If you happen to be in Toronto this weekend, you may want to find your way down to Massey Hall on Saturday night for a one-night-only performance called Och and Oy!, starring actor Alan Cumming and NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro. Their collaborative show is a mix of cabaret and storytelling, and to mark its debut, I’m diving into the Sewers archives to revisit my 2018 conversation with Ari Shapiro, who was then as now one of the hosts of NPR’s flagship show All Things Considered. As a journalist, Ari primarily tells other people's stories, but his own story is considerably is more winding than you might expect -- behind his calm voice is a man who spent time as an undocumented immigrant, who carried mace for protection in high school, and who might never have found his place on the radio if a gay icon hadn't intervened on his behalf.
We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that I’ve got a book coming out this May about the history of queer characters on sitcoms, from Bewitched to The Golden Girls to Friends. It’s called Hi Honey, I’m Homo. Pre-orders are open — and those pre-orders are so important, so if you’ve been meaning to get one in, now’s the time! Head over to gaysitcoms.com to reserve your copy.
And if you like pop culture history, check out my YouTube channel for tales from behind the scenes of iconic movies and TV shows! I just posted a video about the movie The Birdcage and its long winding journey to the screen, and I’ve got another coming soon about a gay couple that transformed the way television depicted queer people in the 1970s — and the psychiatrist who tried to stop them. Check those videos out at YouTube.com/mattbaume.
Demons & Ghosts (Ep 295 - Dr. Who/Hamish Steele)
Somewhere That's Green (Little Shop of Horrors/Brad Cerenzia)
It Was a Mindf**k (Ep 294 - Carol Channing/Terry LaBolt)
The Manic Fervor of a Tennessee Williams Heroine (Ep 293 - Sunset Blvd/Dashiell M. Silva)
Legendary Slumber Parties (Ep 292 - Greenwich Village/Robert Patrick)
Strip Mall Hypnosis (Ep. 291 - Clan of the Cave Bear/Michael Hobbes)
A Really Accomplished Fake (Ep. 290 - Video games & Radiohead/Daniel Villareal)
We Were Too Busy Being Gay (Ep. 289 - Stonewall/Tree)
The Pack Rat (Ep. 288 - Norman Lear/Steven Capsuto)
Superheroes Are Basically Naked (Ep. 287 - Marc Andreyko/Moonlighting)
Fairies and Mortals Can't Get Married (Ep. 286 - Dee Michel/The Wizard of Oz)
It Started as a Sexy Fun Project (Ep. 285 - Amos Mac/Original Plumbing)
Kind of Right & Kind of Wrong (Ep. 284 - Seth Rudetsky & Broadway)
I Paid my Dues, Baby (Ep. 283 - Charles Busch/Vampire Lesbians of Sodom)
The Night Australian TV Lost its Virginity (Ep. 282 - Number 96/Andrew Mercado)
Dream Role, Dream Show (Ep. 281 - Hedwig/Trystan Reese)
Don't Make Superman TOO Sexy (Ep. 280 - Joeboys/Joe Phillips)
Connect, Not Just Sex (Ep. 279 - Luis Buñuel/Dale Lazarov)
The Most Expensive Flop in History (Ep. 278 - Madeline Kahn/William V. Madison)
Failed Mystics (Ep. 277: Buffy, X-Men, He-Man, and Lwaxana Troi)
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