Red Scare - Glennda Does Red Scare w/ Glenn Belverio

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Author, filmmaker and legendary drag performer Glenn Belverio joins the ladies to talk about the Trump assassination attempt, the fate of LGBT and drag, collabing with Camille Paglia, and the recent Glennda Orgasm renaissance.

["All The Things You Said"] We're back. Yeah, we have a big day today. We're flustered, but we're holding it together. We have a great guest today. It is my great pleasure to introduce Glenn Belverio. Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me. Glenn, how do you want to be introduced?

You're an author and a filmmaker and a performance artist. Well, so I am a sort of a former drag performer who I'm kind of infamous for the public access show I had in the 90s from 1990 till 1996, Brenda and Glenda show and then Glenda and Friends. Glenda Orgasm. Glenda Orgasm was my drag persona. And all the work has been digitized

and preserved by Video Data Bank in Chicago. So the past few years, I've been going through what my friend Ben calls the Glenda Orgasm explosion, where the work has been playing at like the Walker Art Center and the National Gallery in Washington, DC and the Chicago Art Museum, and then screenings at small venues,

like the screening that we did together. This is how we met. Glenn, was we screened the tape you made with Camille Pollyer? Glenda and Camille do downtown. Yes, which is kind of our connection. Yeah. Camille told me about you guys years ago. Well, we, she did?

Yeah. Oh yeah, cause she had heard that we were praising her name. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But we were asked to do like a Kim's screening and I thought that this would be a nice one to show cause we love Camille so much. And parts of it are online, but we got to show the whole tape, which was nice. The uncensored version.

Yeah. And then I got an email that there's a documentary being made about you and that. There is. So yeah, there was some beautiful synergy that came together. Like a dream come true because we didn't really expect you to be there. Yeah, we didn't. I really inserted myself into that situation. No, we were happy for it. I was a fan on Instagram.

Do you know Cindy Sabbath? No. Her real name is Marissa, and she sent me this screenshot that Kim's video was showing Glendon Camille and it had your names on it. Yeah. And I was like, what's going on here? Hi Jack. Yeah.

And I was really, I, you know, I was hell bent on finding out who was in charge of this. And I was texting people, making phone calls. And then I tracked down Alex Ross Perry. Yeah. And I said, look, I need to be there. I need to be there to talk about my work and it all worked out. It's easy, yeah, we were happy to do that.

Those screenings are very laid back and they don't really contact the filmmakers. No. So. Yeah, we barely were like, when do we show up? You know? But what I love, and I have to thank you guys for bringing Camille sort of to new audiences,

to the younger audiences, and to like the Brooklyn audience, and like people under 40, because there was a moment where the PC tide was against her and people were like. Well, almost from the outset, right? Because she was sort her and people were like. Well, almost from the outset, right? Cause she was sort of their work. We used to have culture wars before as well in the nineties, as you know. Yeah.

And so she was sort of at the, Yeah, she was. The front lines of that. And then I feel like then she had the longevity and then again, I'm just more backlash. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, so you brought Camille to new audiences by talking about her on this pod,

and then that got people interested in my work of like seeking out that film on YouTube and researching it. Well, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, and everybody at the screening was they were all young people, which is great, because there are a lot of like, I'm 58, because there are a lot of, I'm 58 and there are a lot of queer artists and just like stand up people my age

and everybody in the audience is their age or they're boomers. They don't have that reach of like a younger audience. So I'm really grateful that I'm able to reach new audiences in my golden years. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Any generation of snowflakes can rediscover and attack you. Exactly, yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

Yeah, I think when we started the podcast, Polly, I'm gonna really make an effort to pronounce her name correctly this time around. She was already kind of like a trending topic and a lot of people hated her and I was like what's this all about? But I don't think we can even take credit for like repopularizing her because it kind of feels inevitable. Like there are certain people that we've definitely brought to a younger audience like Steve Saylor, but I don't know I think like she gets

Constantly rediscovered because I think people in college probably still read her But before we get into all that we have to talk about what a big day it was for everyone Let's start with yesterday. Yeah, do a quick recap. Let's do a news. Well, let's start with yesterday. Shelley Duvall passed away. I revered. Yeah, of course. And even from the 80s, I remember seeing her and Popeye in the theater.

Unreal, no, yeah. And then I saw The Shining when it came out in the theater. So that was super sad. Yeah. And then today not one but two additional gay icons. Yes. went to heaven Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons. I mean, I kind of feel a sense of relief because these things tend to come in threes. And that means like, we got our three out of the way. There's no more. There'll be a break now. Yeah, and Donald Trump got shot in the ear, so the crypt keeper didn't come for him. Vaded death once again.

Truly blessed by God. Because it's three celebrities and Donald Trump is a celebrity. Yeah, exactly. He narrowly missed being the third. Someone had to take his place. I'm like, first of all, I bet he's real happy. Oh yeah.

And I'm real happy for him. And people of course are like, conspiracizing that he orchestrated it. Yeah, well I thought of that for a millisecond. Yeah, that he like ducked down and like cut his ear like a wrestler or something. Or like, did you see the Paul Verhoeven film? Benedetta yeah about the lesbian the nuns yeah, yeah

She was like dude she would duck down and like cut her do her stick So it's kind of like that you know, but I want to all do a little bit of that on Instagram The cutting scars. Anyway, you wanted to talk about... Richard Simmons. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about Richard Simmons.

Well, I was going to arrive at this recording in my sequin leotard, not only in homage to Richard Simmons, but also to Donald Trump. No, but maybe, but to honor you, I think of you gals as the modern day Howard Stern and Robin Quivers. That is so sweet. And Richard Simmons used to be a frequent guest on their show in the 80s, which is when I was listening to it. And it just, the rapport, like Richard Simmons had such an enormous sense of humor. And of course Howard really, it was Howard back in those, he was especially irreverent.

So there were a lot of fag jokes and a lot of gay baiting and it would get very wild and Richard would lose his temper and in one episode he bit Howard Stern and Howard went, oh my God, he bit me, he bit me. I hope I don't have AIDS now. And Richard was, oh Howard, I can't believe you said that. And to me, Richard Simmons is a correct gay role model. Exactly, yes.

Like Nellie, you know, fairy, sissy, gay role models are extremely important for sissy kids. Whereas like the gay establishment has always pushed this idea of like, we have to have like positive role models who are masked, you know, straight acting and- And married. Yeah.

And have like a white picket fence lifestyle. Totally. Or like pretend to have one. Yeah, and not like I have like a white picket fence lifestyle totally pretend to have one Yeah, and and and not you know flamboyant and not coming out of the Liberace tradition But I totally opposed that kind of role model I always look to people like Richard Simmons and Paul in from you know, he was on Bewitched Do you know about Paul in the Center Square on Hollywood Squares? Yeah on Bewitched. Do you know about Pauline? The Center Square on Hollywood Squares? Yeah.

You don't know about Pauline? I don't. I'm not aware. Richard Simmons was very near and dear to me as a child growing up because he was on TV a lot. Yeah. And I thought he was so quirky and weird and magical. And he's sort of how I found out about gay guys. Wow. When I was like a five or six year old immigrant child who had just come to America,

because we would watch like Maury Povich and Jerry Springer and inevitably like some infomercial with Richard Simmons would come on. I had no concept of- That's how you became a fag hag. That's how I became a fag hag. Because my mother would call like Richard Simmons and Pee Wee Herman Gullo Boy,

which is the Russian slang for gay. What's the term? It's a slightly pejorative. Gullo Boy. which is the Russian slang for gay. What's the term? Gullo Boy. It's slightly pejorative. It means like light blue. Is it like finocchio in Italian? You know, finocchio means faggot. Yeah, but that's a little more pejorative.

This is almost like saying someone's like light in the loafers. Or like a confirmed bachelor's. And I was like, what's she talking about? But yeah, I went on Wikipedia today to look up this word and we're so wrong about the etymology because I don't know how true this is. We need some Wikipedia fact checkers.

I always associated it with like baby blue, light blue, but apparently it refers to pigeons and their plumage because it is in reference to some kind of cruising ground park in Moscow where all the gay guys used to congregate. That's hot. That sounds hot, yeah, definitely actually. Yeah.

But we don't have gay guys in Russia, that doesn't. Yeah, that doesn't exist, yes. So that doesn't, that doesn't. That doesn't, sure. But he was the first. That's what they say, you know, that there's no gay guys. My first experience. Carl Lagerfeld had something to say about that.

And I remember like literally back then being like totally like retarded and inarticulate, but being like, I wanna hang out with guys like that. Look at you now, New York City. Yeah, and here you are in the epicenter. What did Carl Lagerfeld say? It's kind of offensive. So, okay, I think Russian men are hot,

but apparently Karl did not. And Karl is like, if I lived in Russia, I would have to be a lesbian because all of the men are so ugly. Wow, well, that's not true. A lot of them are ugly. Yeah. There is a huge discrepancy between Russian women and men in terms of their attractiveness

on average, I would say. But that was one of the famous quotes where they would do the litany of like, why Karl Lagerfeld is a horrible person, right? When the woke mob was going after him, I thought it was okay to say disparage Russians. This is a while ago. Yeah, it's probably back in the day when it was still like mean and racist. Yeah, but I mean, when he died, it's like they wanted to dig him up and drive a steak into his heart. I know I remember that.

Yeah, the posthumous kind of a- I mean, to be fair, there are like a lot of Russian men who look like- Pumpkins. Pumpkins or potatoes, but then there are a lot of Russian men who look like bouncers and that's hot. Totally. But you know Karl Lagerfeld essentially was a lesbian, so it worked.

Or maybe like he was like an incel or a celibate or something like that. He was, he was, well you know the pineapple juice story. I don't. So he would always pretend that he never had sex, but then he did an interview with Bruce Labruse where he kind of talked about how he liked to hire hustlers and call boys and he would make them drink pineapple juice so that when he blew them, their semen would be sweet.

I've heard that. I've heard that technique. Yeah. I forgot to add that to the list of techniques. We were discussing blowjob techniques on the last one. Cause we were talking about the deplorable figure known as Hawk to a girl, but that was a big one that was like in magazines back in the day. If you drank pineapple juice. And it's like, who has time to like go to the store and buy pineapple juice and then wait for the pineapple juice

to take effect. Wait for it to process in your body and then go into your balls. It probably happens pretty fast. It's like when you eat asparagus. Right. Right. So it probably only takes about five minutes. There's like a Kardashian episode

where they do like a pineapple juice challenge that shows how they're like overly unboundary they are as siblings or something. I forget that. You know, since you mentioned Kim Kardashian, I wanted to correct something that, not correct, but you did this great pod about the Met Gala. Oh yeah.

And you have the creative director from Hood by Air. Is that? Oh yeah, Paul Goup. Yeah. And you were talking about corsets, and he said, oh, I bet you that that's a corset by Mr. Pearl. And then you were like, oh, I don't know who that is.

But then he didn't explain, like, who Mr. Pearl is. So I know Mr. Pearl. Okay. And he used to hang out, I forget where he's from originally, I think he's French or maybe British. And he was a fixture on the downtown club scene in the early 90s, and he used to hang out at Jackie 60,

which was this very wild, polymorphously perverse club in the meat packing district. And they were like, they had the House of Domination and there were all these women who were go-go dancers, but they also worked as dominatrices in Taryn Seller's dungeon, who was a famous madam, like dungeon master who wrote a book about, called The Correct Sadist.

So. Wow, that sounds good. So Mr. Pearl used to hang out there and he was famous for being very corseted. It was a fetish to always have the corset on and to have this very narrow waist. I like this autistic squeeze of a corset myself. And I think the thing was that you couldn't take it off.

So people that were into that fetish would sleep with the corset on. And then it became popular, that kind of emanated into the drag scene. And people like Lady Bunny and drag queens who were go-go dancing at the Roxy were being very corseted and it was giving them this wasp, you know, beautiful wasp waist.

But then one night, this one queen at the Roxy started vomiting blood, like in the strobe light. It was like a Brian DePalma movie. And that's when the doctors are like, no, you really should not be like, this is serious body modification. And you're like, in your crushing way or internal. Are you sure the vomiting blood was on account of the corset and not some other possible health problem. Not enough pineapple juice? Yeah. I was gonna make an AIDS joke, but I won't go there.

