really important to have
Speaker 3: a book that's not that right. That's we're giving ourselves
Speaker 3: permission to play and to try new things, and also
Speaker 3: to connect it to a history that is still so palpable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about this really interesting metaphor that I feel
Speaker 1: like you're returning to, which is turning up the volume,
Speaker 1: adjusting to the frequency, like plugging in. It feels like
Speaker 1: they're feel like you're describing life in a way or
Speaker 1: just like you know, the human experience in a way
Speaker 1: that is very like that's a toggle or that can
Speaker 1: be like modulated in a sense because and in a
Speaker 1: way I kind of not in a way, I really
Speaker 1: do love that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean that's just how I've come to
Speaker 3: experience the world, that there is something underpinning all of
Speaker 3: our experience, and whether you call that like God or
Speaker 3: the universe or source or joy, which is just another
Speaker 3: word for it, you can readily tune to that wherever
Speaker 3: you are. And so a lot of times when you're
Speaker 3: feeling fear, the pathive least resistance to that is to
Speaker 3: get really angry about the situation. That brings you closer
Speaker 3: to a feeling of clarity and joy and that frequency
Speaker 3: that's fully available.
Speaker 4: So to me, part of.
Speaker 3: That is just like a basis of manifesting. And so
Speaker 3: there are people who are talking about manifesting or bring
Speaker 3: things into the material, but I really believe that there
Speaker 3: is a Marsha frequency, you know, like a joy frequency
Speaker 3: that when we're feeling all of who we are and
Speaker 3: we're inviting all aspects of ourselves into the room, we
Speaker 3: have a clear, clear access to that.
Speaker 1: There's a really wonderful thing about listening to Marsha's voice
Speaker 1: that I found I have like press play on videos
Speaker 1: or just like in there's footage of her your in
Speaker 1: your film Happy Birthday, Marsia, where I could just like
Speaker 1: listen to her talk all day like sort of tour
Speaker 1: it up on a podcast.
Speaker 4: Literally, she's hilarious.
Speaker 1: I mean she's so original.
Speaker 4: Funny, original.
Speaker 3: And I was here yesterday because my friend Rachael Willis
Speaker 3: is doing a podcast about Marcia called Afterlife, and she
Speaker 3: was talking about seeing these YouTube clips of Marsham that
Speaker 3: Randy Ricker was filming, and Marcia just has great timing,
Speaker 3: you know, she's like, get your heart ready for heart
Speaker 3: failure to the to the filmer right, and then she's
Speaker 3: like and then I'll get the camera, you know, like
Speaker 3: you're gonna you're gonna expire because of my outfit, and
Speaker 3: then I'm gonna jack your camera. And it's just like
Speaker 3: these fits that she was always doing. And she modeled
Speaker 3: herself a lot of her performance work off of Billy Burke,
Speaker 3: who was the original Funda exactly and was a vaudeville actress.
Speaker 3: And so Marsham did this.
Speaker 1: She played the jets. She was like the bimbo. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, she.
Speaker 4: Was playing the bimbo.
Speaker 3: And she was well aware, like there was a moment
Speaker 3: when she was in the West End in London, the
Speaker 3: only time she really traveled from the US, and she
Speaker 3: was at drill Hall which is now Rada Studios, and
Speaker 3: she was performing the Dits and the audience didn't get it,
Speaker 3: Like people were writing like Marshall must have be having
Speaker 3: an off night because she's not quite hitting the notes,
Speaker 3: you know, or she's not really remembering her lines. But
Speaker 3: that was her persona and she did it so well.
Speaker 3: And just one week before she died, she said, I
Speaker 3: love when people think I'm just a ditch or a
Speaker 3: silly little street queen because I can work them out
Speaker 3: of their money. But she was well aware from childhood.
Speaker 3: She was in the chorus with her brother Bob and
Speaker 3: her sister Jeanie and Elizabeth New Jersey, and they used
Speaker 3: to go around to the neighbors and sing for money,
Speaker 3: and she would sing and completely off key, and Jeanie
Speaker 3: Michaels is like, but they always gave her the money.
Speaker 3: And it was because she was doing this on purpose,
Speaker 3: to see a little kid like go all over the
Speaker 3: scale and they'd just be like, oh that's right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: a true performer exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Speaking of conjuring up the childhood memories, we have to
Speaker 2: ask you the question, the central question of lost culture, yes,
Speaker 2: which is what was the culture that made you say,
Speaker 2: culture was for me like that formative element of whatever
Speaker 2: kind of pop culture or culture in general that you feel.
Speaker 3: Well. We talked about Wizard of Oz, but also with
Speaker 3: my dad, I went to Mattine Films because they were cheaper,
Speaker 3: and I we saw literally like every single Eddie Murphy movie.
Speaker 4: That's so funny you say that, Really.
