WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1322 - Harvey Fierstein

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

The guiding philosophy in the life of Harvey Fierstein is simple: Say yes. As he put together his new memoir, I Was Better Last Night, it was clear to Harvey his extraordinary life relied on saying yes to opportunities, yes to activism, and yes to his own self worth. Harvey and Marc talk about the challenges of dealing with the past in memoir writing, the importance of telling the stories of gay culture in the '60s and '70s, and the evolving understanding of gender and identity. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category,

and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? How's it going? Are you okay? Welcome to my podcast. This is WTF. My name is Mark Maron. How's that?

How are you? Welcome. Welcome to the show. My name is Mark. The show is called WTF with Mark Maron. Many of you saw that I reposted the Gilbert Gottfried episode from 2012. And I'll tell you, man, it's a rare thing in any field. It's a rare thing in people that you really meet somebody who is one of a kind, like truly one of a kind, like there's

nobody like that guy. I mean, people are unique. Yeah. And some people have personalities, right? Maybe I'm talking just in my field. I don't know. I don't think so. But the thing you got to appreciate about Gilbert, whether you liked it or not, or whether you thought it was a gimmick or not, or whether it wasn't for you is that there was nobody like Gilbert Gottfried. True original, one of a kind, and I would say New Yorker. I would put that on him. He came out of that cauldron, and you know who he is, and well, you knew who he was, but there was no one like him true true original comedic talent he'll be missed he was a good guy that said uh i'm out here in the world plying my comedy wares i'm tonight i'm in terrytown new york at the terrytown music hall tomorrow i'll be uh in providence that's

friday providence rhode island the columbus theater this saturday i'll be in boston at the Tarrytown Music Hall. Tomorrow I'll be in Providence. That's Friday. Providence, Rhode Island, the Columbus Theater. This Saturday I'll be in Boston at the Wilbur for two shows. And then I'll end up in Portland, Maine at the State Theater on Sunday, April 17th. And then the next weekend I'm at the Moon Tower Comedy Festival in Austin, Austin, Texas, Friday, April 22nd. And I've got upcoming shows in Madison for anything, but the first one, you know, because of parasocial relationships or people thinking they know me or have a connection to me that makes them vulnerable to catfishing, I guess it's called. If you follow me on Instagram or on Twitter, there is only one handle. There is only one account on each of those. At Mark Maron, at M-A-R-C-M-A-R-O-N for both Twitter and Instagram. If anything else comes

at you from Instagram, someone messages you, Mark Maron 456, Mark Maron official, Mark Maron authentic, Mark Maron 789, Mark Maron The Official Page. It's not me. Don't interact. Don't send them money. Don't give them your address. Don't sleep with them because it's not me. I would think that you would know that by the time you got to wherever you were going.

And I don't believe that's what they're after. I don't know. Or maybe the lead up is enough for you and you're like, well, I don't know. I thought it was Marc Maron. I might as well just go ahead and go through with this. There's only one account on both of those. And I'm not on Facebook. There's a fan page there. I don't have much to do with it. Okay. The other thing, buying tickets for shows. Go to WTFpod.com slash tour. Don't Google Mark Maron Portland, Maine or Mark Maron Boston because you're going to get scalper sites. I do not charge

$300 for a ticket or get them at the box office. That's the only way you can guarantee they're not scalpers. And I think some of these scalpers buy up tickets and try to sell them. I'm the wrong guy to do that to. So they're just going to be stuck with tickets and I'm going to be stuck with empty seats. But make sure you're at the theater's site or the appropriate place to buy the tickets.

All right. Just so I'm not I don't want you to get priced out of something that I'm not pricing you out of. OK, that said, Harvey Fierstein is here. Harvey Fierstein is here. And I read his memoir. I was better last night. And I have a lot to say about it. But let me put that on hold for a minute. I just wanted to make sure that you knew he was here. So Paige Stark, who has been an LA musician for years, and she had a band or has a band, Tshaki Miyake. I met her through, I don't know how I met her. I think she sent me some records or her people did.

But anyways, we've been playing together a bit and she wanted me to be on this record with her. And I don't know what the benefit is for, but I'll talk about it when it happens. But the idea was to find Los Angeles songs. And I just didn't want to do any of the normal ones. So I kind of was poking around a bit and we found this song by Arthur Lee and Love and it's called Sign DC. And it's a sort of dope heroin song, kind of dirgy, dark thing. And I just recorded it in a studio. Very exciting.

Playing guitar, singing, playing some harmonica. Not great. Not great on the harmonica. Pretty sloppy. I'm pretty good at the explosive slop. I think that'll be the name of my record. Explosive slop. I guess that's kind of gross. It's kind of like kind of scatty. But so that happened. It was very exciting now okay let's talk about harvey can we talk about harvey i don't always read the books but i needed to read harvey's i didn't anticipate reading at all but i couldn't put it down it's a great book okay it's a great book now harvey firestein you know him from torch song trilogy from la cage a, you know him from Torch Song Trilogy, from La Cage a Faux. You know him from Hairspray, the theatrical production. You may know him from Fiddler on the Roof.

You might know him from Mrs. Doubtfire and some of his acting roles. He's been a gay activist for a long time. But he's Harvey Fierstein. He's Harvey Fierstein. He's a singular, a force of nature. Harvey is. Now, I got to be honest with you. Now, I'm not coming out.