Oh, Anna. Anna, please. But I remember Lady Bunny was, I think she collapsed on the dance floor because she couldn't breathe. And she was in the emergency room with her enormous wig. She was on the table in the operating room and they cut the corset off her

and the doctor came in holding it up and he goes, I don't ever wanna hear about you wearing one of these again. But people like Mr. Pearl really understood how to do it correctly and safely. Yeah, there's a technique to it. Yes, yeah, it's a total technique and the drag queens that were doing it

were doing it in kind of an amateur way. But the thing with Mr. Pearl is he designed corsets and then he moved to Paris and he became the go-to for all the couturiers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Chanel, I think, used him, and John Galliano, and like anyone, and maybe even, I don't know, I can't speak for Vivian Westwood,

she'll rise from the grave and John Galliano. Possibly, yeah. And so he is the go-to for any high fashion designer that needs corsets in their clothing. So that was- So he's like the godfather of modern corseting. high fashion designer that needs corsets in their clothing. So do you think Kim was wearing it? Modern corseting. Mr. Pearl's corset?

Kim Kardashian? Yeah. Probably, I mean, it would make sense because he's the best and everybody knows. I don't know which designer was she wearing. Gagliano. Yeah, there you go. So I ran into Mr. Pearl in Paris, I don't know,

I think it was 10 years ago, and there's this very chic Chinese restaurant where, who was the communist president of France? Oh, shit. I know this, I know this. Come on, you guys are supposed to know this. You know. Um.

Ha ha ha. Honestly. You see, it's after hours for me. So I get McCrone's wife. I'm already in the pen. So he is in the 80s. France had a dirty martini. Oh my God. All right.

So this communist president whose name will probably come to me an hour from Mitterrand. Yeah. Francois Mitterrand used to dine at this Chinese restaurant every night. And I ran into Mr. Pearl there and I'm like, oh, remember we used to hang out at Jackie 60, but he had gained a lot of, not a lot of weight, but he wasn't wasp, he was kind of chubby.

And I gave him a hug and I could still feel the corset on his clothes. But it was like, it was let out a lot. But it's the kind of thing where he'll wear one forever. You know, he'll be buried in one if he ever dies. He should be. Yeah. It's only right.

Yeah. I would like to be buried in a course. I know me too. Sexy, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it seems kind of like, and then the casket can be nice and narrow for my tiny body. You're being climate conscious.

Exactly. I need to have the tiniest casket. But it seems like really like a delicate matter to cut a corset off of a person's body because it's like right there riding up on the flesh. So God bless those doctors who were like taking them off the dress. They're qualified.

Yeah. Well, so a big, well, okay. So I guess the big, not big question, but something I wanted to talk to you about was, well, so Glenda and Camille do downtown and then you did another one that you sent me where you guys go to the fashion district. Yes. And you, me and Anna were talking about you guys are kind of, are very similar to us because you also were being like, we'll do a ton, we're gonna do this a bunch.

You made kind of like grand promises to make the show, but it's only those two episodes. I know, we were gonna do a series. Yeah. It was great that we actually did the second one. I know, it was impressive. So you guys, did you watch it? I did, yeah. I haven't seen that one.

I watched the season control of the Taj Mahal. Oh, that's the one about Donald Trump. Oh yeah, well, sort of. We went to his casino. You went to his casino and you were not allowed. And his workers talked about, they defended us, which I thought was very cool. Well, so this is sort of my question is like at the time

that you've been in New York for a long time, you've been a drag queen for a long time, you've been a drag queen for a long time, like when Glenda and Camille did Downtown, like a drag queen was still kind of a transgressive identity, or not identity, but a performance even, or there was more delineation, I feel like, between performance and identity, and people understood that drag queens

were men who dressed up as women. And now there is so much like, well, first of all, like being like drag has kind of gone really mainstream, much like being gay. Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because it almost feels like in going mainstream and becoming super popular with something like RuPaul's Drag Race.

Um, it died as an art form and a form of rebellion. But anyway. Yeah, that's sort of my, like, I wanted to get your take, I guess, on like, um, specifically we can start with drag, like how drag has changed. Well, I think so. specifically, we can start with drag, like how drag has changed. Well, I think so. This is something I'm not even sure Camille realized, the kind of school of drag that I came out of.

What the reason that Camille and I connected was that what she loved about drag is that drag queens were channeling the great divas and glamor of Hollywood. And that's something you really saw it with the Warhol superstars. In the 70s, the 40s were really in during the 70s, like 40s fashions. So like Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling were like really enamored of these screen sirens from the 40s and were channeling that. And that was like a very hip period of drag. And then maybe like during the 80s, it started becoming kind of square

and it was about female impersonators who were like Charles Pierce, like that were doing like Betty Davis imitations or like a drag queen who would do Marilyn Monroe. Who would do specific kind of. Yeah, they would do specific, rather than, I mean, what the Warhol superstars were is they were really reinterpreting the idea of what a Hollywood diva was.

They were channeling like feminine symbols. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And it was kind of messy, like Jackie Curtis, there was a movie about, a documentary about her life called Superstar in a house dress, you know, they wore sometimes just like schmatas and messy wigs But then, you know, there were other days like especially candy was doing kind of high glamour But it was super camp and they were super aware of the camp and the commentary which is what

Warhol was attracted to that because it was like a new way of looking at drag. So when I arrived in New York in the 80s there was this East Village drag scene that wasn't so much about, and it was influenced by the Warhol superstars, but it wasn't about imitating women or satirizing women or mocking women. It was drag that was kind of lampooning the art of drag itself. So there was almost this kind of postmodern layer to it.

And what I loved, because I was coming out of the punk scene in the 80s and the drag queens at the pyramid club had this kind of punk rock aesthetic, like you slapped a messy wig on your head and we would buy schmattas and thrift stores and it was very DIY and it wasn't about being flawless. You could be, you could aspire to that, but it was always felt like it was a tongue in cheek commentary about the art of drag itself. And I was very drawn to that because I was a punk and I liked that there were no rules

where the more traditional drag and the female impersonator, that school of drag. That's almost like Las Vegas. Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah. It's like Las Vegas drag, which is like what RuPaul's drag race is now. So I was really, I love this idea of just like, slap on the wig.

We used to shop at this wig store that was in the back of a liquor store on 14th Street. And it was like the speakeasy of wigs. And this Chinese woman ran it. And it was like that scene in Licorice Pizza where they go and there's like a waterbed store hidden in the back of, did you see Licorice Pizza? That film. It's such a great film.

So we would go there and it was just like this black market wig store, like you'd walk through the liquor store and it was almost only gay men shop there to buy wigs. It wasn't like women knew, oh, there's a great place to buy wigs. And the Chinese woman who owned it, she loved it when we came in

and she would give us all this advice like, oh, that color looks really good with your skin tone and this style and and You know and the wigs were like ten dollars and and we could also bargain with her with the prices because we didn't have money In those how many wigs would you say you owned at your what's the most wigs you've ever? Overdue it. I mean I the first you mostly were blonde. I was blonde, but there- In all the footage I've seen. I went through a brunette phase too.

I wanted to try something different. Yeah, sometimes it's- Kind of like Serena on Bewitched. You know? So I really loved this freewheeling kind of DIY sort of punk inspired drag aesthetic that came out of the pyramid club and the East Village scene. And, you know, as I was doing the show, I started working for a fashion

designer named Sylvia Heisel, brilliant designer, and she started designing clothes for me and the gown that I'm wearing and Glenda and Camille do downtown, that gold beaded, that's a Sylvia Heisel. So I stepped up my game in the fashion part of it because I worked for this great fashion designer. Yeah. And you were broadcasting, you wanted to present. Totally. Yeah.

But again, it was like, we were interested in issues around trans people and transsexuals was what we called them then, but it was completely understood that we were gay men in drag. And it was, we weren't performing gender like this kind of Judith Butler. We were performing gender.

Like we were, you know, we were satirizing it, but we were also just, we loved women. We were honoring women. Well, I mean, it dawns on me that like drag has the life cycle of any art form where it goes from being kind of like sincere or aspirational to comedic and then to kind of post-modern and then to tragic or whatever. Well, now the state of drag is very like, feels grotesque.

Yeah, and like I like the thing that you said about how like there are, people understood the distinction between performance and identity. Right. And now I think both sides don't get that because you have like this new trans activism that's obviously very problematic

and repellent to most people, including gay and lesbian people and then on the flip side you have these conservatard commentators who make this really annoying mistake of basically conflating drag and trans like with the drag Queen Story Hour stuff and with the satanic pedo panic and stuff like that like they don't get it the satanic what. What was the, I think I know about that. It was like, it was surrounding like the last balance, the Aga runway show where they were digging up Intel on like a lot of Volkava. Yeah.

And we're like, well, it's just, it does. It's the contemporary style of drag has become so grotesque and actually it's completely. Ne grotesque like Trixie Mattel. I think I sent you a photo. Yeah, I'm like that a RuPaul's Drag Race alum. Yeah, she's hideous. Yeah, it's not about looking beautiful. It's not about honoring women. It's not even about really resembling women at all.

It's about funny like divine. Right. Exactly. It's not funny. being funny like divine. Right. Exactly. It's not funny and then it's like, and then yeah, and then it triggers sort of like conservative people because they are presenting like demonically, you know, so then it's very easy for their like small brains to make the connection of like, oh, they look scary. Thus they must be satanic and pedophiles and whatever.

Yeah, and like corrupting our children. Is Trixie Mattel the one that has the red scare lipstick shade? There's a red scare. I think there's lots there. It's not for the pod probably. No, no, it's not named after you. No, no, no, no. It's like just a other.

I mean, our name is incredibly like generic. It means something else. It means something else. It means something else. You have to trademark it, darling. I know. Yeah, there's like... And I think the other problem is that... Oh, yeah.

Trixie Mattel is the one who does the really white underneath. She makes me want to vomit. But I think the other problem is that drag has become so mainstream. There's this joke that circulates on the internet that a lot of women these days, for instance, look like female to female cross dressers and a lot of men look like male to male cross dressers. It's like, you know, like women who look like stupid bimbos

and men who wear like newsboy hats and smetheum button downs with their muscles popping out. So I think like all people have in a way started to do drag in like imperceptible minute ways, but do you feel like drag can ever experience a resurgence? Because I think now it's basically limited to like these really depressing bar nights and fundraisers and like Bushwick or Williamsburg. Bush, Bushwick, yeah. I mean, sometimes I feel like I should be going to these things and seeing what it's

all about, but I just can't get motivated. But I think a lot of what we're seeing is through the RuPaul drag race lens. So we're seeing this hyper magnified Trixie Mattel monster makeup, Las Vegas, neo-liberal drag where it's all about competition and I've gotta win and some of these queens go into huge debt because they're- I bet, yeah because they've come forward, told their stories of like buying the clothes and buying the makeup

and I gotta keep up with the other contestants and then they don't win and then they're like in huge credit card debt. So it's really talk about late stage capitalists. Well, that's, I mean, Paris is burning from 80. I heard you guys talking about that on the pod recently. Yeah. I went to the premiere of it. Oh, wow.

That was like 1989. But there's a great part in that. 1990, 1990. Where they talk about how they construct their own clothes. Like there is more of this like thrifty DIY. Yeah. Kind of spirit. And they were commenting on class. Exactly. Which was what was so brilliant. Yeah. They were like dressing up like rich ladies. Yeah. Yeah, they were. Like up like rich ladies. Yeah, they were. Like upper-right side ladies with like the kind of powdered wig.

But they were like constructing the garments themselves or thrifting them and altering them or like, you know, there was more resourcefulness that just doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, because they were like, it is like a truly like punk subcultural scene because people were broke as hell and they were like working as like bar backs and dishwashers or prostitutes.