Speaker 2: I did the same thing with Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 3: It was the only movie it and my mother that
Speaker 3: kind of styled himself off of Eddie Murphy. And so
Speaker 3: you know, it was all of it, right, But I
Speaker 3: remember Harlem Knights with Dela Reese in those costumes and
Speaker 3: Richard Pryor, and then you know, later the Whiz with
Speaker 3: Richard Pryor and the Emerald Secret scene. But it was
Speaker 3: really those that humor and which I lost for a
Speaker 3: little while, but I remember that we were we went
Speaker 3: to have a good time, we went to have fun,
Speaker 3: and it was like everything Eddie Murphy. And so that
Speaker 3: really was like Jealousy is a good indicator for me
Speaker 3: because it shows me what I want to be doing.
Speaker 3: And so when I'm like jealous about someone's career, it's
Speaker 3: not like I hope they don't have it. I'm like
Speaker 3: I want to be doing that thing. Jealousy's really important.
Speaker 3: And so it's like I can remember being jealous, you know,
Speaker 3: as a little kid of all these people who got
Speaker 3: to act on stage and you're like.
Speaker 4: I want to be doing that.
Speaker 2: You get it in your head like you hate them.
Speaker 4: You get in your head.
Speaker 3: That you hate them, but you really just want to
Speaker 3: do what they're doing but don't know how to do it.
Speaker 4: That's all that jealousy is.
Speaker 3: And so to me, I was like, I can just
Speaker 3: remember being Harlem Nights, you know, Beverly Hills, all of
Speaker 3: the Beverly Hills clops, you know, like Golden Child, all
Speaker 3: of them, where I was just like I want to
Speaker 3: be one of these people on screen, like having a ball.
Speaker 1: I was jealous of Raven for being and Doctor Dolittle too,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, because like she gets to play
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy's daughter. I don't know why. It was like
Speaker 1: I want to.
Speaker 2: My dad put me in that car and said get
Speaker 2: in the car and we went to see Nutty Professor.
Speaker 2: To Janet, I could tell it was for him, yes,
Speaker 2: But I had so much joy because my dad was
Speaker 2: sharing something explicitly with and he never took me in
Speaker 2: the movies.
Speaker 1: It was that I told you drag and so many
Speaker 1: movies it mind blowing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really did you grow up? I grew up
Speaker 3: in Roxbury, which is part of Boston.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so then also so cool that mass like
Speaker 1: that you're exactly But okay, can we do an assessment
Speaker 1: as a group about the movie Norbid? Because I thought
Speaker 1: stowed out of my mind in high school and I
Speaker 1: to rewatch it and I'm nervous to revisit it because
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is gonna be so, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be so chaotic for so many reasons. But is it work?
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, do I just like a home and
Speaker 1: watch Norbits? I?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 4: I think So he's a genius.
Speaker 1: He's a genius.
Speaker 3: He's a literal and he's also kind of ahead of
Speaker 3: the curve in a very particular consistent way where I
Speaker 3: feel like, so much later you might be picking up something, yeah,
Speaker 3: that you didn't see it first.
Speaker 2: I feel like something though that like fucking sucks to
Speaker 2: have to tackle this type of thing. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: like we're talking about a couple of things where there
Speaker 2: are like, there's elephants in the room, right, there's an
Speaker 2: elephant in the room with Eddie Murphy's homophobia. Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: an elephant in the room with Epic Universe having Harry
Speaker 2: Potter and the JK rowing. Absolutely, I just wonder like,
Speaker 2: how do you personally navigate that and filter that, because
Speaker 2: I find myself having a really hard time with Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course these are in the past, but I think
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's interesting because when I say my
Speaker 2: dad really like styled George Gossip Junior himself off of Eddie,
Speaker 2: like it was all of it, it was also the
Speaker 2: homophobia in transphobia, right, Yeah, and he.
Speaker 3: Died in twenty ten. And in a similar way that
Speaker 3: I have a kind of like spiritual relationship with Mars,
Speaker 3: I have one with my dad where it is really
Speaker 3: easy to see now that people who are saying the
Speaker 3: most kind of like intense file things also around HIV
Speaker 3: and AIDS and you know, like it's all of course
Speaker 3: are either like not surrounded by our community, right, which
Speaker 3: in and of itself is you're missing out on such
Speaker 3: a blessing.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 3: So that's like a place of girl like you were
Speaker 3: really missing out, you know, like it sucks for you.
Speaker 3: And then also when people are doing that, it's so
Speaker 3: clear no one who's feeling really good about themselves is
Speaker 3: consistently attacking another person. I just don't think I can't.
Speaker 3: I don't think that you can be in a place
Speaker 3: of joy and also be pushing against them.
Speaker 1: She's not happy sitting in her house, That's what I'm
Speaker 1: saying Twitter all day.
Speaker 3: And so to me, I'm like, I just have a
Speaker 3: place of I think I give like maybe Eddie Murphy
Speaker 3: a lot of grace around.
Speaker 4: Okay, you are young.