But I can't deny a past and present fascination with the lives that the generation of gay men that Harvey is from had. And, you know, to be honest, there was a guy that had a profound influence on my life from that generation, Professor Gary Orgel. Now, I don't know what happened to Gary. I believe he passed away. And it's sad that I don't know that because I didn't really stay in touch with him

because I don't know that the relationship we had was particularly appropriate or whether I'm comfortable with it in retrospect, but not unlike many of the male mentors I've taken on in my life, whether they be, you know, bullies or abusive or sexually compelled, you know, I walk away from them, particularly with Gary and particularly with Sam Kennison. These are people that had a profound influence on my life. I don't know why I was kind of let loose in the world looking for father figures, but I was.

I had a dad, but he wasn't that present. And when he was, he was kind of explosive and boundaryless. Oh, I think we just answered the question. That's why. But nonetheless, Gary was a big, tall, gay man with a handlebar mustache who always wore, you know, jeans that were very tight and like had a lot of cock showing and a suit and a little bow tie. And he taught philosophy, the guy. And I took an existentialism class in college. I guess it was probably my sophomore year of college. And I didn't know anything about anything. I was kind of nebulous identity wise. I always had my anger and my

intensity and I think my sense of humor. But, you know, things weren't going great for me sexually when I was younger. But I guess I had some juice. I had that young dude juice, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't didn't have much game, we should say. So Gary, he was this big dude who had a big presence. He used to be a lawyer, a Wall Street lawyer. He'd come from a family of New York real estate, a bit of New York real estate and a hardware store. But nonetheless, all I remember is that his mother's family once owned the building the Carnegie Deli was in. But he was very charismatic guy, charismatic teacher.

I didn't know anything about existentialism. I'm not sure I do now. I don't think the papers I wrote made any sense. I don't think I really wrap my brain around it. But I was taken with Professor Orgel because I want I want to be like that guy to have that kind of intelligence and that kind of wit and that kind of presence. You know, I was aspirational. So I guess I, you know, I showed up at class kind of eager and I don't know if it was misread. I'm not sure I knew what I was putting out necessarily. But, you know, we went out to lunch and we sort of became friends in retrospect. And I think even at the time, I think he had a pretty big crush on me but I loved

hearing the stories that generation of gay men have the greatest stories I why wouldn't I be fascinated with you know just fucking in the bushes why wouldn't I be fascinated with you know guys walking around in drag why wouldn't I be fascinated with leather you know dudes wearing the leather. You know, I saw cruising when I was in high school. I had no idea what that was. I did not feel gay, but I did feel sort of like, man, this is a fucking life. These dudes know who they are. And that is true. They did know who they were. But I just always found it fascinating, the lifestyle of the guys that defined the gay community at that

time when it needed definition and part of that definition came explicitly from the sexuality because they had to you know plant themselves like that up against a very repressive world when stonewall happened and when you know they had to say you know fuck you we're here and this is what we are, this is who we are, this is what we do. The whole thing was just electric to me, though I didn't want cock. Now, I'm not saying I didn't make out with a guy or two at different points in time, maybe a stage troupe party. I'm not going to deny or confirm that. But nonetheless, Gary became sort of a mentor, but not really a mentor academically,

but just lifestyle-wise. He was the guy, the first guy I knew that kind of taught himself how to cook. He'd have dinner parties. I'd be over there. We'd go over there for dinner. Me and my girlfriends went over there for dinner at different times. And just a guy that was very capable and sophisticated, liked classical music, which I never took to, but just the way he owned space and was a good cook, a good raconteur, seemed to be elevated in terms of his understanding of things, owned a building. I don't know. He was a powerful presence in my life. And I remember one time I stayed at their house. He was living with a guy named Michael. They were a good couple, at their house. He was living with a guy named Michael. They were a good couple. Great age appropriate. A couple of old gay dudes. I don't know if I was doing comedy. I don't know what

era it was, but he was living with Michael and they came. I don't want to tell him. I've told this on stage before. Maybe I haven't in a long time, but I'll tell it to you. So they come home and they're all leathered up. They're all like the chaps and they got the jackets and they're wearing hats and they're shit faced. The two of them, Gary and Mike, Michael, Michael, who is the bottom. And they're just drunk. they're just drunk. And I was sitting there at the table, you know, and I was reading, I don't know what I was doing, but they came home drunk and I'm sitting there and I'm just staying at the house. And Michael just, you know, he gets on his knees and Gary's standing right there and he's like, just pee on my face. And I'm like, you know, I'm not comfortable with this. And Gary's like, I'm sorry, we're going to go to bed. And Michael's like, you know, I'm not comfortable with this. And Gary's like, I'm sorry. We're going to go to bed. And Michael's like, please, just pee on my face.

I'm like, I don't want to pee on your face. And this went on for a minute. But there was a moment there where I'm, and this is a self-judgment. And also, you know, it might be a little bit homophobic. But if this is homophobic, what I'm telling you right now, I'll own it. there was a moment that it's like, why don't you just pee on his face? I mean, it wouldn't make you gay peeing on a guy's face. You're just peeing on a guy's face. I mean, you could have that experience. I did think that, but I chose not to. But then he asked me, he's like, why don't you just pee in a cup and leave it for me? I'm like, that doesn't sound fun. I'm not doing that.

And eventually they went to bed. But good stories, exciting life. And Harvey's book goes all the way back. Obviously, he was to the 50s. But he was there through all of it, through the Warhol stuff, through the experimental gay theater, through the drag, through Stonewall and on and beyond. And he started in a very kind of crazy late 60s, early 70s gay theater scene, experimental theater scene. I knew none of this. I knew him as a mainstream guy. I knew him as the guy that kind of mainstream drag for mass consumption. I knew him as a character. But his story is great and entertaining.