A lot of the ball queens were sex workers. And then like, yeah, sewing their own clothes, going to thrift shops and like buying wigs from like a random Chinese lady in a basement. Right. Back of a liquor store. Chinese lady in a basement. Well even when I in this in like 2010 2011 when I was like in college in the Bay Area I used to go to a like a dive bar called Aunt Charlie's that would have a drag night where the drag was still kind of like innovative and like contemporary and it hadn't yet like become something hyper

popular. And so there was still just a lot of like freedom and space. And I saw people doing things that were like truly kind of like experimental and fun. And then that seems to have completely passed. Well, I think that those that kind of drag is still happening. Excuse me. But it's been eclipsed by RuPaul's Drag Race. So that's what we're seeing, because there's so much money behind it, and that's what's magnified on social media and popular culture, where I think,

like I was in Columbus, Ohio for, they were showing the Bad Girls episode of Glenda and Friends that I did with Bruce the Bruce at the Wexner Art Center. And my friend Ben and I went to this kind of queer club where they had like these kind of striptease performers. And you really, they weren't doing this kind of assertive thing of like, this is my identity or like, these are our pronouns. Like it really was gender fluid.

Like we weren't sure, is that a woman? Is that a trans person? And they didn't make any kind of statements from the stage about it. And it was really refreshing. And I think that a lot of these scenes are happening in more provincial places with just like middle-class people who have no, they don't wanna be on RuPaul's Drag Race

or they don't have the means to be on RuPaul's Drag Race or they don't wanna do that kind of garish over the top drag that's on RuPaul's Drag Race. So I think it's when, you know, there are just these provincial pockets around the US that we don't know about because maybe they're not even putting it on social media. Like this bar, I never even would have known about it.

That's very true. Do you feel like what happened to drag, like that process is inevitable in general because when you take any kind of artistic or creative subculture, that's maybe on some level vying for mainstream representation. When you actually get like attain that mainstream representation, it's kind of over. Well, I think it's happened a lot with drag because you know, most people don't realize that RuPaul had this big burst of fame before RuPaul's drag race.

And it was in the early 90s. When I remember that, yeah, because again, my mother was a big RuPaul stan. So she was he was a fixture. And in in my home growing up in Russia, no, in America, New Jersey. OK, where in New Jersey? I'm from New Jersey in Central. Okay, where in New Jersey? Where American? I'm from New Jersey. In Central, yeah, we talked about this.

I grew up in Highland Park and then South Brunswick. And remind me again where you grew up? Hope, which is Northwest Jersey, it's Warren County. How did you and Camille meet? So, I might have told this story at the Kim's video underground. I know I can't remember where, but I always like to tell the story. So I was very involved in act up and I joined in 1988 and it was a great experience. But as those kind of, as you know,

these sort of left wing movements, things start to fall apart or like, there's elements of chaos that come into them or they get watered down. So by 1992, we had moved to Cooper Union from the Gay Community Center on West 13th Street. And people would just show up like people that had a cause, like someone who was left wing or someone who was like an artist. And people would just show up like people that had a cause like someone who was left wing

or someone who was like an artist and they would get on the agenda. And if they were like clever enough, they could convince whoever was running the meeting that night that they should be on the agenda. And quite often their agenda had nothing to do with AIDS. They were importing these other, like just, and that's something that's very common.

Especially with the left. Yeah, exactly. Right? They're all, they're like, they- Piggy, we're gonna like, opportunity. There's something back there. They're like vampires. Yeah.

They ask for, you have to invite them in. Yes, yes, that's right. And you're like, okay, like, yeah, you can come in just this once to talk about this particular issue but then every time they do any organizing or introduce a bill, they just sherpa in an omnibus of other issues that you didn't ask for and that people find, again, off-putting and repellent. So the vampires on this night, the lefty vampires, were this group called WAC, the Women's Action Coalition.

Who you encounter and... No, so the women from Glendon, Camille D downtown, was WAP, the Women Against Pornography, which then became Wet Ass Pussy, you know, two decades later. Ironically, yeah. Or three decades later. So this was 1992. I didn't really, I had heard about Camille's book, you know, I hadn't met her

yet. And I, but I was becoming very, I was a gadfly in an act up at that point. And my friend Emily Namundson and I were doing a queer zine called Pussy Grazer. And the zine scene, the queer zine scene was really about critiquing the gay mainstream and just being troublemakers in the gay mainstream. And like there were zines that would put Jeffrey Dahmer on the cover, like there was this whole cult of gay serial killers, you know. And there was another zine called Disease Pariah News where it was like an infected faggot perspective.

Just like really being in your face and it was punk. Yeah. Gay degeneracy. Yeah, but it was taking aim at this kind of pious standards that were going on in the gay mainstream. So by early 1992, I was becoming very disillusioned. I was like Trotsky, you know, I was like ready to betray that revolution.

And so this woman, you know, from WAC, so WAC was this group of bourgeoisie, the WACOs, we used to call them the WACOs. They were these bourgeois. What did the acronym stand for? A Women's Action Committee. What a boring, the Women's Action Committee. Yeah.

How whack. They could have been like the women's front, you know, something a little stronger, a women's national front. No, it's just the Women's Action Committee. And what it was were all these bourgeois, soho artists like Barbara Kruger. You know how I feel like Barbara Kruger. And you know how I feel about Barbara. I do want to ask you down the line about your beefs with Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer. It involves my job.

But so it was like Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer and, you know, Laurie Anderson, who I've always been a fan of, but they were, you know, their big complaint was that women artists weren't being shown in galleries in the patriarchy. And all of that is fine. I'm not like, oh, they're fucking idiot. I was just like, okay, this is legitimate. You do that.

But- Wait, but I'm sorry, just to clarify, these bitches had the audacity to run up in an act up meeting which is about the AIDS crisis, the AIDS epidemic that was, um, we were trying to save lives, thousands of gay men to talk about how the patriarchy interferes in their art careers. Women really do be making it about themselves.

We were trying to save lives and they were trying to save their art careers. So this woman stands up and it wasn't Barbara Kruger, it was some like, you know, artist who had never been shown in a gallery before and she was angry. And she's like, I'm here tonight because we're organizing a protest against this anti-feminist author,

Camille Paglia, you know, they couldn't pronounce her name right, and her book is out and paperback sexual persona and it's the mind comp of feminism and we're organizing a protest that at Barnes and Noble, we're gonna shut down the Barnes and Noble and stop this misogynist propaganda from spreading. And I'm sitting there with my friend Emily

and I'm like, this is where the left is now? We're banning books, books by a lesbian woman? Yeah. And so I hadn't read Camille yet, but I knew about sexual persona because it was such a phenomenon. I think that must have been when it came out, paperback. And it probably had been out for a while.

And so my friend Emily and I, we were like, yeah, who is this Camille Paglia? Did that make you more curious about her? Of course, of course. Cause I hated these women so much. There's these sanctimonious bourgeois. Cause they did do a favor in a way that, that's another great thing about the left

is that they inevitably end up biting themselves in the ass and doing everyone else a favor. Because the people that they complain about are usually interesting and worthwhile. I found out about Camo polya in college. I went to a women's college and I was in like a feminist philosophy class where we were learning about Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin and like the anti porn stuff of the eighties.

And I don't remember there must have been I imagine I don't recall if she was part of the curriculum, but I remember I had to write kind of a paper about, I think, Catherine McKinnon, and I think I came, like I discovered polyeth from looking for like a different, I was like, is anyone not, is anyone not against Florida the A's? Right, right, right. So I was like, this, Catherine McKinnon's definitely making

very compelling, like, Katharine is definitely making very compelling, like internally sound points. And like, you know, and like, and Dworkin's also really, you know, you read her and you're like, wow, like, damn, like all sex is fucking rape. Like, that's crazy. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God, she's kind of making some salient points. And I'm like, but maybe someone else has someone else.

Yeah. And then like, I think through else has someone else like a counter point. Yeah, and then like I think through that was how I really fell in love with her because she was like, yeah, it's just so much more fun to read and so much more like feisty and like cogent and what year was this? Probably 2010. 2010. Okay. Yeah, I I don't remember when I first encountered Polly at Polly. But I do remember how electric her characterization of the McKinnon Dworkin duo was as these like stuffy sob sisters who were like physical opposites. They were really the Anna and Dasha of big, fabulous skulls.

There was like kind of like a waspy one with like a bramble of like blondish hair and then like kind of like a chubby brunette one. Well, Andrea Dworkin was like Uriah the Heap. She was like where the wild things are. They had great style, I'll give her that. And she did- She was morbidly obese.

She did write those- Am I allowed to say that? Yes, we're allowed to say that. On this fat shaming podcast. I mean, Maddox just medically, she was. But they were really like the Timon and Pumbaa of feminism. Another classic duo. And for that, you have to give them respect

because they're a really formidable asexual personae. And I've revisited Dworken since and kind of appreciated her spelling America with three Ks. Just like how, you know, like, just how wild. I used to spell it that way too. You know, like I do like that kind of. I think we all spelled it that way at one point. I do like that energy. And like, I think there it that way at one point. I do like that energy.

And like, I think there's a place for it. Like Valerie Solanas. Yeah. Yeah. I love, Camille's a big fan. I love an extremist. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

What's, there's something perverse about their extremism. Yeah, totally. And to say that all intercourse is rape is so... It's radical, yeah. It's extreme, It feels perverse. It makes you want to have more sex. It's like an early proto meme because it does have a kernel of truth to it. Right.

On some level. Right. But I feel like all these feminists who in the 80s and 90s were marshaled against Polly and were hurling like accusations of misogyny against her saying that she was like the handmaiden of the patriarchy or whatever. Essentially had suffered a narcissistic injury because they were met with a woman who was just more fun and fiery and vivacious and accessible than they were met with a woman who was just more fun and fiery and vivacious and accessible than they were. Well, Sontag really also. Yeah. Oh, they're famous. I don't believe I've ever heard of her before. Susan Sontag is really on my shit list because

she was a very formative influence for me growing up as she has her many young women of like a of influence for me growing up as she has her many young women of like a bookish soft, lesbian bent. And I've really turned against her because she had the audacity to strike out against my two favorite Italian Americans, which was Camille Paglia and Italian Americans, Italian, excuse me, I'm drunk, which was Camille Paglia and Alberto Moravia. Camille's Italian American. Yeah, so are you. Yes.

Yeah, and I have another question about that. You were just, we interrupted you telling the story of sort of how you encountered her, but that there is something in both of the episodes of Glenda and Kimmiel, it seems like you are really kind of bonded by this like Italian identity, especially where Polly, you know, she Harps so much against like the WASP managerial class and like there is you do kind of create this dichotomy between kind of like working-class Italian values and like

And like bourgeois and which was very Catholic versus like kind of like more bourgeois Protestant American and which was very Catholic versus like kind of like more bourgeois Protestant American puritanical kind of like influence That's right. And all you know all her polemics against bubbly blonde actresses like Doris Day in favor of like Sandra Dee I hate Sandra Dee And but yeah you guys watching And but yeah, you guys watching Glenda and Camille it really just made me realize that there's nothing new under the Sun. Nothing is original because it

You guys are truly just like us for real like we're kind of trauma bonded through being like Russians Yeah, yeah, it's the same kind of experience where it's kind of retarded, but, you know, intellectual and erudite at the same time. Yeah. You're doing some commentary. Yes. You're putting your intellects together. But the other thing is what was great about Camille, who is an academic doing that video, a public access show with the street drag queen. She wasn't an ivory towered academic. Can you imagine? She was pulling her little knife out.

Yeah, can you imagine Susan Sontag running around with the drag queen in the street or Judith Butler? She really put her money where her mouth is. She's a street smart feminist. Other academics would be like, ooh, public access, that's so vulgar. Why would I wanna go on something like that? I need to be on a podium in Harvard.

And Camille just was, because Camille is a Warholite, she really understood this form of verite filmmaking and she wanted to participate in it. Totally. And she actually weirdly shares that with Trump in spite of it all. She's gonna hate this, but in spite of it all, he's like a man of the people.

He's a more Hohlin figure. And he's like a drag king. He is like a male to male transsexual. Yeah. I don't, Kim Il wouldn't hate that. Cause she did speak, she did write some positive pieces about Trump, which I'm sure you read. Yeah, no, that makes sense that she would,

his image for president. But she didn't vote for him. She voted for Jill Stein. Good for her. Whoops, good for her. Yeah. Oh, I have a question on that note that I've been meaning to ask you since we met, actually.

Because at the time the movie was made, you guys were rebelling against what she called this white bread cookie cutter shopping mall culture. Oh, yeah. I.E. of Protestant white people. And I'm curious if you feel like now in this day and age whether that Rebellion against kind of white middle-class all-american values has gone too far Gone too far, what do you mean by that? Well, because there's like a lot of just hatred, like ambient hatred of white people,

by which I mean like kind of founding stock white people. Like the people who were like- You mean the pilgrim, like the people that stepped off the Mayflower. Yeah, like non-Italians, non-Irish. Like the people who were like- Oh, like Irish and Italians are now lumped in with white. Yeah, they're now lumped in with Jews.