Speaker 3: And and doing a long time ago fame from a
Speaker 3: family that maybe I don't know. I'm just like, you're
Speaker 3: a famous young black person and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: everything that you're saying is the talk of the task,
Speaker 3: and so it's not like my dad who says homophobic
Speaker 3: things and then no one knows about, but it's everywhere.
Speaker 3: And so to me, I'm like, oh, this, this is
Speaker 3: so sad for you. And also I just I don't know,
Speaker 3: I have such a warm spot in my heart around
Speaker 3: Eddie Murphy because sure and with JK Rowling, she seems
Speaker 3: so miserable and I'm just like, what's going on there? Girl?
Speaker 3: Like you, something is going on because you are so
Speaker 3: going out of your way to attack like my community
Speaker 3: when we're literally just being alive. And then you know,
Speaker 3: the celebration of the UK Supreme Court. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you all saw. Yeah, it's disgusting. There's something so
Speaker 3: intense going on if a symbol of freedom, a symbol
Speaker 3: of expansiveness is causing such a knee jerk response that
Speaker 3: you have to go out of your way to attack it.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like, you were not connected to what
Speaker 3: I'm about, right, like you, you can't be in a
Speaker 3: place of pleasure and happiness and joy when you're going
Speaker 3: out of your way to do that. And so with her,
Speaker 3: I'm just like, blessed you on your journey. You're either
Speaker 3: going to figure it out now or like when you're immaterial.
Speaker 1: And huh yeah material. It's like my only well, the
Speaker 1: only way I can rationalize it with her is that
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you got so rich and famous off
Speaker 1: of writing this morality tale, that your set of morals,
Speaker 1: your code of morals is sort of indisputable, and it's
Speaker 1: the only thing, it's the only correct thing in the world,
Speaker 1: and that she the mechanism by what she's putting down
Speaker 1: trans people is by victimizing CIS women in a way
Speaker 1: that is like more dire than what's it's literally in
Speaker 1: a way that is that it's like not happening. It's
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's fabricated.
Speaker 4: It's fabri it's completely all of it is fabricated.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: The fear is completely fabricated because the scary thing that
Speaker 3: they're talking about aren't being committed or produced by transgender
Speaker 3: not conforming people, which are such a small part of
Speaker 3: the population and are like, we're just trying to live.
Speaker 3: This is a fabricated like fear respond to either not
Speaker 3: being able to figure out the economy, so you're blaming
Speaker 3: like transfids, you know, it's and or whatever is going
Speaker 3: on with JK, like not being able to figure out
Speaker 3: her own stuff. And so to me, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 3: completely did y'all go into the Harry Potter rat?
Speaker 2: I mean we did?
Speaker 4: Speaking of.
Speaker 1: The thing is like this is my and I struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And my thing was like, you know what, I
Speaker 2: just thought about relatives that I have that now have
Speaker 2: really gone hard for Trump, and I can't recognize them
Speaker 2: from what they were when I was growing up. And
Speaker 2: the fact is they're not the same person, but they
Speaker 2: will not take my memories of them from when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, and so I kind of just said, like,
Speaker 2: you know what, she is not going to ruin this
Speaker 2: thing for me that like me again, made me want
Speaker 2: to be creative, made me want to be who I am.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 2: And my thing is just like I'm just not gonna
Speaker 2: let her have that. I'm not gonna let her cloud
Speaker 2: like ruin this like experience for me.
Speaker 1: And the thing too is just like, you know what's
Speaker 1: great the Dark Universe. The Dark Universe is amazing, and
Speaker 1: your Dragon Universe, which we had I've never seen the movies.
Speaker 1: I loved it totally.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 2: The fun thing is I understand why they did it
Speaker 2: because it's such a catch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: And I will say the ride.
Speaker 2: Is actually kind of cunty because it's like Dolores Umberge's
Speaker 2: trial and I'm like, God, damn it, why am I
Speaker 2: walking in here? I haven't thought feelings When it's like
Speaker 2: a trial ride, It's like it's like so gay, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like you're walking in and it's like she's on trial.
Speaker 2: We're gonna watch her being made guilty and she catches
Speaker 2: free and Emel just Staughton comes back and gives like
Speaker 2: a fierce performance and you're like, god, JK, shut the
Speaker 2: fuck up.
Speaker 5: The up.
Speaker 4: That's odd.
Speaker 1: But where are you at? Will you go in there?
Speaker 4: I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, because you because it's like you would
Speaker 1: not be abandoning anything about your transnists going there necessarily.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was it a kind of revolution, isn't Like people
Speaker 1: showing up to places where they're not wanted is kind
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, not the revolutionary thing to do, but
Speaker 1: kind of like.
Speaker 3: That's transformative to be in a place where they're not
Speaker 3: up to speed with your beauty or your value or
Speaker 3: your worth or your deserving this, and to just not
Speaker 3: turn your dial to that, but to like, actually I
Speaker 3: belong everywhere I go and exactly including this.
Speaker 4: Place that I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially as like as someone who's like, it's such
Speaker 2: a crazy moment in theme park history.