And he's of this generation of gay men that they're not that many around anymore. These stories are rarely told shamelessly in the circles I run in, which are small. But it was great. It was a great book. And it's a great story. And I love an old, shameless gay man who will tell those dirty stories. That said, Harvey showed up, and I sat him down, and we had this conversation. His new book, which I highly recommend because I enjoyed it, is I Was Better Last Night, a memoir. So this is me talking to Harvey Fierstein. If you don't know Harvey, you're going to know him pretty quick. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.

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I turn it to NPR when I put these on. You do? Yeah, it becomes, hello. The price of soybeans will be. The comforting. It hasn't been a good year for rain. The comforting tones of Harvey Fierstein. Exactly.

I'm here to make sure you don't think the world is ending. Get some rest. Get some rest now. Is the world ending? Seems like it, right? How are you feeling about it? I'm going to go with it. Yeah yeah you've had your time exactly it's the next adventure you know i i'm gonna turn 70 in june 70 yeah 70 in june i've been dead twice yeah so yeah not all that but it seems like the next one will be for longer.

But I won't know. I know. I think about it more as I get older, obviously. How old are you now? 58. I'm not that old, but I think about it. Yeah, you're old. Well, I mean, in television land, you're old.

I know. I mean, they're like 25, 26. They don't give a flying fuck. I don't even know. I don't know who anyone is anymore. I can't. I mean, that's what I notice happening. Is that like you think you're part of it. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden you're like, who the fuck are these people? Yeah, no. I have a way around that. Oh, yeah? What is it? Take on icon status. Well, I can't just decide that. Well, yeah.

Not the first time somebody calls you something like that. A legend. Yes. Just embrace that. Well, yeah. Not the first time somebody calls you something like that. A legend. Yes. Just embrace it. And then you don't have to know who anybody is. My mother could never remember anybody's name. Yeah. So everyone was jarring.

Yeah. Hello, jarring. Hello, jarring. This woman from Brooklyn. Hello, jarring. Yeah. So I picked that up rather early and called everybody Cookie. Oh, that's good.

Cookie? Everybody's Cookie. I like pal. You like pal? Well, I mean, it's kind of, you know, we're working class. It's better than guys. Hey, guys. Fellas.

What's up, fellas? Yeah, fellas. I didn't know fellas. Definitely not in my world. Fellas in my world, it's like you've already pulled down this. They're perfect. But Cookie is fine. I like Cookie. Cookie means I could fuck you. Yeah the zipper. But cookie is fine. I like cookie.

Cookie means I could fuck you. I could not talk to you. Doesn't matter. You're cookie. Once you say, hey, cookie, it's on them to... You do what you're going to do. Yeah, you've complimented them in some way. Who doesn't like a cookie?

That's right. Who doesn't like a cookie? Everybody likes a cookie. Absolutely. So I read the whole book. Oh my God. You're the one. I am. I'm going to do that someday. Well, actually, I actually had to read it for the Audible.

But I read the whole, oh yeah, that's a process, isn't it? Yeah. Oh God. How many breaks did you have to take? They told me it would take three days. Yeah. Because I'm so dyslexic. It took me six. Oh really? That's right. Well, it took me five would take three days. Yeah. Because I'm so dyslexic. It took me six. Oh, really?

That's right. Well, it took me five days, and then I went back for a day of pickups. I don't always read the books, but I wanted to at least browse the book because I'm not a huge theater guy, but I know you because you're an icon. Thank you, Cookie. Or as my mother would say, thank you, Johnny. You're welcome. but i ended up reading the whole thing it's great it's beautifully written and it's uh it's engaging and it's like you're thoughtful i mean it's not like you didn't just uh you didn't you didn't just uh you know do

the thing you didn't you got into it and you you revealed parts of yourself and i think i think what happens when i've written things is it felt to me like you were learning about yourself as you wrote about yourself. Yeah, maybe. Well, as I said, I took Shirley MacLaine's advice. She's written like nine of these. I know. So I figured, who the fuck better to listen to them? One for each life.

Well, no, I think she's had many more lives than that, but she got bored. Yeah. But you know how that cookie is. Uh-huh. So she said, let memory be your guide. Right. Let memory be the editor. Right.

There may be other books down the line. Yeah. But follow the line of your memory as it takes you through this. And I said, I worry less about myself because I'm the one who decided to do this so it's okay to tell any story I want to tell about myself yeah but how do I handle telling stories about other people sure especially the dead ones yeah especially the ones who died in their 20s and their teens who will never get to tell this story. And I have this responsibility of telling this story. And she said, once again, let your memory be your guide. You're never, when you're writing a book like this, you're never really writing about anybody else.

You're always writing about yourself. Yeah. And how they affected you. Right. So it's really the opposite of what I actually do for a living. Because when you write a play or movie or whatever, it's bad writing if the audience can figure out which one is you. Right.

You need to be writing your characters. You need to be true to your characters. And, you know, then there are a lot of bad writers. We're in Hollywood now. It's not really a secret here. There's a lot of really famous writers who are absolutely awful. Sure. Who only write one character,

and everybody else just gives them lines, just feeds them lines so they can be the hero. That used to be called television. It is still called television. I can still name the name. And they're still the most successful people. But that's not good, right? And so this was the opposite. This all of a sudden was, I don't want to hear anybody's voice but yours.

And when you're doing that, you have to have a certain amount of, fuck it, I'm just going to tell the truth. Yeah, I mean, my experience with it and writing about my father, once he read it in the book, it wasn't good. It wasn't healing. It was healing for me, maybe, but he took it personally. And then I had to question myself, my intentions. Did I do this out of spite? I mean, it is the truth, but is it necessary? Well, I had a couple of people like that in the book.