Like white people are all just like this kind of amorphous flaw. But you think that Jewish people are lumped in. Yeah, they're now lumped in. Why is like white people are all just like this kind of a more but you think that Jewish people are lumped in now? Yeah. Well, that's the way the yes, you're correct. The left considers Israel a white supremacist state. And that to me is mind because it's like Brown or the house. Yeah, there are there are there are black Israeli there are African Israelis. Yeah. Yeah.

But as far as like the backlash against wasp white middle class Americans, they can handle it. You know, well, there's been there's not even that much of a middle class left, unfortunately. That's true. It's like also those people just like are just are demographically on the way. There's nothing really even left to lash out at. But I'm just saying the ambient leftist hatred of the idea of white people. I get that.

Again, that's something that's really fueled this mass hysteria against Israel, because they've projected that identity to Jews and Israelis, and it's a completely false projection. Well, it's a very lefty binary of good and bad, black and white, almost literally. It's like in this situation, the good guys are Palestine, the bad guys are Israel,

so Israel is white, Palestine is black. It's like that is the, that's just how their binary thinking, what it lends itself to. Yeah, we don't have to get into this topic because it's kind of like boring and been discussed a million times before, but when the October 7th Hamas invasion happened, but when the October 7th, like Hamas invasion happened, I feel like a lot of American Jews who are essentially left leaning were shocked that, like leftists in general didn't stand with them or like black people in general didn't stand with them. Judith Butler, rape is a form of resistance.

Rape is a form of resistance. Rape is a form of resistance. Wait, what? Yeah, she was defending Hamas's actions. By saying rape is a form of resistance? I mean, that's so backwards. That's so crazy. That's like upside down. Doesn't it go against her whole

imputative worldview? The New Yorker did a really boring profile about her whole, like, putative worldview. The New Yorker did a really boring profile about her and they sort of get into that. But yeah, totally with you, like, when that happened, almost immediately there was, like, there was no time for, like, comforting our Jewish brothers and sisters

or, like, being horrified by what happened in Israel that day. It was suddenly like Israel now, you know, all the all the left wing people October 9th, there was a pro Palestine demonstration and I was like, sorry, go ahead. I was like, we all know Israel is going to go too far. We know they're going to because of the right, they're going to retaliate. Like, you know, it's like, we know,'re gonna pull them, you know? Because of the right. They're gonna retaliate, like, you know, it's like, we know, but like October 9th, there was like pro-Palestine demonstrations and I was like, what are you demonstrating for?

There was just like a. It's, there are so many antisemites that are draped in this thin veneer of leftist sanctimonious, I'm a left, you know, I'm on a good side, I'm a leftist. And they just now, it's totally cool for them to be out and loud Jew haters. They just couldn't wait to hate on the Jews and be rewarded for it. And it's terrifying. It's like the end of the Weimar Republic, you know crystal-knocked like what happened to the Woman who who I know the the director of the Brooklyn Museum They vandalized her house and it was like crystal-knocked, you know, they painted red, you know and they painted this symbol that has something to do with like

Death, you know Yeah, and it was, it's disgusting that now Jewish people in New York have to live in fear. You know, one of the most Jewish cities in the world. Do they really have to live in fear though? Do you think? Oh, come on, Anna. No, I'm just, I don't know.

Sure, there's been. I know that you're Italian. Can you imagine if someone came to your house and did that no sure sure but terrified Yeah, I'd also be like really offended at their stupidity But no, I just know you're Italian because you're like commiserating with other like Ellis My sympathies are with like, it's like degrees of similarity. Italians and Jews, we stick together. Yeah.

For sure. When I met Polly, it was at a book signing that my Italian American boyfriend, who I hate otherwise, but he did two very nice things for me. He took me to that book signing for free women, free men, and he rented those Bjorn Melgaard pigs for my birthday, because I couldn't make it to the opening. But he took me to this thing with my sister,

and it was very cute, because we talked with her for a minute, and her assistant or publicist, whatever, was doing the Apollo theater thing and trying to like drag us away from her. She was telling us about like growing up upstate and her Armenian neighbors and she seemed to have like a good grasp of like Armenian people which was like weird and unusual. I'm half Armenian. She asked us if we my sister and I she asked us if we were Italian we were like no Armenian yeah, this is a non-icto, but she had that same kind of like attachment to fellow kind of

Med-passing people or whatever. I definitely have that and I've been a New Yorker since yeah Which makes you basically Jewish? Yeah, totally. Yeah, but this is on topic and we should talk about it for five seconds. Yeah. AOC who we you know, we all have a lot with her. So she's been condemned by the democratic socialist because she held a forum on anti-Semitism. She said she was tired of the left conflating anti-Zionism with, no, that she was, they accused her of conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. And she was saying that they're the same thing, which I agree with because I believe in- Because you're a Zionist. I am a Zionist. But I knew you were going get me to say that. Now I'm gonna get canceled. No, it's okay.

But I do, all it means is that you believe in Israel's right to exist. Like, and that's what I believe in, you know? They're surrounded by it. But that's really all I meant. And that's what it means. It just means that you believe in Israel's right to exist and they're surrounded by non-democratic countries

that hate them and want to destroy them and where women aren't treated well. And they've won many, many wars. I mean, I believe in Israel's right to exist simply because it does exist and you can't really like backtrack or backpedal. I mean, you could if you wanted to, but not in... Not in...

It's called a final solution. Oh my goodness. Which I don't condone.one i wait on a lighter note um have you ever met judith butler no well she's in our ivory tower you know i like you can't get to her um so but wait so let's have you met her no no no never should we where does she live should we go buzzer buzzer yeah Yeah. We should do a prank. You should get back into your Glenda orgasm costume and we should go pay a visit. So anyway, so the whack packs run in their mouth. You're becoming interested in sexual persona.

We got completely, we digressed. So yeah, so you become interested in this woman, Camille. So my friend Emily and I, who was doing this queer zine with me, Pussy Grazer, we started taping every interview that Camille was doing on TV, because in those days she couldn't turn on the TV without seeing Camille on Phil Donahue and Dick Cavett and Firing Line. That must have been so fun. Yeah. And she did her rapid fire delivery. And yeah, cause she refers to herself as the Joan Rivers of, of, of academe.

And it was after being like oppressed by the PC rules of act up, it was so refreshing to listen to Camille and to see her on TV and her, her fearlessness, you know, that, and that she was tackling these issues that other people were tiptoeing around and doing it with humor, you know. So then I started reading her and Sex, Art and American Culture came out and she had a brilliant essay that was reprinted from a magazine about Elizabeth Taylor, who is one of my favorite actresses. And I went to, she did a, a read, you know, a lecture at the 92nd street Y to promote the book. And I wasn't in drag, but I went up to get my book signed and I said, Oh my God, I, you know, I love your essay on Elizabeth Taylor.

She's my favorite actress. It really spoke to me. And we immediately clicked and she was like signing the book, Butterfield eight, a dream vision. And then I said, uh, you know, I do this drag persona, Glenda orgasm for public access TV. And, and she's like, well, I'm a drag queen feminist, drag queens are ruler of the universe.

And long story short, and it is a long story and not interesting, so I won't tell. And Camille doesn't even remember, there was another woman that wanted to direct Glenda and Camille do Downtown, and we sort of got rid of her, and then Camille got my phone number. You know how those things happen

in the creative world and the art world. And Camille just my phone number. You know how those things happen in the creative world, in the art world. And Camille just started calling me. And that's when we started strategizing how we wanted to do this video, where we wanted to go. And it wasn't scripted. And our run in with those anti-porn women happened completely by accident. We had no idea that they were gonna-

It's another magical synergistic glittering moment. Yes, yes. And they have, but they had those black screens ready to go to block the cameras. Yes. Which was- Well, no, the other side of them had graphic pornographic images.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they were blocking the cameras with these black screens that they had on hand, I guess. so they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Right. Yeah, they were completely mental. Yeah, I appreciated the confrontation and that it was documented. It was amazing. And it's what made the video famous and it's of all my work it's the most famous video and now and it's of all my work, it's the most famous video. And now there's this like, I was jokingly saying to my friend Ben that Glendon Camille's like this cult favorite among young people. It's like the eraser head of Dimes Square.

People get high like, let's watch Glendon Camille do downtown. Yeah, it was a real no when, yeah, when we were asked to do the chemist screening, it was a real no when, yeah, when we were asked to do the chemist screening, it was a real no brainer, it seemed like, cause at the time, or a little bit prior, we had gotten some heat from people on the right actually,

for us being kind of like a cosmopolitan degenerates who hung out with like tranny's and stuff. And like, um, well, it was over our friend, Salome, who you met. Yeah. Who was, I love Salome. Yeah. She's, she's, we're mad that we were quote platforming her. She can, she does a pretty good job of platforming herself.

Who was mad at you about it? Just like there was like a ambient dissatisfaction amongst like right wing kind of contingents who were more conservatively minded, let's say, and who saw us as sort of like infiltrating their spaces to like perpetuate some degenerate agenda, I wanted to really set the record straight no pun intended, but that we were like, that like our project wasn't kind of this like lineage that was in dialogue with like a counter-cultural streak that was more like cosmopolitan and gay and like that. We're fag hags. We're fag hags, we always have been.

It's not. We never pretended not to be that and like like Camille Paglia like you know who also gets accused or who gets who gets like I feel like when you're rejected by the left the way that like Paglia was then you end up kind of like not ricocheting right, right? But then it's like, you then inhabit this, this space and then right wing people sort of take to some of your ideas and then you are sort of in this like a gray zone. But ultimately, Camille is like a very like, um, transgressive. Yeah, but also like a transgressive figure. Well, she's a registered Democrat. She's always careful to say that. Yeah. And then, but to be a free thinker and to be an honest

person with integrity, you have to criticize your own party, because the Democrats are a corrupt party. Oh, yeah, I personally prefer them and I vote Democrat. But I hate that libtard. Well, are you going to vote for Joe Biden? I am going to vote for Joe Biden. What? And oh my God, I knew you guys were gonna ambush me

on that one. No, no, no. What, you want me to vote for Trump? Yeah. We talked about the James Carville, who I love by the way, as a persona, as a personality, on the last episode you wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, where he was like,

oh, well, you know, Biden is essentially too slow and unfit to be president, so we have to have a radical new approach to democratic politics. Dasha's ready to pounce on me. I'm not! You would really rather vote for Biden, who is like visibly demented.

He is, but let's face it. The second term is always the easiest because you've installed this cabinet around you and people, they're the ones that are doing the work, the people behind the curtain. So you think it's fine to have him as like a weekend at Bernie? Like even if Biden was perfectly mentally cogent and fit, there would still be a bunch of other people doing the work for him to the extent that any president is part of a symbolic figurehead.

Reagan was senile. What? You're not, what? I spent last night butt chugging Reagan videos because people were trying to make a one-to-one comparison. And my friend, Ines Stepman was posting like old- The last Reagan press conference that he gave. Yeah, and where he's kind of maybe hesitant

or fumbles a bit, but he's very clearly lucid and of sound mind. He's not calling Zelensky Putin. That was hilarious. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin. I saw this video where they zoom in on Zelensky and he's like this. Yeah.

And then he's like, it's because I like twice. He also called Kamala Vice President. He said, the reason I chose Vice President Trump as my vice president because she's the best woman for the job. You know, I feel bad for Biden because as we said also many times, like I relate more to Biden than Trump because I'm suffering from dementia and have wet brain.

I have wet brain. I have that too. No doubt, by the way, Trump is more lucid than Biden because he's been a tea totaler his whole life, whereas Biden I'm sure was kind of a moderate to heavy drinker, which explains a lot of the old age cognitive decline. But I'm sure also in part he's nervous and it's like a cumulative effect.