Speaker 1: It's like the epic universal of at all.
Speaker 2: By the way, it is that good, Like the hype
Speaker 2: is so real, like the first time in twenty five
Speaker 2: years that they've opened like a major new like that,
Speaker 2: and it's like it's just what they've done with the
Speaker 2: theme parking technology. You're going to be so gagged for
Speaker 2: this Monster's on change right, Like it's really good and
Speaker 2: just like the story that they tell with that, we've
Speaker 2: been joking about Victoria Frankenstine on this podcast for a year.
Speaker 1: It's a gag definitely cultural culture, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we are the ambassadors of Celestial Park, that's right,
Speaker 2: which is the Hobland's official title.
Speaker 4: It was also like that the Hobland's pretty chill.
Speaker 1: It's very chill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so it's like if you're over stimulated, maybe
Speaker 3: you go to Celestial Park or whatever.
Speaker 1: It like cut in that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was just at.
Speaker 3: Epcot for the Flower Garden festivals. Beautiful, so beautiful. I
Speaker 3: felt like the Brook and Botanic Gardens was Guardians of Galaxy.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It was the most gagged by. Were those Bondsie.
Speaker 1: Trees are just out there.
Speaker 4: Ye oh my god.
Speaker 2: I love to go for food and wine. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: just go in there by myself and knock down some mapsally,
Speaker 2: oh my god. They were in technical rehearsal when we
Speaker 2: did it, so I can tell there was like some
Speaker 2: fog effects and some stuffs turned off.
Speaker 1: Okay, they're gonna figure out.
Speaker 4: I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Does newness kind of like have this like counter force
Speaker 1: to it where it's like it makes you nostalgia because
Speaker 1: now because it going to Epic made me want to
Speaker 1: like go to Universal and just go in the old
Speaker 1: rides or just go to Disney. Yeah, the Classic rights too,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh, this kind of opens it
Speaker 1: up to like everything for me, where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: want to do it all.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Honestly, part of you know, not to with Marcia's like
Speaker 3: part of one drag became so pop culture. I was
Speaker 3: so interested in the origins. Yeah, right, Like I don't
Speaker 3: know if you're familiar with the Angels of Light, but
Speaker 3: they came out of the Cocketts and the Bay glitter beards.
Speaker 3: Like so many of the looks that we're seeing these
Speaker 3: days came from like Marcia Angels of Light and also
Speaker 3: the Hot Peaches, right, these like early sixties seventies performers,
Speaker 3: And so to me, I'm always about like that nostalgia.
Speaker 4: I'm a cancer, so like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the nostalgia of it all, but yeah, I fall
Speaker 3: into that. I went to Islands of Adventure for the
Speaker 3: first time when I was sixteen in two thousand and
Speaker 3: it blew my mind, there was like the dueling dragone
Speaker 3: and all of that, and then I went I hadn't
Speaker 3: gone back for so many years, and I wasn't sure,
Speaker 3: like how's it going.
Speaker 4: It's gonna feel comfortable? Is it going to feel safe?
Speaker 3: And the thing that I really was paying attention was like,
Speaker 3: I remember when this when I was this year old,
Speaker 3: and I was blown away, and now it's like evolved
Speaker 3: into this other beautiful things capturing my imagination. So I'm
Speaker 3: kind of like in between that that nostalgia and the wow,
Speaker 3: totally evolution.
Speaker 4: Of it all.
Speaker 1: And like I think I went to like a La
Speaker 1: Mama show, Oh yeah, like ten years ago or something,
Speaker 1: and like I think you like shed light on like
Speaker 1: the way that like all these different theater communities were
Speaker 1: intertwined together, especially in the seventies, yeah, or especially when
Speaker 1: Marsha was performing in them. So like was it was
Speaker 1: hot Peaches and Angels of Light? Was that coming from
Speaker 1: like theater for the New City? Know, like like like
Speaker 1: break it down for me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So okay, So Marsha performed at Theater of the New City, Yes,
Speaker 3: with the Angels of Lying so like the Jane Hotel
Speaker 3: right now. So and also LaMaMa and all of these
Speaker 3: really beautiful places. The hibiscus came out of the cockettes
Speaker 3: and Angel Jack and so they really created something that
Speaker 3: had never been seen before. Right. Their performances included like
Speaker 3: the Enchanted Miracle, where a big storybook was on stage
Speaker 3: and for each new scene, the page.
Speaker 4: Would be turned.
Speaker 3: It was this like you know technology, right, this immersive
Speaker 3: experience that the audience was really getting into. And Marcia
Speaker 3: did this really great thing of direct address with the audience,
Speaker 3: let her rift.
Speaker 4: She was so good. She'd be like, hello, Sylvia, you know.
Speaker 3: And there's this beautiful recording of Sylvia Rivera, who I
Speaker 3: think a lot of times we just think of as
Speaker 3: an activist.
Speaker 1: Sure, but she's.