Yeah. One was Arthur Lawrence. He's dead. But Arthur was the kind of person that's my pants running. Oh, is he? Okay. As long as it's me. I keep trying to turn everything off.

And I should have. Do you have a sensor? Is it a medical condition with your pants ring? It says the cookies are done. Look at this picture of Charlie Chaplin. But it's me. It looks like me in the trap. It does kind of look like you.

You know. That's Monsieur Verdoux. Is that what it was called? Yeah. It's that French. Okay. So I'm going to put it on airplane mode. Okay.

Good. That should do it. That turns everything off. That should do it. God damn it. Yeah. Now we're flying. Now we're flying.

So. Yeah. Where was we? Oh, yeah. So when I was writing about Arthur Lawrence, who's a mean son of a bitch. Yeah. I also knew that Arthur had a real understanding of the truth. And I knew that he, in the long run, wouldn't mind if I told terrible stories about him.

Because he knew they were true. Right. He was the kind of person that, in legend, because I have copied him in legend, in his living room, he had a drum table with a tablecloth on it and a lovely lamp. And surrounding the lovely lamp were little beautiful little frames, each one very different, and each one had a photograph of a friend of his. And when he was mad at you, he turned the picture around.

So you'd go in and whoever's picture was not showing your way, he was pissed at. That's the kind of gent he was. So I didn't feel bad about writing bad stuff about him. What was his job? Was he a producer? He wrote West Side Story.

Oh, that guy. Yeah. He wrote Gypsy. Oh, yeah. He wrote Turning Point. See, isn't that amazing that you had this experience with all these guys?

I mean, that you worked with them. Oh, are you kidding? Oh, I have had one of the greatest lives ever. That's worked with them? Are you kidding? I've had one of the greatest lives ever. Why do you think I wrote a book? It comes through in the book. Let me ask you something. Who decided to put the coming out story

at the end? Well, thank you for ruining that for people who are about to read the book. Is that a spoiler? I'm not going to tell the story. No, you're not going to tell the story. I had a fight with the interviewer who kept trying to tell the story. No, you're not going to tell the story. The head of fight with the interviewer who kept trying to tell, said, could you please not tell the story?

Oh, no, but I really love this. Could you please not tell the story? I want them to get, oh, but I get to, no, you don't. Anyway. Yeah. Cookie.

Yeah. As I was writing the book, it came to me that that's where it belonged because of the reaction to seeing Torchstone again 40 years later. And your brother.

And my brother. And so, almost the only note my editor ever gave me, he never rewrote sentences, he never asked for this. He asked a couple times to fill this in a little bit more.

But the only major note he ever gave me was move that chapter to earlier in the book where it happens. And I said, you're wrong. I said, I know this is theatrically the right place to put it, and I'm a theater writer.

So that's where it stays, and I think it really hits people where it is. Well, I think so because it's not by virtue of your denial or anything, but it's just unspoken throughout the entire thing because you have this great relationship with your mother. Right. But this is what's at the core of, I think, a lot of people's experience. Exactly. And that's just it.

In my mind, so many people admired my mother. Yeah. You know, she went out, as I say, she, for 30 years, she and her friends delivered Meals on Wheels to people with AIDS. I mean, she was in her 80s delivering Meals on Wheels. It's a woman who did unbelievable work in the world. And everyone thought, because I wrote Tortsong and all that, that we had the greatest relationship in the world. And it always was a great relationship.

And so they would be jealous of that. And I would never tell the story really. And then the time came to actually tell the story. But my favorite story about my mother and being gay is still when she took my grandmother to see me in Torzong. Can I tell that little story? Yeah, of course. This is the first run.

Yes, the original Broadway run. I mean, we'd have done it off of Broadway. But we're on Broadway now. And my grandmother's in her home because she was a little violent. She used to try and beat my mother up with a cane.

She didn't call her darling. I called her Granny Goose. So anyway, my grandmother's in this home and my mother visited her almost every day. And she said, Jackie, what's going on here? All the nurses keep asking for, who the hell is Harvey?

They keep asking for his autograph. Why would I get Harvey's autograph? Why do they keep asking for Harvey's autograph? They've seen him on TV. They read about him in the paper. Who the hell did Harvey become? Yeah. So she said, I need to take,

I need to take Grandma's. Who the hell did Harvey become? Yeah. So she said, I need to take grandma. Who the hell did Harvey become? Well, you, I mean, because I was Harvey. Yeah. I was the weird kid at home that nobody ever thought would be able to make a living. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

He was autistic. Right. I just, it was the polite word for gay back in the 50s. Yeah. In the 40s, he's gentlemanly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. He's gentlemanly yeah yeah yeah right that was

yeah we always had nice words I guess the Jews had nice words the Catholics immediately drove them into the priesthood yeah exactly

well and I certainly slept with enough of them but somebody somebody said on New York television yeah

said my favorite chapter was it was on like one of those early morning TV shows. Of this book? Of this book, reviewing the books. And my favorite chapter starts out by Harvey saying, I certainly slept with my share of priests, but I've yet to bed a rabbi. And you hear the host of the show still off camera going, oh my. Before he cuts back to her, my favorite part, oh my.

So anyway, so my mother decides she's not going to take it to see the first act because in the first act of Torch Song, I'm in drag and I get fucked up the ass for about 10 minutes standing center stage. She figures, eh, maybe too much for Granny Goose. So she times it out to get her there for act two. Right. Which all takes place in a giant bed. And then act three has the mother and all that shit.