It's like when people are mean to us on the internet and then you start like backtracking and sound even more retarded because you're trying to like curry favor. So I feel bad for him on some level and can relate to his plight but I can't imagine myself voting for him. Because when the pressure is on to like prove to perform, yeah it it's even harder, I guess. This is what I have to say about voting and what I feel that the Democrats are most hypocritical about is that

they believe in democracy and we have to fight and preserve democracy. As long as you vote for our party, vote blue no matter who. And so I vote blue no matter who, but that's my choice. I don't do these boomer memes that say that, and I don't harass people when they say that they're voting for Trump.

I'm not harassing you. I totally accept that you're voting for Trump because we live in a democracy, and I think it's great that you're exercising your right to democracy. I love when we can agree to disagree. I might not make it to the polls. Yeah, why?

We might not get out of bed that day. Just depends on. Oh, right, because you stay in bed all day. But they're open late, they're open till like nine. I know, I know. It's like I'm really gonna play it by ear and see if I can even get down there. But that was like my issue with them.

I think everyone's breeds aside, one less vote for Trump. But I'm hearing now from the mouth of Eli that New York and New Jersey, which are, you know, historically, traditionally blue states are now possibly swing states, which is crazy. Um, but no, that was my beef with the, the, aren't you happy about that? You're a Trump voter. I mean, I guess I'm happy in a short-term sense, but I'm freaked out in a long-term sense because there's clearly something wrong with politics in this country.

Well, it's a simple matter of there are so many working families in America and they're really being hurt by inflation. They can't have, you know, they have all these like day to day problems. They're not thinking about what's going on in Gaza or what's going on in Ukraine. They're thinking about, we need to put food on the table. And when suddenly they can't do that, they're going to blame the person who's in power at the moment. And I don't think it's Biden or Trump's fault

that whatever's going on with the economy, it's doing well, it's not doing well. Like the stock market is up. People that live in New York who are like middle-class and upper middle-class are probably doing like the retirement funds doubled during Biden's presidency. But that doesn't mean that he should, that he can necessarily take credit for that.

When you say blue no matter who, what would it take for you not to say others? I really liked Mitt Romney. Why, because he was hot? He's handsome. He is handsome, yeah. And Camille and I like him because he's like a Rockefeller Republican.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's not a right-wing fanatic, even though he's a Mormon. But he just, he's very presidential and I like the way he protested against Trump. He wasn't afraid to do that. So he's what you guys call based. That's the term that I learned. I had to look it up like you think I'm a based fag. But like to your point that the Democrats love promoting democracy as long as the result is more Democrats in office. That was sort of the gist of this Carville

article, which was so outrageous and hilarious. You should really read it. It's a wonderful piece of writing where he basically talks about all these kind of town halls and extra democratic processes that we have to have to ensure that Kamala is not anointed as the candidate. But at the end of the day, it's probably going to be Kamala. And he calls this super democracy, which sounds a lot like election rigging to me. Oh, whoops. Oh, you're not trying to get into controversial. You got it all set up.

No, no, no. But it's just it's very hypocritical of Democrats to accuse the other side of certain things that they're also obviously capable of. Well, so I remember when I want to wait for Dasha to come back from the powder room, but I have another question for you that she could probably hear us, the walls and the But I want her to respond because it kind of goes back to the inception of Red Scare and the sailor socialist moment and all of that. I want to kind of, you know, someone who's I've just, you know, we have a new friendship, so like we're getting to know each other and she's back. We're bonding by arguing about Donald Trump.

So the whole thing about the two party system. So I remember or I was told, like, you guys started out as Bernie Sanders supporters, right? You were Bernie bros. That's the lore. That's the lore. So is it not true? I was a registered independent, and then I re-registered as a Democrat to vote

for Bernie in the primaries. I was what was called a Bernie-crat. I knew it. But then I became so disillusioned with the two parties. And I don't even really consider Trump to be a part of the GOP. I don't consider myself to really be like, oh, yeah, to be a Republican.

But when Trump won, I felt so betrayed by the Democrats. And I didn't foresee Trump winning, I felt very resigned to a Hillary president. I was like, okay. And then when Trump did win, it was like electrifying. I was like, whoa, anything can happen. And he keeps giving us these moments. Is that the locker up, the murder?

I have a Warholian attachment to him. It's true, I have said that it's because of Andy Warhol that we have a president like that we had Donald Trump. That is so true. He is a Warholian figure. My OK. I know we said we wouldn't talk about Trump and him getting shot. But do you think that like I kind of feel like now that he got shot, that's kind of

like he's like Andy Warhol. He's like Andy Warhol. So this well, I hope I hope it was a crazy lesbian separatist that tried to shoot him. That would be hot. Setting aside my personal political feelings, I feel like now he has a chance of winning. I've been hearing my right-wing friends going on forever about how he's got this in the bag and he's going to win. And I'm like, I'm not so sure because the only reason he won in 2016 is cause no one saw it coming and the Democrats couldn't, yeah, exactly. And the Democrats couldn't like tailor a response.

And I feel like now he actually stands a chance because they can't try any weird shit because it would be killing him. It would be two on the note. They can't try any weird shit. Cause it would be killing him. It would be two on the nose. They can't try and shoot him again. I'm totally fine that we're talking about Trump now because we did talk about drag a lot. We're covering everything, but I do want to read something that Camille said

about Trump. She's not anti-Trump, but again, she didn't vote for him. She voted for Jill Stein, but this but this was I think she did this interview It might have been for salon. Wait, is it about the women in Trump? Is it that quote? No, I don't think you'll be able to guess what this is about. But it She said this. I think it was after he did the golden elevator announcement. I'm running for president And someone asked her. What do you think of Trump? And she said, well, my view of Trump began in the negative.

Began in the negative. When he was still relatively unknown nationally, he jackhammered a magnificent Art Deco sculpture over the main doorway of the Bonwit Teller department store on Fifth Avenue. It was 1980 and he was demolishing the store to build Trump Tower. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had offered

to take the sculpture, but Trump got impatient and just had it destroyed. I still remember that vividly and I'm never going to forget it. I regard Donald Trump as an art vandal equivalent to ISIS destroying ancient Assyrian sculptures. As a public figure, however, Trump is something of a carnival barker.

Zing. Well, he didn't he say, I think post his presidency that his vision was to reinstitute thoughts of like neocclassical architecture, that like the Trumpian architectural style would be like. Which I feel like Paglia would be a fan of. Brutalist post-modern architecture. But like Grecian.

Yeah, like he wanted. That's Mussolini. Yeah. Have you ever been to Aeora in Rome? It was this, it was this like, it was Mussolini recreating the architecture of the Roman Empire, but doing it in this modernist way.

And the architecture is considered very kitsch. And I was obsessed with that. It's a suburb. It's, you really see it in the Michelangelo Antonioni film Le Eclise, the Eclipse with Monica Vitti. Do you know that film? Yeah, I sure do. Her character lives in Aeor

and she's kind of wandering around and it was a very chic place to live in the 50s and 60s for people that wanted to get away from the city center. So Mussolini had this vision of bringing back the grandeur of ancient Rome and building this, you know, the suburb, but doing it again in this modernist way. And of course, you can't. It's just impossible. Right. Right. To literally replicate. Yeah.

Well, no, all we have is pitch, but that's good enough. That's good enough. But yeah, so faithfully. Well, no, all we have is kitch, but that's good enough. That's good enough for me. But yeah, so the Trump, that idea of Trump bringing back neoclassicism is just, it's more kitch. But that's okay. Yeah, but he's a good guy. I mean, I like, I'm. Kitch is fun.

I like Trump Tower. I like like the gilded kind of. The most disgusting martini ever. The worst martini I've ever had, honestly. Oh, so have you been to the bar there, 45? And I had the worst martini I've ever had. Oh, so have you been to the bar there? 45? And I had the worst martini I've ever had. Oh, well, oh, I would go ballistic because I'm a martini fascist. Yeah, I mansplain martinis, the bartenders all over the world.

Okay, you could not. Can we talk about martinis? Because I just the reason I'm so drawn to bad is because I had a martini earlier before I came and intercepted you guys. So how are you a martini fashion? How do you like it done? If it's done wrong, I get really angry. What is your, what is the correct martini form?

Well, it's dry. And there has to be, you know, there are these people that are like, oh, I don't use any vermouth. And that was kind of a joke going back to mid century, 20th century of like, when I make a martini, I just glance at the bottle of vermouth. Or like swish the vermouth around and like, yeah. So I'm into doing the rinse of just rinsing the inside

of the glass with vermouth. Like in Auntie Mame, when Patrick, who's like 10, and he's making a martini for the guy from the Knickerbocker bank. And so he does the swishing and then this. Because the whole thing was there was an obsession with dry martinis in the 1950s. And that, but there still had to be the gesture of vermouth.

You couldn't skip it. You had to do something. And that was the solution to just film the inside of the glass with vermouth. And that's what I do. Okay. Vodka or gin? Gin.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's the true martini. No, I know, I believe you. I just feel it's hot. Sometimes I drink vodka martinis. But you're a gin martini girl. When I turned 30, I switched to gin.

I used to only drink vodka martinis and then I kind of was kind of, when I turned 30, I was like, it's time to maybe get into more of like a Dorothy Parker kind of gin drunk kind drunk phase of my life. But what was so described the martini at so it's the bar called 45 and Trump Tower right. Tell me what that martini was like. It just tasted like rubbing alcohol and the waiter was clearly like on opiates and the

mozzarella sticks were microwaved and the whole thing. It was like I was like this is just no one is coming here for the martinis. And you still want to vote for him. That's Trump in a nutshell. How could you vote for a man who owns a bar that serves bad martinis? Well, it's not his fault. He doesn't drink alcohol.

You have to understand we're Russian immigrants. We may be American now, but some kind of residue lives on in us. And we love and feel comfortable with low expectations. That's what makes us happy. Gives us comfort in life. Cause that like the, the, the, the, the, the Soviet Union. Yeah.

And you're, you're always waiting for the other shoe to draw. You don't need, if something's too good, you know, it's just something's off. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to be disappointed.. You don't need, if something's too good, you don't, it's just something's off. Yeah, I don't wanna be disappointed. So I don't mind. I drank, but yeah, it was just tasted like rub. It was like, I was like, this isn't even alcohol. It probably was rubbing alcohol.

It tasted really awful. Have you ever seen Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Yeah. You know the scene where Martha wants another drink and George goes Rubbing alcohol for you Martha and Elizabeth Taylor goes sure never mix never worry. I Remember when I saw who's afraid of Virginia Woolf thinking but like the twists wasn't so crazy Though the ending the end. Yeah, like they don't actually have a son, right? Isn't that what it is?

And I was like- It's a fantasy that they've constructed. Yeah, I was always like, well, don't you know how crazy people are? I was like, that's what he's afraid of? Virginia Woolf is about? I mean, obviously it's more about the performances and the dynamic and everything,

but it was, paper was like, oh, you gotta see it, there's a crazy twist. And when I saw it, I was like, that? Come on. How old were you when you first saw that film? Maybe in my teens. So I was eight years old. Wow.

And I had a very kind of dramatic, theatrical, neurotic mother and- You don't say. What? A fag having a mother like that. That's what I'm heard of. What did your mother and father do for work? Well my mother was a housewife. Good old fashioned housewife which I actually support. I know that's like the big platform in Project 2025 that all women must be housewives. Report to the ironing board, ladies. And my father owned a farm and a uniform factory.

Yeah, you said this in the episode where you guys go to the fashion district. Yes. Yeah. And Glendon, Camille D Fashion Avenue. I talk about my working class. Wait, this is so crazy too, because I have like a little hair braid theory that people generally come to do like an elevated or corked up version of what their parents did in combination. Yeah, I've debuted this series on the pod before. So you kind of put on a you you don't a uniform. Yeah. Well, I think it's all everything. Spoiler

alert Freud, that it all came from my mother. Of course, of course. I would cry about daddy issues. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's mommy issues all the way through. Yeah, of course. Of course. And when people cry about daddy issues, I'm like, what are you talking about? It's mommy issues all the way through. Yeah, even even daddy issues are really are just kind of like a subset. Or like a red herring almost. We were like Madonna, the mother figure. Wait, do you have a cigarette? I do, sweetie. I'm gonna smoke one.