Speaker 3: Talking about seeing Marcia on stage dressed as a queen
Speaker 3: from a faraway land and like going after this person
Speaker 3: who stole her lover and is just screaming at the
Speaker 3: top of the lungs, at the top of her lungs,
Speaker 3: and the audience is growing and getting more and more ecstatic,
Speaker 3: and Marcia was plugging in the light for so many
Speaker 3: people in that moment. So I think that was that
Speaker 3: early kind of drag performance work, was plugging in the light.
Speaker 4: For the audience that was growing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you speak in this in this metaphor,
Speaker 1: and I that's such a great model for like anyone
Speaker 1: would be so lucky to create a space where people
Speaker 1: go to plug to plug.
Speaker 3: In exactly, you know what I mean exactly, And I
Speaker 3: think that's what culture at its best does, and that's
Speaker 3: what your podcast does.
Speaker 4: Like you're both doing it all the time. I was
Speaker 4: watching episodes of Game Show.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, And you know, like you've
Speaker 3: been like, we're all doing it right like, and I
Speaker 3: think that's what we're aspiring to do, is like create spaces,
Speaker 3: whether it's a podcast or a game show or SNL
Speaker 3: or a film, where we're at we're able to plug
Speaker 3: in and we're able to leave transformed. We're able to
Speaker 3: go from black and white to technical, or we're able
Speaker 3: to like go through the portal and experience something incredibly
Speaker 3: immersive and then be like I can do that, can
Speaker 3: do that, and it doesn't have to stay right here,
Speaker 3: I can do it everywhere.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite lines from any piece of art
Speaker 2: I've seen I've heard over the past couple of years
Speaker 2: is there's this play the Hills of California that's on
Speaker 2: Broadway now, and there's this beautiful part where she goes
Speaker 2: over to the piano with the character and she says,
Speaker 2: you know, talking about music and talking about songs. She's like,
Speaker 2: a song is just a place to live for three minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was just like, that's why music is my escape.
Speaker 2: And that connected to everything from when I was younger
Speaker 2: about that thing of like walking into this area where
Speaker 2: all of a sudden there was something else. It was
Speaker 2: just like, I think that that is another reason why
Speaker 2: a lot of queer people gravitate towards that does theme park.
Speaker 1: There is a big gay community.
Speaker 2: Because I think what I was saying earlier was I
Speaker 2: didn't realize it, but I needed a place to be
Speaker 2: that wasn't my own head or my own reality, because
Speaker 2: there was this thing encroaching, which was you don't belong here.
Speaker 2: I don't belong here, you don't belong here. And suddenly
Speaker 2: it didn't matter what the rules were in a world
Speaker 2: that's fake and immersive. Exact, a song is a place
Speaker 2: to live for three minutes. It's like, when I feel
Speaker 2: like I want to escape whatever it is, I will
Speaker 2: put on a song that it listits to a certain emotion
Speaker 2: because in that emotion, it's also changing the reality.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: And you're moving from sometimes a place of despair to
Speaker 3: a place of anger, to a place of like, you know, optimism,
Speaker 3: to a place of hope, and then to a place
Speaker 3: of like positive expectation and knowing that things are going
Speaker 3: to be okay.
Speaker 4: And that's the song's power.
Speaker 2: Yes, or even if it's not escaping, Yes, I'm angry
Speaker 2: and I want to feel this at fifteen out of
Speaker 2: ten exactly like yeah, on kinkis Karma by Chapel, Right,
Speaker 2: I hate boyfriend, you know what I mean? Like it's
Speaker 2: like I need to stop because I'm grieving.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: I need I want to party. Saw this song.
Speaker 2: I want to feel like I you know what I'm
Speaker 2: saying is it's like it's turning up the volume.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right that emotion. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: I am curious to know, like, yeah, are you done
Speaker 1: with New York for good?
Speaker 4: Or are you like totally?
Speaker 3: So I moved to Miami because my partner is an
Speaker 3: environmental lawyer, and she is that's where she's working, and
Speaker 3: there's so I moved after twenty two years. I was
Speaker 3: saying like I hadn't left New York for longer than
Speaker 3: three weeks ago. Yeah, I like the time I left
Speaker 3: the longest was I was working for de Reese, who
Speaker 3: directed Pariah and Bessie and Mudbound, and I was her assistant.
Speaker 3: Wow it was a great film, so for Mudbound, and
Speaker 3: you know, so I was in Louisiana and that was
Speaker 3: a really clarifying experience. And I came back to New York, like,
Speaker 3: you know, ready to direct Happy Birthday Marsha Part two.
Speaker 3: And I think I'm having a similar powerful experience where
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful for the artists and the organizers and
Speaker 3: the friends in Miami who are really received me so warmly.