Thought that'll be fine. So she gets her there for act two. And this is with Estelle? It's with Estelle? When Estelle was there. But act two, it's just the giant bed with the two couples, the gay couple and the straight couple. And so they're sitting there in the audience and she's watching the show and she's hard of hearing.

And in the loudest voice that has ever been projected in a Broadway theater, she says, So Harvey's a homosexual. And my mother, in a voice loud enough for my grandmother to hear her, said, How should I know? I don't sleep with them. Did that get a pause? Well, I just fell over. I was like talking on stage and I just went boom.

It laughed her. You did? That's good. Yeah, well, you have to. That's what live theater's about. I know. The thing about this, though, that I didn't realize, and of course, you know, why would I? But for some reason, your life, and it sort of tracks the evolution of a lot of stuff, of theater, of drag, of gay culture. Like, you were there for all of it, and you've seen everything change, right?

But I had no idea that, you know, in the 70s or in the late 60s, I'm sort of fascinated with that period in New York and nobody really talks about it enough and you don't get any sense of it. I watched a documentary on the Velvet Underground, but there's that whole world. But the gay world was kind of like, it doesn't get enough representation culturally right now.

Well, it never does. Right. I mean, unless we tell it. Yeah, right. Nobody's going to tell it. And you have to tell it. Yeah. And unfortunately,

all those writers were so used to being in the closet that they didn't want to tell those stories. Right. You know? I mean, but The Velvet Underground was a case, I mean, I hung out with The Velvet Underground.

Right. Mary Warnoff, who's like the head person in that documentary she starred in we starred in because it was Warhol of course

yeah yeah yeah three plays together and Lou was Lou did you know Lou I knew him a little bit he was mad at me when he died which was one of those

funny things oh really we did a benefit together at Town Hall yeah and nobody went over the material that we were gonna do

yeah and so we both sang the same song. Which one? We sang Frankie. It was about censorship, and we both sang the folk song, Frankie and Johnny. Frankie and Johnny were lovers.

So he went on first, and I went, oh, fuck. Well, I'll just go out and say hello to the crowd or whatever. And he sang his version, and I said, oh. I wasn't going to do this because Lou already sang this but he didn't sing the right lyrics

he sang the cleaned up lyrics I said so Lou this is for you and I sang the non cleaned up lyrics and that was

pretty funny it was funny but he didn't he didn't like it so okay so you're a kid he was heterosexual. Was he?

Heterosexual men do not like being one-upped. They like being complimented. But was he heterosexual? Yeah. He was fucking Laurie Anderson all those years. I guess so. But early on, I mean, he had gotten shock therapy to drive the gay out of him by his family. Yeah, but I mean, he and laurie i mean i

don't know there's no there's no black and white line no that's right not now yeah well not then yeah i mean we may have hidden it well i mean culturally though there's a lot of discussion about a non-line well i mean but that's isn't that the most exciting thing going on now yeah he scares the out of me why the gender line yeah the whole idea that we may at this point in our lives yeah be redefining what is a man and what is a woman and it's very exciting yeah not very like i said for a 70 year old person it's a little annoying i have to call you what you're right you want called they? Yeah. Why the fuck do you want to be called they? Yeah.

And yet, it's kind of exciting. Yeah. I don't necessarily want to see Broadway shows renamed, you know, like Golden Them. Yeah. Or My Fair They. Yeah, yeah. Or have every love song translated, you know, all boy, girl taken out. Yeah.

It's all they, them. I'm not sure I like that, but I still find it incredibly exciting because it's redefining who human beings are. And can be, I guess. And can be, which of course is what frightens the other side. Yeah. I want to go back. I want to go back.

Right. Give me America great again. Right. I don't want to change. I want to go back. Give me my scrapbook. But there is no back, really. That's the weird thing. There is no back. There's always a mythological place. There

is no back. Death is back. Yeah. That's all that's there. But in terms of that conversation, I mean, you lived your life. You are who you are. Yes. Changing a pronoun is not going to change your experience. Yeah, but it does change how I relate to other people. Because as soon as you have to call somebody they or them, you do have to think about that. I'll tell you a quick story. I know somebody who has two gay men. Yeah. They have a son.

Yeah. Who's 10 years old. At home, their son is he, him. Yeah. No problem at all. Right. They went to a parent-teacher conference and found out at school he prefers to be called they-them. Uh-huh.

What do you think of that? I think it's fascinating. Yeah. Is he coming out in some way? Is he just falling in with a group of other people? A trend? Yeah, I think it's utterly fascinating. And I try to think what I would have done then, and I don't know.

People think of coming out as the act of telling other people, but that's not what coming out is. To yourself? Yeah. When you're a little kid, you live in your family, but that's not what coming out is. To yourself? Yeah. When you're a little kid, you live in your family, whatever that family is, and as you find your place in the world,

that's my brother, that's my sister, that's my mother, that's my father, and you figure out where it is you belong in that. Well, a straight kid figures that out and goes,

okay, that's where I belong, and they go on with their life. A gay kid says, that's where I, no, wait, that's where I belong, and they go on with their life. A gay kid says, that's where I, no, wait, that's not where I belong. That's not right. And they go back and do it again, and they do it again,

and they do the math over and over and over again until they finally say, it's not the right math that anybody else is giving me, but it's the right math for me, and that's coming out. It has nothing to do with telling other people. people right nothing to do with even self-acceptance it's figuring it out in your own head i don't fit into this i don't fit into that which is why i find the whole gender thing so interesting it's interesting right because there is a there's a

way to integrate is there i don't know know. That's what I'm saying. Isn't that fabulous? The language of it. There may not be a way to integrate. We may be, you know, I used to talk to Gloria Steinem about this all the time. She has a great love of the Native American idea of two-spirit, of male and female existing in the same body. She has a great love of that, and I do too, but I didn't know exactly how it would work.