But I just want to finish the who's afraid of it. Yes, please. Yeah. So you're eight years old. My mother was kind of hysterical and dramatic and and I was Basically TV was my religion like I was required to watch certain TV shows and movies and Which I'm grateful for because it was all great stuff, so My mother was terrified of thunder and lightning storms

because she was very neurotic. So she tried to, yeah, she used to hide in the closet. And so she of course projected that onto me. She wanted me to be terrified by thunder and lightning storms. And my father would goad her by, he'd go outside and like into the storm and raise his arms to the sky and be like,

it's like Cassavetes. And she'd be, she'd be, it was like Cassavetes. She'd be in the living room screaming, crying, guys, come back into the house. You're going to get hit by lightning. So there was this very violent thunder and lightning storm. And my mother woke me up because she decided I needed to be afraid. You've got to get up, just come into the living room and we're watching a movie. mother woke me up because she decided I needed to be afraid. You've got to get up, just come into the living room and we're watching a movie.

And I'll never forget like walking into the living room. And it was the scene where Sandy Dennis is running down the hallway going, I'm going to be sick. And right when Richard Burton is like spinning her around, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf. So I see this image of Sandy Dennis vomiting. And then there's a commercial break and there's this big warning, you know, this film is not suitable for, you know,

all audiences and younger people. And I was eight and my mother made me watch the rest of the film. And of course the second half is the most traumatic and then you get the whole story about, and that was like, she really related to the story about the fantasy of the child or like losing a child because my brother, I had a brother who died

when I was an infant, so I didn't really know him. So she really identified, and it was a real death, but in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, they allude to their, yeah. They construct this fantasy of like driving into a tree and you know, and so it was obviously very traumatizing to watch that film, you know, when I was eight years old, but that- Yeah, I was gonna say this all happened film, when I was eight years old.

Yeah, I was gonna say this all happened to you when you were eight. You didn't even have to get molested. Or that. Yeah. No, but- Made an impression, yeah. Yeah, but I think today,

kids are exposed to even more today because they're unsupervised with looking at things on the internet. Of course. That's the kind of underlying. That's why I already in my teens was so desensitized to insanity that the Virginia Woolf to me, I was like, well, who cares?

People live sales are the same. That's kind of the underlying anima of all the moral panic over like something like drag Queen story hour which like some of the fear is founded and warranted I was talking to like a German guy when we were upstate for July 4th who's you know he's not remotely conservative really I think he would identify his left wing to this day. And he was telling us about how in Kreuzberg recently during pride month, they had like naked men marching down the street dancing with little children

and this sort of thing. But I think like the animating- Sounds very pagan. Yeah, I think the animating- Ancient Greece. Is not that like, like it's projected onto like gay people and like LGBT community and whatever, but it's just like children across the board

are exposed to things that they shouldn't see at a very young age because they all have smartphones and internet access and all parents fall short. Like there is some kind of like weird Freudian existential fear that is like projected onto an outside enemy. The right wingers are really not gonna be happy with this read, but it's true. Yeah, no, I would agree with that.

Like how many of them are like sterling parents who raise their children in like a Wholesome trad bubble really well wait for project 20 but that whole thing of nudity and and and families and nude children and Adults is so German like I remember seeing images. They'll notice anyway. Yeah, it's like Scandinavia And during the days of the GDR, there was a whole, I'm sure you know about this, because it was connected to the Soviet Union, and there was this whole culture of nudist colonies in East Germany. And it's super documented. And

it's really, and it's just, there's a whole hysteria about like, in America, it's American Puritanism, of course, you know, kids being exposed to nudity. But let's talk about Drag Queen storybook hour, because I finally went to my first Drag Queen storybook hour. And because I was so, like, I, you know, I would go back and forth on what is my, I have to have a position on this,

because I used to be Glenda Orgasm. And then finally I was like, when is someone going to invite me to one of these fucking storybook hours so I can see how the kids are reacting? So I was in Minneapolis two months ago because I had a Glenda screening at the Walker Art Center. So I went the morning, my screening was at night and I went that morning to see the Keith Haring exhibition, and there were all these drag queens in the lobby and kids running around, and I'm like, what's going on? And they're like, oh, we're doing a drag queen storybook hour in the theater.

I'm like, finally, I'm gonna get to see and like observe how the children, you know, are they there to learn about what gender they are, and what is non-binary, and all these things that the right is worried about. So it's become more than, it's not just some stale drag queen sitting on stage reading a book. It's like a high school production.

They have cardboard sets, and they get up and they dance. So they had a drag queen in a garish pink gown. They had a drag king, you know, with a glitter beard and then they had a black Muslim woman. Black Muslim lesbian. So they get up there and they're kind of doing their introduction. It was very kind of Sesame Street. And it was the audience was, it was all five year olds, like five and six year olds, and the room was packed. And so they're introducing themselves like, hi, I'm Sally croissant. I'm a drag queen. And this little in very impatient five year old, she bolts up out of her seat and she interrupts them and she goes are you guys gonna do a number are you gonna sing and they're

like yeah we're gonna sing and the girl goes can I come on stage and sing with you and that's when I realized what drag queen storybook hour is about that these kids are looking for their in into showbiz they're not there to learn about some trickle-down Judith Butler bullshit. They are little Eve Harringtons and Lucy Ricardos who can't wait to get their big break in showbiz. Isn't that like the truth about all that, that like the mainstreaming of gay culture,

the big problem with that isn't that it's like degenerate and corrupting, but that isn't that it's like degenerate and corrupting, but that it makes everything kind of like cheap and boring and professionalized. And nude, nude even. And it's, you know, drag. It's not the kids who are suffering. It's the drag queen. Well, it's work, you know, and that's I can't begrudge a queen who needs just some

work and they might think it's lame. Like, oh, I I gotta get up in front of those fucking kids again today. Put on a dress, but like, it's like any other job. I got it like sling-hass for these truck drivers. The jobs suck. For sure. It's funny because I feel like in this day and age,

people like you and Polly are like widely regarded as conservative, right? Like people have accused her of being conservative. Nowadays when you read anything about her, she's basically billed as like a conservative commentator. And she hates that. She makes him retract the statement. When you look at Glenda and Camille, it's like the main thing that's really stunning and remarkable about it is how sex positive you guys are. Yes. Contra the crudish, puritanical energies.

You're not only rebelling against the normative, repressive, white-bred heterosexual culture, but also people within the LGBT community who were of the more puritanical, politically correct mindset, like gay guys who were against drag queens because it gave a bad name to the gay community in the eyes of the general public or these scolding, shrewish, anti-porn lesbians who were up in arms about how objectifying and exploitative porn is of women. The male gaze. Yeah, but there was a point where like,

gays wanted to sort of be accepted into mainstream society. They wanted to be legitimized. And they were worried that leather people, sadomasochistic leather people and drag queens were going to jeopardize the gay marriage bill. And not the right way. We would say, look at these degenerates, these bra dressers.

That they would make gayness like seem deviant, which it was, which it is, which is what we love about it. Yeah. It is perverted and deviant. And, um, well, so that's, yeah, a question I have that's like connected sort of to like the drag queen question, but more broadly, I guess, about gayness, right? Like the kind of like Gen X gayness was it Fran Lebowitz who said that the best gays were lost to the AIDS? Well, that's one of my, you know, I'm not a huge fan of Fran, but that statement she made is so correct. And what she's saying is, how did the culture become so mediocre?

Yes, exactly. How did we go from like avant-garde theater on Broadway to the Lion King. You know? It was really through this desire to become mainstream, which is an understandable, legitimate desire. To become straight. Yeah. Well, no, but yes. And well, she had that other great line about how like, then it's ridiculous that gay people are lobbying to become part of the two most repressive

heterosexual institutions, which are marriage and military. Like, why would anybody want to do that? That's always been my position. But the point that she was making about how the arts and theater in New York became mediocre is because the audiences died. All those gay men who have these ultra-sophisticated sensibilities and who were shaping these art forms,

people were dying in droves. I mean, I was just coming out into that, but it was right before me. I moved to New York in 1987, and it was from 1981 till the end of the 80s when people were just dying in droves. And they took that ultra sophisticated aesthetic with them to the grave. And there was, you know, luckily there were some people, enough people that survived,

but it definitely had a very negative impact on culture in New York, which radiates out into the rest of the country. Yeah. And the people who took their place were strivers and job seekers with a fundamentally mediocre competitive sensibility. Yeah. Yeah. And there was, I mean, I remember reading Sarah Schulman's gentrification of the mind.

She has this very powerful vignette of like, gays, gay guys would drop like flies because of AIDS. And they would throw their shit out into the sidewalk in a cardboard box and then Jack Lorenzo, the landlords. There was some really good stuff in those boxes. Yeah, but nobody cared. Yeah. What do you think of Marianne Williamson?

Oh, the one who's derided as like the crystal guru. Yeah, she was, and she, but then people, she got a lot of backlash during her like The one who's derided as like the crystal guru. Yeah. But then people, she got a lot of backlash during her like democratic presidential bid because people were saying that she was telling people to like pray their gay away. Well, she's, yes. But actually she was very involved.

She was part of that new age philosophy that Louise Hayes had started in the 80s and a lot of gay men fell for it where there were reasons why people were contracting disease and contracting AIDS specifically, and there were all these kind of harmful new age theories about it. Which-

But I don't think her idea, she wasn't, I think she was very like unfairly demonized as one of these like pray your gay away what was her what was her position and technique she she writes about this and written in return to love I mean she was basically doing like hospice care and like providing like spiritual support okay her gay guys who were like we're going to die and like, you know, just sort of filling like a kind of very like new agey but therapeutic role. Like she didn't have, she wasn't like trying to remedy their gain issues, just trying to like aid in a crisis or like a lot of people were dying

and to like give them like spiritual counsel basically. That's great. I support that. I mean, yeah. Well, I certainly enjoyed. She's not qualified to be the president. I loved her during the debates. I mean, talk about a breath of fresh air. She was fabulous. I know. That's I felt really fell in love with her for her husky voice.

Yeah. She was a cabaret singer. Oh, wow. Before getting involved. The fag hag. Yeah. Yeah. And wait, I can't even remember was she was a Democrat. Yeah. She ran as a Democrat. before getting involved in. The Fag Hag. I can't even remember was she, she was a Democrat. Yeah, she ran as a, yeah.

But she was like one of these like kind of quasi independent Democrats like R.K. Junior is now. Right, right, right. I have a question about like the mainstreaming of gay culture because the gay activists because the gay activists really made a lot of noise and created a lot of problems for people in the political establishment and they ultimately succeeded in their goal of making homosexuality an acceptable mainstream identity, especially with their final coup of gay marriage. They got what they wanted.

Do you think that in the final analysis, this was a good or a bad thing? Well, I have to, it's easy for me as this kind of fringe, radical fag who lives in New York and has you know I'm not living I'm not being oppressed by my environment by the state I live in but for gays that live in oh my god there's two of them oh my god giant water bugs have just entered the room.

That's so upsetting. But you know, they could be, think of it in a Buddhist sense. Oh my god! Anna! We should pause so I can kill them. Okay, I'm gonna just pause. Sorry, we're gonna have to pause. This is crazy.

It's not your fault. All right, we're resuming our programming. What were we talking about? You were saying you're not oppressed in New York except for just by the giant bugs. Who crawl all over our living spaces. I think so. Yeah, let's get another bottle of wine.

Oh, Lord. This is what a nice middle-class salary gets you in New York City. Ah! It's tough out here in China. I love it. That was, Anna, kudos to Anna for killing those bugs. Yeah.

And touching them with the paper towel and everything. I would just- I mean, I didn't touch them. I mean, you know, you handled it. I would just blow my brains out. I wouldn't even be able, if one of those came out of my apartment, I would just blow my brains out. I wouldn't even be able, if one of those came in my apartment, I would just walk out into traffic. Ha ha ha. Oh.

Thank you, Dasha. Anyway, what were we talking about? Glenn was saying how he's not oppressed as a gay man in New York City, but he, we were the mainstreamification of gay homosexuals. What Anna was saying is that the gay agenda is one they've succeeded in securing gay marriage

and do I feel like that's made homosexuality mediocre, watered down, and my position is I can't begrudge people that live in middle America to live in oppressive small towns and provincial places and they want to they want to have normal lives. They want to get married. They want to be with a partner. It's not for me.