Speaker 3: There's so much happening in that city that people organizing
Speaker 3: around and are affected by. And also I don't know,
Speaker 3: I do feel this is my home, like my mom
Speaker 3: lives here and my siblings and.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is it's home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, exactly, it's But I live
Speaker 3: in this beautiful neighborhood of Miami called Coconut Grove. It's
Speaker 3: like oh, historically Bahamian community. Yeah, and it's so lush
Speaker 3: and I feel it in my body, like how much
Speaker 3: it makes sense, And there's like hundreds of peacocks walking
Speaker 3: around my neighborhood and my cat is so happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean honestly, sometimes I feel like you
Speaker 2: just get used to a certain pace of life that
Speaker 2: you realize it's unreasonable once you go somewhere else and
Speaker 2: just allow yourself to It's like I needed to leave
Speaker 2: New York when I did, Yeah, and I was, I
Speaker 2: just it's really interesting because I came back. And what
Speaker 2: I've been saying to people that are like, oh, why
Speaker 2: did you come back, It's like, because the things you
Speaker 2: didn't like or don't like about New York are all
Speaker 2: kinds of things you can change, Like they're all individual.
Speaker 2: It's like everywhere else, it's like you're gonna have to
Speaker 2: deal with what it is. But New York is a
Speaker 2: lot more multifaceted and yeah, much many more experiences. There
Speaker 2: are many kinds of lifestyles there than I think I
Speaker 2: thought totally, And so I think I needed to go
Speaker 2: away and have my shoulders drop to come here and
Speaker 2: understand how to drop them. In New York City, you know,
Speaker 2: you're on guard all the time and ready to go
Speaker 2: all the time, and like, you know, got your armor
Speaker 2: on and you know, ready to go. But then you
Speaker 2: can come back and be like, now that I've like
Speaker 2: as an adult lived somewhere else, I can be an
Speaker 2: actual adult.
Speaker 4: That's right. Yeah, No, it's that transition moment so unnecessary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, truly. Yeah, I did feel in reading the book though,
Speaker 1: like everything about my life in New York, it's like
Speaker 1: you end, you end with the thank you, you say
Speaker 1: thank you, Marsha, and the whole time, even before I
Speaker 1: got to the ending, I'm just like, I I owe
Speaker 1: everything to this one person who has been in like
Speaker 1: my consciousness for as long as I've like read up
Speaker 1: on queer history. But I also like I cannot even
Speaker 1: begin to understand like all the material things about my
Speaker 1: life that like wouldn't be possible without her.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's why I ended with thank you Marcia.
Speaker 3: It felt like, you know, I started learning about Marcia
Speaker 3: over twenty years ago, and it's just felt like a gift.
Speaker 3: So to know her in a particular kind of like
Speaker 3: spiritual sense and to get close to the people who
Speaker 3: I named who are still around here right now kind
Speaker 3: a physical sense. And so that's the spirit that I
Speaker 3: hoped to offer through the book. It's like I received
Speaker 3: this gift. I would love to share this gift with
Speaker 3: everyone and take it how you will. But for me,
Speaker 3: it just it felt really important to move through that
Speaker 3: spirit of generosity.
Speaker 1: Even parted that in such a huge way and like
Speaker 1: just down to like my own individual history. And I'd
Speaker 1: like Matt's too of like, oh my god, like that downstream.
Speaker 1: Was it a sit in or what would you call it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they Marsha and Silver, Yeah, they had an
Speaker 3: occupation in nineteen seventy September of Weinstein Hall.
Speaker 4: They took it over, right.
Speaker 3: They were the street queens living in Washington Square Park
Speaker 3: and they were like NYU, New York University is refusing
Speaker 3: to have gay dance parties in the heart of this,
Speaker 3: you know, haven for queer and trans people.
Speaker 4: That's not okay. We're gonna take it over.
Speaker 3: And it was this really beautiful moment where they were
Speaker 3: modeling what they dreamed up in those hourly hotels. They
Speaker 3: dreamed up a sense of connection and community. Marsha was
Speaker 3: making food. They were, you know, kind of modeling after
Speaker 3: the Black Panther Party two where everyone was invited to eat,
Speaker 3: and so they were just like creating the world that
Speaker 3: they wanted to live in. Sometimes we call that prefiguring
Speaker 3: the world that we want, right, and they were doing
Speaker 3: that kind of prefiguration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were in the basement. They're in the basement,
Speaker 1: which is where the buffet dining hall was when we
Speaker 1: went there. It was where you would go to like
Speaker 1: get your hangover omeland. Like the fact that like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's where they were living. It all, like it all
Speaker 1: like start like a year after Stone while this is
Speaker 1: where like this was like the the extension the continuation
Speaker 1: that was happening, like where like I was like eating
Speaker 1: my home fries.
Speaker 2: Bitching about the craft of writing.
Speaker 1: You know what, wouldn't we wouldn't have gone to it,
Speaker 1: like Ny you probably like I think you already right
Speaker 1: at time. Like also wasn't really even admitting a lot
Speaker 1: of queer students exactly. It's like we're and like we're there.