And I'm not saying that they're giving us a way for it to work yet, but I find it fascinating. The reason I even started up in this thinking, as you know because you read the book, I wrote a play called Casa Valentina. That sounded very interesting to me. So Bob Balaban and a couple of others come to me with all these photographs of men in the 1950s up in a little place with a bungalow colony. Up in the Catskills?

In the Catskills. Yeah. Where these heterosexual married men go up on weekends and dress in women's clothing. They believed they were heterosexual men that had a woman living inside them. They called it the woman within. Yeah. They had their own magazines. They had their own political groups and all that.

They thought, this will make a great comedy. This will make a great. And I thought, yeah, this will make a great comedy this will make a great and i thought yeah you know this is a lot of fun but when i sat down to read their papers and i read their political statements and i there wasn't two of them that agreed on anything some of them wanted to dress up and pass as women others it was about wearing the underwear. Never went out in public. Some, it was about masturbation in women's clothing. Some, it was about just looking in the mirror. Others, it was the photographs.

Some, swearing they were heterosexual, would have sex with heterosexual men. Because I am a heterosexual woman, so I would, of course, have sex with heterosexual men. Yeah. So, in this little group that you would think would be totally homogenous, no one was alike. And I thought, is it a lie, and I've come to believe it is, that we teach children brotherhood, that we teach this idea that we're all the same,

and we should accept each other all for being the same, that we're really all just human beings and it's just fine. Yeah. That's never caused peace in this world. Sure. What about the idea that no one's the same? We're all magnificently different.

We're all such individuals, a little of this, a little of that, and I will accept you for all of your differences and your uniqueness. Please accept me for my uniqueness. Let's stop trying to get ourselves into clumps, because as soon as you put people in clumps, then there's a clump you're against. Yeah. It's your clump against somebody else's clump. Tribal, yeah. But if you have no clump, then you can't war with anybody. I think it's a much smarter idea than the brotherhood idea.

Sure. Well, because the brotherhood idea implies that there's something that everybody's the same and that it's easy to control that. Well, but as soon as you say everyone's the same, everyone knows that they're not the same. So which one's on top? Yeah. And it becomes the white heterosexual male yeah you know what what what gloria steinem and i we had this battle i was writing a play called bella bella about bella abso yeah are you gonna put that up again um we hoped i mean it was just

done out here somewhere um we were hoping to to raise money for women running for office but um we were hoping to raise money for women running for office, but Gloria was wonderful enough to sit through rehearsal and give notes. Yeah, because she knew her, and she was there. Oh, yeah, she was there on that particular night

that I was writing about. The eve of the election. Yes, Shirley MacLaine. Shirley MacLaine was there, Marla Thomas, Lily Tomlin. And everyone's still around, right? They're all still around. They all came to either see the show or to watch.

Even Hillary Clinton came to lend her support. It was wonderful. So I'm doing a scene in which I say, you know, well, as Bella Abzug, well, the Hispanic vote will go this way, and the black vote will go this way, and

then women, well, as we all know, the women will vote the way their husbands tell them to. And Gloria stopped the rehearsal. She said, no, no. I said, what do you mean no? She said, white women. White women. Black women voted for Hillary.

Black women actually vote their own interest. So then, okay, so then I get up and I say, and the white women will vote the way their husbands know. Well, you know, they don't need to be told by their husbands to vote that way. White women will vote the interests

of the people who pay their bill. Right. And they know that innately? It's that, yeah. She said it's built into them. It's built into our society that women will vote for who pays the bills. Well, that's the big problem across the board is that our society is exclusionary and defers to white, hetero... Patriarchal society as opposed to the two-spirit society or or the native american society which which of course was was maternal yeah the women were in charge but like when you were when you were coming

up in the in like in new york in the 60s yeah i mean that there wasn't really a discussion about about any of this stuff it was just all pretty wild and there was a freedom that was afforded to people from this from from just the tone of the culture at that time. I mean, how crazy was it on the Lower East Side? Well, I got because I went to art school. Because I went as soon as I was done with junior high. Yeah. I grew up in the land of the Honeymooners, Welcome Back, Carter.

Sure. And you're out on the island. Where are you? Brooklyn? Benson. Benson, yeah. And then I got out of there, and all of a sudden I was on 57th Street and 2nd Avenue with the Boodles. Yeah.

And there were men in fur coats. Yeah. And this art community. I was living a three-part life during the day. Or in the morning, I was this nice Jewish boy living at home. Then during the day, I was going to school full-time because I went through college yeah and then at night i was in the counterculture so you know we would have i tell the story all the time because it's it's one of those stories i i'm in history of our class yeah and the history of our teacher is lecturing us about an artist named reid johnson who's now creating this a movement called a male art yeah

and he takes a letter or postcard and he draws on it mails it to another artist they add to it they mail it to somebody else and eventually it comes back to him and that's the finished piece of artwork and he gets his whole lecture that night i'm laying in bed and I said, oh, you know what, Ray? They gave a lecture about you today. So that was the life I was living. They were talking about... How old were you? 15, 16. So they were talking about

that life and I was living that life. Whether I was working with the Warhol people or just hanging out on the street or with the creators of the ridiculous theatrical movement. But this was not like this. What year are we talking, 60s? 70s.