Not every gig I can move to New York. We don't have performance artists and filmmaker, but I think like even more than that, like you can't begrudge people for wanting certain rights that come with the institution of marriage. Like specifically certain economic perks and concessions, right? But was there not like a domestic partnership sort of? Yeah, I guess that's my next question. Well, I have straight friends who are anti-marriage because they're anti-religion,

which I think is a little tiresome because I'm religious. But I have a straight couple friends, they have a domestic partnership just because they're against the institution of marriage because of the religious connotation. Right, right. But I do agree with Fran Lebowitz, this idea of being a queer, a gay man in New York,

you're like an outsider and there's a thrill to that and that's why we came here and you're having, like I've had sex with more than 1000 men in the past three decades. It's like. Good for you. Yeah, it's like that's the life that I wanted. That's a radical gay life, not this.

Yeah, you didn't move here to have a spouse. Ozzie and Harriet life, like let's get married. And I said this on another podcast that I think it's scientifically impossible for gay men to be monogamous. I would agree with that. Yeah, and that I knew this gay couple and they were getting married.

I wasn't at the wedding, but I heard the gossip and they were on Grindr during the ceremony. They couldn't even like give it a break and during like put up the front that they're monogamous for like 10 minutes. And so that they could hook up during the, what's the after party at a wedding call? The reception.

The reception, so they could hook up at the reception. He doesn't even know what the after party is at the wedding is called. So they could get like spit roasted, you spit roasted on top of the wedding cake. But like that. It's honest. Yeah, it's honest. And I'm an open-minded libtard at the end of the day,

but the whole point of marriage is that it implies, not only implies it requires monogamy, right? So clearly, marriage. Yeah, at least, yeah, at least have the decency to have an affair instead of an openly yeah, kind of. Yeah. But the thing about gay sex is it's really the ultimate form of freedom because there are so many straight men who get tired of the games that they have to play with women. Taking them out to dinner and they have to pay for dinner and then you know.

And they really just wanna fuck. And so that's why they turn to gay, they go on the down low and have sex with gay men because they just do it and there's none of. Well, I think gays are like promiscuous not because they're gay, it's because they're men. Right, that's right. Can I ask you a question?

Have you ever had sex with a woman? Not really. Do blowjobs count? No. No. No. Okay, then no, I haven't. Okay, would you like? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. and there's the Oriental cockroaches. I'm so scared, I need a man to hold me. If there was this. I don't feel safe. Well, Camille and I, of course, advocate for everyone having a sexual imagination. Because there are gay men that are squeamish about women's anatomy and like,

ew, pussies are so gross. I'm definitely not that kind of gay man, but I've never done it. Yeah. But on the other hand, I've never met a gay guy who does not like tiggle bitties. Everyone loves big tits. Right, yeah, that's true. That's true.

Yeah. Even gay guys, they're obsessed with them. Yeah. There's something about that's true. Yeah, yeah. Even Ye guys, they're obsessed with them. Yeah. There's something about them. Yeah, well, we don't need the summer of Freud to. We don't need to whip out our Penguin Freud's for that one. We all know why. There's something about Big Tits,

but somehow, I don't know. We've got our podcast title. Oh my God. Yeah, no, there's no mystery there. We all know what's in those big milkers that we're all so thirsty for. Wait, I have a question. Okay. Asking for a friend.

Don't you love our interview style where we say, can I ask you a question or I have a question? Can you as a mother turn your son gay? Oh, hello, yeah, of course. That's how gay men become gay. You don't think they're born gay? You don't, yeah. Oh God, I hate that theory.

Okay. I'm just, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. to believe that Freudian theory that it's nature versus nurture. But you think it's nurture. I think yes, but I think there may be a biological component or

you know, like a tendency toward a genetic. But I think, you know, sexuality is like a fingerprint. Like everybody is different. So it's not just like all mothers make, everyone who's gay is caused by their mother, it depends. It depends on what kind of mother you had. There were gay men that didn't have mothers. But I definitely-

There's gay guys who are molested. Yeah, but I definitely subscribe largely. Like I believe that the way that my mother brought me up made me gay. I believe in that. It's a Freudian theory, right? I'm a little rusty on exactly what Freud said about that. But when Lady Gaga did that album, Born This Way,

which was a flop. And it's just, that propaganda has been used so that gays can say, we can't help it. And it's not something that can be corrected by psychotherapy. So we can just use that excuse, we were born this way, 10% of the population is gay, then that number has never been proven.

And they use that as like to pave the way to things like gay marriage. And I think that gay men, and I can't speak for lesbians, I feel like this is more, but that's a whole nother thing. They say that lesbians have father issues, but I think that gay people just need to be more honest about the different, like who they are and what their upbringing was like

and what their relationship with their parents, like that's what forms you, your relationship with your parents, like that's a no brainer. And for people to say, oh, it's homophobic to say that the smothering mother makes someone gay, no, let's look at that, Let's think about that. Yeah. It doesn't make the gayness less valid.

Right. Right. It just is like an additional dimension. And if gay was a choice, I would choose it, you know? Yeah, totally. That's the thing that they use against the right wing. Like we didn't choose it. We can't help it. It's not a choice.

Well, what if we did choose it? Yeah. We have a right to choose it. Yeah's not a choice. Well, what if we did choose it? Yeah, we have a right to choose it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think Freud says that there is a moment,

or I think what he says about the fetish object is connected to this experience of realizing that your mother doesn't have a penis. I don't know, it's all mixed up. I need to do some cocaine if I'm gonna get into it. Me too. Into Freud and stuff, but I think that's. Well, you know the whole story about Anna Freud

was a lesbian. Oh yes. And that she was running this daycare center with her partner, with her lover. Her lesbian lover. Yeah, yeah, there's a whole story that like, daycare center with her partner, with her lover. Her lesbian lover. There's a whole story that like, actually a girl I vaguely know is,

I wanna say the granddaughter of one of those kids of her supposed lesbian companion, both of them were analyzed by Anna Freud, and one of them committed suicide, and another one went on to have like a lot of mental health issues. And then there was a girl and a boy. I forgot which one it was, but one of their sons, who's the father of this girl, I think made a documentary or wrote a book or something about this.

Okay. Okay. There's a lot of like, there's a lot of Freud, but that also that Sigmund Freud accepted Anna's lesbianism, which disproves the critique of Freud that he was homophobic. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. He wasn't. Yeah.

I mean, I think, like, with that kind of stuff, it's like the Dick Cheney thing, right? He was historically kind of, like, homophobic, anti gay marriage, and then his daughter came out as a lesbian, and Dick Cheney thing, right? He was historically kind of like homophobic, anti-gay marriage. And then his daughter came out as a lesbian and he accepted her and became pro-gay marriage. And you could say that that was a purely political pivot. It was a political calculation.

But also I think that that's one of the few things about Dick Cheney that's actually endearing and redeemable because when it came down to it, he chose his daughter over politics. You can read it that way. I think people are one thing publicly and another thing in private. There are plenty of people who are like against the gay and trans agenda in public but have like gay and trans friends. Right that's right. Gay sacks. Yeah and that too. Oh yeah. Or on sniffies. Yeah. Most of them.

Oh, I wanted to ask you a question about, because I feel like most gays in general are on board, broadly speaking, with the current LGBTQ plus agenda. Like certainly most gays who are like normies or NPCs, like. What's an NPC? Dasha can explain this. It's like a video game. It's non-playing character.

It's sort of a disparaging term for someone who, the kind of person you see who doesn't seem to have like a deep like interior life and are kind of making decisions in a very like, they're almost like programmed to exist in a very like, it's so like programmed to exist in a very like, it's so, it's like similar to just being kind of like normal status, you just mean status quo. Like West Hollywood fact.

Exactly. Exactly. They're just like, they're almost like world. Some media for unthinking. Yeah, they're going through the motions. They're doing what they're like expected to do the way that like a play, a non-playing character in a video game.

That sounds frightening. Wow. I learned some much hip lingo from your show. I learned based, I learned the AA, the anogynomic. Autogynaphyll. Oh, autogynaphyll. Yeah, which I used to call, we used to call them kinky cross dressers. I didn't know there was this technical term for that.

We didn't come up with that. Steve Saylor calls them X-Men. Yeah. I know, I know, I listened to that episode. It's kind of clever actually. But I feel like, I mean that distinction does have like, it is observably real, but a lot of gay people are just like kind of normally unthinkingly on board

with the LGBTQ plus agenda that culminates, is embodied by like Pride Month and the new Pride flag. I think most people are in general. I hate to talk about bad design. And it doesn't. That new Pride flag. I love it. What's the brown?

I love the new Pride flag because it really just. The one with all the extra stripes? Does anyone know? Because it unintentionally is so true to what it is. It includes people who have green skin, you know. It's like weird is so true to what it is. And include people who have green skin. It's like weird enbies infringing, aggressively infringing on the original. I'm looking this up, but what does the brown stripe poop

signify? It can't be poop. I think it signifies grass. It's not a scat fetishist month, okay? Also did it, I'm gonna sell this as a boomer, but it didn't used to be used to be pride week right uh i'm not sure there was a pride day i feel like there was a pride day and then a pride week and now we have a whole month yeah yeah but like what i'm saying is that

what is but i'm looking up with the brown pride is one of the seven deadly sins exactly amen i know why would you be proud john cadmus one of my favorite artists who happens to be a gay guy, said, like, why would you ever be proud of something that you can't control? Or a shade for that matter. Why would you be proud of anything? Yeah. Oh, brown represents people of color? What?

But it's not photographing. It's like the shocker. That's what it says. Of course it does. What does pink represent, like furries or like adult babies? No, the pink and light blue are transgender, non-binary. But which one is the, my favorite are the asexuals. Like how is that a sexual identity if you don't have sex? They should just make the rainbow flag gray

because like when you mush all the colors together. The black stripe represents those without a gender identity. But why do they include it? Why do they have to be included? What are they? Me? Okay. No gender identity.

I have a question about that too, but it doesn't occur to them, for instance, there could be a conflict of interest. I low-key kind of love it. Dasha is holding up a photo of the new pride flag. But it is, but it is like all these like. So the brown is just for people of color, but that's not a sex thing. I know it doesn't make sense with the other.

It doesn't make sense with the other colors. At all. The other colors are not about skin tone. No, no. So it's offensive that they, someone's like, well, we need not about skin tone. No. So it's offensive that someone's like, well, we need to add skin tone. And I thought the whole idea with the rainbow is that it covered a whole spectrum.

The original design is in the Museum of Modern Arts collection. Just the rainbow. Yeah, the Gilbert Baker, the original rainbow flag that was designed in the 70s. And for me, it's perfect. It's just, the stripes are, they symbolize different things and like magic and sexuality and you know. Different identities. They like metaphorically imply all these different things you can be

in a sexual spectrum. But I think this new flag really is like a cultural coup and I think it's amazing and beautiful in its own way because hear me out because it really does perfectly symbolize these new aggressive retarded moral scolds infringing on and inflicting themselves on the original mission of normal gay and lesbian people. And actually for that matter, normal trans people, people, the right wingers again,

are gonna hate me for saying this. But I think when we met you were saying. Which again, the rainbow flag covered. The rainbow flag was supposed to imply the existence of trans people. Yeah. And I think we talked about this when we first met where you were like, okay, like my Gen X trans friends

are a guest at the new frontier of trans activism. And that was sort of like going back to my original question. Like I think like it doesn't occur to a lot of people within the gay community and also outside of it that like all of these groups under the umbrella of the LGBT flag would possibly have a conflict of interest. Like maybe the aims of the trans activists don't quite align with those of the gay activists, which you're seeing now, you know, front and center.

And the non-bi... Lesbians. Or like the non-binaries are kind of directly at odds with the idea of transness, which implies... A binary. A binary. Yeah. And I'm curious if you feel like there's going to be an eventual culture war, because right

now everybody is so like into diversity and inclusion and we all want everybody to belong but at some point I feel like you can you can almost see like gays and lesbians becoming woke in the in the old positive sense of the term to the fact that this new crop of like trans and non-binary activists are actually not their friends and are possibly their enemies. Well, there already is a lot of dissident voices in like Andrew Sullivan, he wrote a brilliant piece saying that how gays and gay men and lesbian women are becoming extinct because of the trans agenda. And then there was someone at our screening in Brooklyn

who's working on a book about it and he published an article saying that when he came out as a gay man and then went to college, he was suddenly being bullied by non-binary people because he was just an ordinary cisgendered, white man, you know, gay man. Yeah, so he was like an avatar. He was a villain.