Speaker 1: We're there because of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also they were doing these incredible like they were
Speaker 3: dreaming about things in the basement of n y U
Speaker 3: where y'all were hungover about, like access to gender firm
Speaker 3: and care. Right, they were literally talking about access to
Speaker 3: medical care. They were talking about also for things that
Speaker 3: didn't directly affect them, for you know, sist women to
Speaker 3: have daycare so they could attend college, for college to
Speaker 3: be free, for you know, housing. It was really important
Speaker 3: for them to dream up because they knew that you
Speaker 3: two would come along and be the benef fisheries of
Speaker 3: the dream and you need to necessarily do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I think you write about this in the book where
Speaker 1: it's like their transness was the thing that like was
Speaker 1: able to confer like possibility onto like a huge mass
Speaker 1: group of people, like the world exactly the literal world,
Speaker 1: literal world. I learned so much reading this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for reading it. I'm engaging in this
Speaker 2: space should be on the dollar, and it amazing and
Speaker 2: you did incredible work. And I have to imagine that
Speaker 2: this was not easy and.
Speaker 1: It must years.
Speaker 3: Well, I was writing for five years and then before
Speaker 3: that it was like fifteen years of research. But it
Speaker 3: felt like a gift, Like it honestly felt every time
Speaker 3: I learned something new or I met someone who was
Speaker 3: grumpy and lived you know, like and who knew Marsha
Speaker 3: but lent ended the conversation really joyful.
Speaker 4: All of it. It just felt like all of.
Speaker 2: That is exactly what we were talking about earlier with
Speaker 2: like you know, the lack of quote unquote correct recollection.
Speaker 2: It's like people are all the things and that is
Speaker 2: that is what makes her not just you know, someone
Speaker 2: who's a source on stone Wall and that area in
Speaker 2: that time, but she is that time and it is
Speaker 2: it is all those things, and so we're gonna do
Speaker 2: I don't think so, honey, But Marsha, Okay, I have something.
Speaker 1: But I don't think so honey.
Speaker 2: And it involves my sister.
Speaker 1: Hey you all right, this is oh me, all right,
Speaker 1: this is I don't think somebody this is the one
Speaker 1: minute segment in which we take one minute to rage
Speaker 1: in the culture. Matt Rogers has something, is Matt Rodgers.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Many's time starts now.
Speaker 2: I don't think so honey. Why haven't they got my
Speaker 2: girl Bowen Yang at the mcdala.
Speaker 1: Oh, my boy should have been at No.
Speaker 2: I want the invitation in the mail for next year.
Speaker 2: Already you would have got a suit you tailored Michael
Speaker 2: Fisher at m John f scroll through. Look at my
Speaker 2: girl slaying every look. You know he's a fashion icon.
Speaker 2: What was that photo show you did with the Pikachu backpack?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: That was on Ryan McGinley for New Yorker.
Speaker 2: That was an award winning photo shoot with award winning
Speaker 2: styling and an award winning subject. Why isn't my girl
Speaker 2: at the med Gala? I want to see my girl
Speaker 2: walking up the steps. I want to see him ignoring
Speaker 2: the press. I want to see him in a hat.
Speaker 2: I want to see him doing a daring fashion.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing.
Speaker 2: If Bowie nan inviting, I'm never getting invited.
Speaker 1: And I want to go to the Meddala. I don't understand.
Speaker 1: This makes my chances of being.
Speaker 2: Invited much less.
Speaker 4: A weekend.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you his address. It's that's beautiful. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: I kind of preferred this watching from home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what, Just go to the carpet,
Speaker 2: get the phone out on the side, don't get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Megan the Stallion. Did I've seen Oceans eight? I know
Speaker 1: what what's going on inside.
Speaker 3: To go.
Speaker 2: I don't need to go to the Macala. I've seen
Speaker 2: ocean that's a lottal culture number sixty. I need to
Speaker 2: go to the Medala. I've seen oceans A.
Speaker 4: Literally it's shocking.
Speaker 3: I thought you had I just wow, my goodness, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't it just make sense.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 2: This because it was all about suiting. I mean, what
Speaker 2: did you think of the mecal?
Speaker 4: I thought it was fab.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really great. It was a great. Yeah great, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think that. To quote Marcia, it's like the party
Speaker 1: is wherever she goes.
Speaker 2: You're right, the party. The party was at at your
Speaker 2: dress last night.
Speaker 1: The party was that was that my I had people
Speaker 1: over invited you over? How many people did you have?
Speaker 3: Order?
Speaker 1: It's just four of us. It's just me, josh oh.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I was in the weeds moving again, like
Speaker 2: you know how it is.
Speaker 1: We talked about it.
Speaker 2: But another time we'll hang out. Okay, bohen Yang, do
Speaker 2: you have and I don't.