70s. So this is post-hippie. This isn't peace and love. This is like kind of aggressive avant-garde pushing the envelope stuff. Yes, yes. And the age difference at that time in that world, it didn't seem to make much difference, huh? Well, it did because I couldn't go into the bars.

But what about the men? I mean, some of these guys were old guys and you guys were young guys. Yeah, but that was what was amazing was other than a few pederasts that I really loved. Yeah. What are you going to do? You got to learn somewhere, right? Exactly. What are you going to do?

You've got to learn somewhere, right? Exactly. But when I'd go to a GAA meeting, the Gay Activists Alliance, they were not picking up us young boys. They were teaching us. They would take us to the Pink Teacup, which was a... I remember that place. It was for breakfast, right? Yeah, breakfast, lunch.

It was a coffee shop. Where was that, in the village? Yeah, on Bleecker Street. It was painted pink yeah off of chris street right so they would take us to the pink teacup but they wouldn't try and take us to a bar right and they wouldn't try and have sex with us right they were our parents like mentoring they were exactly they were they were mentoring us and and um you know and then you get older, you do that for the next generation. That's why my book is dedicated to the radical fairies that flew before me. Yeah, and it's a history book in a lot of ways.

But I guess my question is, the art scene and what became the activism scene, kind of, it seemed a little different at first, but then it kind of came together. I mean, I think you were part of that, right? Yeah, but nothing has such a clean, lovely line. You had the Stonewall Bar, right? Yeah. This bar that drag queens hung out in and hustlers and all that. And the building right next to it, the windows, if you're looking at the bar, the windows upstairs to the left,

were the Mattachine Society. The Mattachine Society was a gay society that had been around since the 50s that believed if we wore black suits with white shirts and little skinny black ties that heterosexuals would accept us. So when Stonewall broke out, you had them screaming,

shut up, listen to the cops, get back in the bar and all that. And drag queens saying, fuck you, Judy Garland died today and we're going to kick your fucking asses for bothering us. And now they came in a kick line. It was not gay activists that believed in something and had ideals and all that. That's not how revolutions happen. That's how they develop afterwards.

After the anger builds up. Exactly. So that movement started in the 60s. Yeah. We then hit a strange sort of floaty period where you still had the Manishing Society trying to get our rights that way. You had the further left being, you know, we're queer and we're going to get in your faces. And then by 1981, AIDS decimated our community of course

but did some very important things which I'd rather it didn't do but it did I'd rather it didn't have to happen something like AIDS

but it did it's just the way that history works sometimes the negative gives you positive whenever you go to a gay

meeting like at the firehouse or whatever, the first half hour was lesbians and gays fighting over who was going to speak first. Yeah. Was going to be a guy or a woman speaking first. And you'd waste a half fucking hour of this meeting just them fighting. Could not get along on anything. Men couldn't go into women's bars. Men couldn't go into women's bars. Women couldn't go into men's bars.

We just did not like each other. But you were stuck together. We didn't know that. AIDS came along. We could no longer give blood. We're dying in hospitals. We need blood. Heterosexuals will not give us blood.

Lesbians stepped in. created something called blood sisters and many hundreds of thousands of lives were prolonged at least if not saved by the blood of lesbians I mean physically yeah and that was the end of the war between the two. We became lesbian and gay during that. No one knew who gay people were. We were something they talked about. We were vampires that only appeared at night. We weren't normal people. We were AIDS hit.

And there's a line in Safe Sex which says, and suddenly we were everywhere where doctors and teachers and lawyers and priests and mothers and babies. Now they see us everywhere, hospitals, classrooms, obituaries. We were gay and now we're human. That was a huge change. All of a sudden we existed., did they run away from us? Did they turn their back on us? Did they wish we'd all die?

Maybe. But we were no longer deniable. We existed. And that changed everything. Back in the wars, we've now got this war. We're fighting for our lives because of AIDS. And out come these young people screaming for marriage equality. And I was thinking, what the fuck is wrong with you people? We have so much other work to do. We've got all this crap

going on to take care of. And you don't care about a fucking wedding cake what is where are your values then i stopped myself and i said you know these are younger people than you and don't they have the right to define what the revolution should be and so i shut my mouth and i went to work for them and they turned out to be right these heterosexuals that thought we were out there to fuck their children or steal their husbands, all of a sudden went, oh, they want insurance. Oh, they want to get a mortgage. I understand that. Oh, and their husband leaves them, they want to get alimony. I get that. Right. And all of a sudden, we won rights that we never would

have won, fought on any other battlefield. And now, this generation, coming back to where we started this whole conversation, has brought up gender. Said, we're now going to show you about gender, or at least question all of the roles

of gender. Once again, I don't understand it, but I have lived enough history now to know, follow the young people. It's their world. It's not our world. We should shut the fuck up. The role of an elder is not to tell you what to do,

even though people think that's what an elder is supposed to do. The role of an elder is to to do the role of an elder is to facilitate yeah what young people want to do that's the best thing we can do so if i write my book it's not to say go live the life of harvey it's like this is how i got there now take it the next steps and do you, like I understand what you're saying socially and culturally, and there's definitely a fight. It seems like right now we're in a more defined fight against what could become fascism than we ever have been. Right. But in terms of theater being vital and being important to the cultural evolution and language, it seems like back in the 70s, you know, before drag was accepted and you were, and you were doing experimental stuff or being in a Warhol movie, but drag was part of that world, but it was a freak show to everybody else.

Right, and now it's not. But that was because of you. I know, but look at RuPaul. No, I know, but- But look at RuPaul's Drag Race. I have a friend who was- But you, because of- Not me, but the whole bunch of my generation.