Yeah, yeah. And I really resent it. You know, I feel like I have to build a fortress to defend my gay identity and also my butch lesbian sisters who are in danger of becoming extinct. And the whole idea of like when I was four years old, I was dressing in drag and I was really obsessed

with Joanne Worley who was this comedian from the show called Laughin' that Goldie Hawn started on. And I would also dress like the Wicked Witch of the West and I loved wearing women's clothing. And that was part of my journey of becoming a gay man. I never thought, I've never thought, oh, I mean, you know, there's something wrong. I need to change my gender.

And, you know, it was just my journey of becoming a gay man. And whereas now if you were dressing in women's clothes, someone would be like, we have a trance. they can't wait to brag about it at brunch. We have a trans kid. He was wearing, they were wearing a dress. And suddenly you have like a therapist and a social worker. Yeah, puberty blockers. We're looking into puberty blockers.

It's so cool. I mean, Polly said this in an interview with The Cut, like years ago where she was like, well, you know, as a child, I really identified with the cut like years ago where she was like, well, you know as a child I really identified with the idea of like the heroic male figure. Oh, yeah, but Probably so cute she probably did a pretty accurate portrayal but Neither my parents nor my teachers interpreted that as me having like a gender dysphoria and wanting to be a boy for real. Right. And that was the idea. I mean there are

kids that want to be aliens, martians, like you know like kids have fantasies. Yeah I wanted to be Garfield the cat and eat lasagna all day. Yeah, there you go. Does that mean you're a transomal? You know, it's like, and the thing is you have to let kids just go through that process of their fantasies of who they want to be and wait until they're, they go through puberty or they're at puberty. So they're of sound mind and when they're. Yeah. And then then, as you said on the pod recently, they need to be on the couch staring at the ceiling

and talking about their mothers to a Freudian psychologist. But you're not allowed to say that because the psychoanalyst industry doesn't want to be on the wrong side of history like they were with homosexuality. So that's why they're not stepping up and saying, it might be a good idea for you to talk about this for a year before you start medical interventions. Rather than saying some like social worker who's barely accredited,

who just writes you a script for puberty blockers. Yeah. I mean, it's a really scary thing. And like the sad reality of it is that gay activism in some way Paved the way for it not knowing that that's what would happen It kind of like opened the Pandora's box and now there are a lot of people who are like essentially like reckoning with this fact But you can't really like turn off the faucet, right? Right, right and and a lot of gay people are afraid of being

ostracized and saying that they're bigots or whatever. So they just go along with it. But I think a lot of them silently are not agreeing with it or think something's a little wrong here. Yeah, totally. Well, I think the disappearance of the butch lesbian, as you said, who's like the most endangered of the subspecies to be is and that's because they don't have, I don't know, I don't know why they're kind of the first to go and have the least like advocacy

being done for them. Well, the irony is that, that some of the most patriarchal rhetoric is coming from trans community. Well, yeah, I mean, but they're supposed to be woke and anti the patriarchy, but they're saying, no, you're a man. They're internalizing the patriarchy and all, you know, all these like the negative values that are associated with it I mean like I said many times on this podcast I never believed the patriarchy was real until I started getting bullied by autogynophiles on the internet It was like these very aggressive hyper masculine men who are straight

Who were now less lesbian now trans, living their lives as lesbians, which like more power to them, like whatever, I don't begrudge them their personal adult choice, but they are like crazy bullies. They're what? They're crazy bullies, toxic masculinity at work. Yeah, yeah. Often, yeah. And they were throwing their law in with like young gay men who were transitioning for kind

of more understandable reasons. Are they on testosterone? No, no, they're on no, they're men. They're kinky cross. Oh, right. They're going the other way. I get so confused. I know.

Yeah, we really need to. These genders are just zipping by. It's also a generational problem, because we're also kind of old, all of us. We're not zoomers. So all of this is very hard to grapple with. Right, we're not on the cutting edge. Well, a lot of it's just trendiness.

And it's also mass hypnosis created by know, created by social media and the pharmaceutical and the big pharma because I don't know if you guys said it or I read it somewhere that women, there's less women, less women are taking estrogen treatments because there's problems with them. So the is that true? I don't think we said that. So the, is that true? I don't think we said that, no. I don't know.

But is it true though? Like there- What do you mean? Like menopausal women or? Well, that it was that estrogen therapy was causing maybe cancer. I don't know. I'm a little tipsy now.

So I'm not- That estrogen isn't necessarily a female hormone. It's a stress hormone. That's kind of a talking point, you might've heard, maybe, on here. We're gonna read Bill Glenn on raping. But the pharmaceutical company had to kind of fill the void of the money that they were losing

because there were less estrogen prescriptions, so they've been propping up, you know, this need for trans people to have medical interventions. Right, right, right. Where, and you know, I'm going to be devil's advocate. The whole, like Camille says this in Provocation, she's like, the terms trans women and trans men are correct because she believes in biology. She's not saying that's how they have to identify She just feels like that maybe they're not real women

Because she believes essentially in biology and that you can never really change your sex. Yeah. Yeah, but I think we all agree Yeah, yeah, but that you're not that's really not the mainstream position. That's really considered a bigoted point of view, right? To say that. Well, there's a lot of disconnect because it's like, yeah, it's like the thing about, right, like sort of like Harris's burning era trans women was that they didn't necessarily want to identify as trans women per se, they wanted to identify as women.

But now there is more of this non-binary space where the transness is its own kind of identity category. And it's asserted as this aggressive political identity. Exactly. And the impetus is not on passing as the opposite sex. Right. But going back to when this started, maybe, I don't know, in the 50s, the idea of transitioning is,

let's say a man who really feels that they should be a woman is that they just want to quietly transition and lead a normal life as a woman. As a woman. Get a job as a secretary, get married. Yes, they'll probably tell the husband that they've transitioned, but they're not going to broadcast for the rest of their lives. I'm a trans woman.

They want to pass. They want to be women. So a great example of this is, do you know this singer, Amanda Lear? I love Amanda. She was Salvador Dali's music. Another person that like my mother introduced me to in an inappropriate way. Oh, interesting.

Your mom is very cool. She said, I need to meet your mother. I don't know how this random woman in Russia had this like mood board of influences, but I remember my mom was obsessed with Amanda Lear growing up. And the story about her was that like she, much like Richard Simmons,

who never fully disclosed his sexual orientation, Amanda Lear never fully disclosed whether or not she was born a biological man. Yeah, she denies it. But she still flirts with it in some of her songs. But the legend is that Salvador Dali discovered her and her name, she was a Vietnamese boy dancing. You don't know the story?

No. Dancing in a kind of tranny club. And her name was Peaky. She had this stripper name that was like... Peepy. Peaky. Oh, God. She had this stripper name that was like. Peepy. I have to look it up. And then that he paid for her sex change operation. And she like the story was that she was one of like the.

A real muse. Earliest people to undergo an actual sex change. Right. And then in the 60s. But she's never admitted it. And it's always been this mystery. And for me, that's a true trans person. Like they don't want you to know

that they used to be the other sex. Exactly. And whether it's biology, then still deep down, she's a man, doesn't matter. She's decided she wants to live her life as a woman. She doesn't want to live her life as a drag queen. She doesn't want to be a trans. She doesn't want to identify as something

that's in between. And that's like, that used to be the dream. Yeah, she doesn't want to be the black triangular stride. The pride flag. She wants to be like, yeah, she wants to be like a woman. That's kind of the reality of transgender, that it's a very tiny, tiny fringe minority of people who legitimately have what we call gender dysphoria

and want to live their lives privately and discreetly as the opposite sex. So it's like the abortion thing. It should be safe, legal, and rare, right? And it should not be like an identity or an ideology. I agree with you on that. Yeah. I'm pro-choice, but this whole like, I have friends that have started this movement. Thank God for abortion and they have it emblazoned on t-shirts, it's like, it's this wonderful, it's like, it's something that you do as a last resort,

like birth control failed or whatever other reason that you got pregnant, it's not something like rah rah. I can't wait to have my abortion. Yeah, I know, it's a challenge. I can't wait to have my 18th abortion, abortion. I remember fighting, like back in 2016, fighting with this leftist guy on Twitter who made t-shirts that said abortion is rad.

And I was like, but dude, you're a guy. What's your dog in the fight? Yeah. It said abortion is rad. Rad, like Bart Simpson's skateboard. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

So what's next for you on your Glenda orgasm? I'm getting an abortion. No. No. And a sex change. No, first I'm gonna become one of those pregnant trans men. I don't know if that's possible for me to do that. Not yet.

I'm going to figure out a way. Yeah, you're gonna get the womb. You're gonna get pregnant. But I'm not gonna have that. I'm going to figure out a way. You're gonna get the womb, you're gonna get pregnant. But I'm not gonna have that, I'm gonna get an abortion. And I'm gonna get it the way that Donald Trump said, I'm gonna get the abortion after the baby is born. That's the abortion that I have. You're so infanticide is on the agenda.

Yeah, that's the abortion that I want. But no, seriously folks. So. You're in your the abortion that I want. But no, seriously folks. So. You're in your orgasm renaissance. Yeah, the Glenda orgasm explosion. Documentary in the works. So we're working on a documentary. It's very early stages,

so I don't wanna talk about it too much. Yeah, yeah, don't. But we've done some filming and I'm working with a terrific crew. Paul Dallas is directing it. He co-produced Invisible Beauty, which just won some big award. And it's a documentary about Beth Ann Hardison,

who was, she started the first, she was a Halston model, and she was a black model, and she started the first black modeling agency, and she discovered Naomi Campbell, and who's the black male model that did the Ralph Lauren ads like back in the 80s. Like she discovered him.

And then he also produced the Halston documentary. Oh cool. It's a brilliant documentary, not the Ryan Murphy show. But yeah. Like get it Sassy, whatever. Like no, he did the. Is it Tyson Beckford? Tyson, Tyson Murphy show, but yeah. Like, get it sassy, whatever, like no, he did the. Is it Tyson Beckford? Tyson, Tyson Beckford, yeah, Beth Ann Hardison groomed him.

Gorgeous. And that was an extremely radical moment in fashion when he became a Ralph Lauren model. So Paul also produced the Halston documentary, which is brilliant. He co-wrote the film about reality winner, remember the one that sold the secrets about- With Sydney Sweeney, right?

Yeah, and then we're working, so I'm a producer on the project, and then the other producer is this woman, Laura Cokeson, who worked with the Maisel brothers, and she produced the iris apfel documentary She was a trump supporter iris apfel Another eccentric and that I hated when she died because I you know, I and I met her I interviewed her she was very cranky, but you know, she was this fabulous Jewish, you know eccentric and

People were coming with the pitchforks, you know, eccentric. And people were coming with the pitchforks, you know, prying open her coffin, she voted for Trump, you know. So anyway, Laura produced that, it's a brilliant film, and she's worked a lot with the Maisels, and she recently hosted a screening. There's a Maisels film center in Harlem, and they showed this very rare footage of Truman Capote that the Maisels shot, which did you see the feud,

the swans on? I haven't seen it yet. Did you see it? So that whole storyline that the Maisel brothers filmed the black and white ball is totally fabricated. They did not film the Black and White Ball, but that year they did make a documentary about Truman and in cold blood.

And they filmed him at his house in the Hamptons, and they filmed him making his special Bloody Mary. And you really see the real Truman there, of course the Truman, the Ryan Gosling, who's the guy that does those fucking shows? Ryan Murphy. That everything is so hyper magnified. And it's camp and it's funny.

But 90% of that was showing what a mass Truman was. But when you see this archival footage of Truman from the 60s, you see how mannered he was and how brilliant he was and how brilliant he was and just like personable and it wasn't all about being the drunken, you know, mean faggot. Well, it was also when Feud was on someone, someone said to me during a gay friend of mine, I was at Fashion Week when we were talking about food and he was like,

yeah, that it really showed how like, gay, to bring it back to kind of the gay question, like gays were kind of like aspiring to be part of polite society. And now he was like, now it's just a gay man's world and we're all living in it. Like it was like, now there is no more like aspirational, like it's like, it's just like,

it's like a gay man's world all the way down. You're like dragged in.