Speaker 1: Think I haven't. I don't think so, honey. I love
Speaker 1: to hear it.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is Bowen Yang's I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 2: His time starts now.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, honey. Make Time Square dirty, filthy
Speaker 1: horny again. Yes, Times Square at Times Square, Blu. This
Speaker 1: is why Time Square is so important the city. You
Speaker 1: need cross class interaction in every great city. That is
Speaker 1: how you engender solidarity. That is how you get people
Speaker 1: to work together to solve problems. We can't be silent
Speaker 1: in our neighborhoods now, and I especially don't think so. Honey.
Speaker 1: Another neighborhood, the West Village, being overtaken by these girlies
Speaker 1: who are like just doing their silly little tiktoks. Nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that, it's just it cannot be all the
Speaker 1: tone of that neighborhood anymore. That is a rich neighborhood
Speaker 1: in terms of history and wealth, let's say. But it's
Speaker 1: just we need our neighborhoods to retain some of their authenticity.
Speaker 1: Times Square being all like eminem Storre McDonald's is funny
Speaker 1: and ironic, and I think there's a huge opportunity or
Speaker 1: to make those spaces fun and crazy and absurd, Like
Speaker 1: let's make those like weird, sexy, horny places, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I catch me cruising at the Olive
Speaker 1: Garden at the Madame.
Speaker 2: Tusso's, and that's one minute, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, when't be fun to just like make Time Square
Speaker 1: a little bit like filthier again, bring back, just make
Speaker 1: that fun because because we used to work here all
Speaker 1: the time, we're down there like by the drop of bookshop,
Speaker 1: and I can i can see the bones of when
Speaker 1: this was. This had like character to Yes, you can
Speaker 1: still feel it, but it's like but otherwise it's like sanitized,
Speaker 1: and I'm like exactly, like it's still there.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Can still smell the cum on the wall, A little
Speaker 2: old rose.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: You go.
Speaker 3: All right, so it's yours, it's your turn. Okay, do
Speaker 3: you have something? I have a little bit of something.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's blow it out to a lot of
Speaker 1: bit of a something.
Speaker 4: Okay, help me, you know, all right?
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is tomaling. I don't think some money.
Speaker 1: Her time starts now, Okay.
Speaker 3: I don't think so honey, to this small time dreaming.
Speaker 3: We are literally in a moment as the empire is
Speaker 3: collapsing in, our economy is dusted, dusting that like, we're
Speaker 3: all saying it's time to go after your dreams. There
Speaker 3: is no point carving out a small space on a
Speaker 3: sinking ship just for our survival. Now is the time
Speaker 3: to dream. As big as the problems are. This is
Speaker 3: how we transform the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a fucking writer, a poet.
Speaker 2: Test said it in less words and more poignantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean something about you saying like big problems
Speaker 1: call for inspire big solutions, Like that's tea.
Speaker 3: I really feel that way, you know, like I really
Speaker 3: really feel that way.
Speaker 1: And this is the this is the actual time.
Speaker 3: Exactly and you can feel it right like we can
Speaker 3: feel this thing not working. It is so clear that
Speaker 3: this moment is illuminating. How it's not lasting? Yeah, So
Speaker 3: why not, like why not be inspired to think of
Speaker 3: a dream that's a little bit bigger than the empire
Speaker 3: that's crumbling around it?
Speaker 1: Totally like, well, what is there to lose?
Speaker 4: What is there to lose?
Speaker 1: Yet?
Speaker 4: Absolutely literally nothing?
Speaker 2: I mean, Arthene Perks, You've really done something here. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is Marcia The Joy and Defiance of Marshall P.
Speaker 1: Johnson.
Speaker 2: It is out May twentieth, and you would enrich yourself
Speaker 2: to read it. You don't have to be queer, you
Speaker 2: don't have to be a New Yorker, you don't have
Speaker 2: to be someone that's interested in history. You could be
Speaker 2: all those things and more and you would get so
Speaker 2: much out of this. It's beautiful work, and we thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It really means
Speaker 3: a lot, and it means a lot that you read
Speaker 3: and engaged the book and shared so much about how
Speaker 3: it affected you and your own stories. And I'm just
Speaker 3: thinking about Marcia and you in the basement of Weinstein's
Speaker 3: time traveling with the two drunk you know, up and
Speaker 3: coming girly.
Speaker 1: Yea circle we did.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, Yeah, yeahlations being.
Speaker 1: Every episode of the song. We end every episode of
Speaker 1: the song. Don't you know that I heard the great Bye.
Speaker 4: Long Well?
Speaker 1: You know I'm realisting now? Is that the melody?
Speaker 2: This is the one marketing I don't I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I used to know it because I used to do
Speaker 2: it on the American Idol all the time.
Speaker 1: That's my little white lay and singing.
Speaker 5: Bye ye.
Speaker 1: Last. Culturists is the production by Will Ferrell's Big Money
Speaker 1: Players and The Heart Radio.
Speaker 2: Podcasts, created and hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yet
Speaker 2: executive produced by Anna Hasni and
Speaker 1: Produced by Becker Ramos, edited mixed by Jack bam Manicho
Speaker 1: Boord and our music is by Henry Komerski, yahm