Torstong, but then Edna. I mean, like, Turnblad. I mean, that made it fun for the entire world, right? Yeah, but so did Charles Nelson Reilly. But that wasn't identified. No, he wasn't. Listen, when I told my mother I had a date with Rock Hudson, I thought she'd die.

Did you? Yeah, but that's a whole other story. When I told my mother I had a date with Rock Hudson, I thought she'd die. Did you? Yeah. But that's a whole other story. But the point is that you look at RuPaul's Drag Race now. Those are not the same kind of drag queens we were. They are not. We were sexual deviance. We were.

We were scary deviance. We were. We were scary. Yeah. You know, we were saying we are women and we are scary and we will scare the shit out of you. This was what, in the 70s? In the 60s and 70s. We were experimental. We were in your face. We were.

There was something very dangerous about us. What was the point? To be who we were in a world that was not going to let you. Okay. RuPaul's Drag Race, they're so fabulous. Yeah, yeah.

They're wearing costumes we could never afford. Right. They can do their makeup. There's a scene in Hollywood, Lon's book. You know who Holly was?

She won at the Warhol Drag Race. Okay, yeah. That Lou sang about. Yeah, yeah. You know, Holly came from Miami was one of the Warhol drag queens that Lou sang about. Yeah, yeah. You know, Holly came from Miami. From Miami, FLA, that one, yeah. So Holly was opening in a movie, in a Warhol movie called Flesh.

Yeah. But she was in the tombs. She'd been arrested, and they were going to let her out of the tombs in time to get to the opening. Yeah. And so she didn't have any makeup or anything with her. She was in the men's section. And she had to go to this Hollywood opening. So she took a colored magazine.

And she took Q-tips. And she'd wet the Q-tips on her tongue. And take the ink off the colored pictures. And use that to make makeup. To do the makeup. That's not what RuPaul drag queens do. Yeah. My friend Bianca Del Rio,

who's a stand-up comic from there, sells out stadiums. Stadiums. Entire stadiums. She don't sing. She don't dance. She's a stand-up insult comic that sells out stadiums.

Yeah. I know some of those people. It's a different world. Yeah. Well, another one from RuPaul's Drag Race, Nina West, who actually played me when they do Snatch Game, is playing my role in Hairspray in The Road Company right now. So we've made incredible progress. Where we go next, I don't know.

But we're not going backwards we're always moving forwards sure and that's what's fun but i mean that whole period this sort of sweaty angry wigs and makeup period in the 70s and then that the the entire like the the the cultural change i guess it was mostly, but that whole world of gay sex that you write about, to me, it's just like, oh, my God. I mean, you're just walking around fucking wherever you wanted and just like kind of the insane electricity of that world. I can't even imagine it. Mark, my love. Yeah, and what?

Do you really think we aren't still doing that? You really think I can't take you to Central Park now and show you people fucking in the rambles? Are they? Yeah, of course, the back of the rambles. It's boys. Yeah. What do boys need to have sex?

A finger that can pull down a zipper. After that, then we go for pizza. Yeah. It's not boys and girls. Boys and girls takes work. You have to actually talk or something. This is boys. And the whole aim of having sex in that kind of having sex is to have sex.

It's not to make friends. Nobody's here to make friends. People are here to fuck or get a blowjob. I got to get back to work. My wife's waiting for me at work. She's not going to give get a blowjob or I gotta get back to work my wife's waiting for me at work she's not gonna give me a blowjob tonight I'll get a blowjob here but no you think

I mean LA it's all back yeah it's back there was big stars caught here in bathrooms in Hollywood maybe I guess I'm not paying as much attention. Yeah.

Well, you probably have somebody who gives you blowjobs on a regular basis. I try to. Yeah. But should you ever need one, I'll send you a list of addresses. You can just stop by. I need to start that phase of my life. Exactly. Just stop by and get a blowjob.

It's time to go to the shambles or whatever. You know, the rambles. The rambles. But look, there's no age limit. Penises don't have an age limit. They don't wrinkle as bad as faces. I guess that's true. But I don't know if they work as good in the long run.

Oh. They have pills. They have pills for that cookie. I'm so sorry you're 58 and you're worried about that. Oh, I know. I'm not worried about it. I know they have pills. I'm okay. I'm hip sorry you're 58 and you're worried about that. Oh, I know. I'm not worried about it. I know they have pills. I'm okay.

We're putting this out on this podcast. I'm hip to the pills. Mark is okay. Yeah. Mark can still open his zipper. I can do it. I can do it. It takes a little work, a little more work.

Wham, bam, thank you, bam. See you later. My Jones is coming down. Yeah. So out of that world, what drove, because I know you write about it in the book, but Torch Song Trilogy, which defined you at that time and also changed theater and it changed the representation in theater and in the culture. I mean, that was something that was driven by an anger and a desperation to identify.

How did it come? It was no... Arnold, that character of Arnold, which was the character I played, he was driven by growing up in the same family that his brother did. You know, he grew up with a mother

and a father and a brother, and the brother was straight, but he was dating, and eventually he wanted to find somebody and have a child or whatever. Well, Arnold was raised in the same home because he liked to suck dick. It means he didn't want a family.

And the misunderstanding is there were gay people that thought I was saying we all have to do that. Yeah. But I was saying the choice should be ours. Right. The choice should be ours. And so you had Arnold who was trying to make this place, make a statement that his life was of value and had the same values as his straight brother was seen as being frightening, was seen by some as being revolutionary, was seen as being a different kind of a statement,

which is fine. But I mean, even in the play, Arnold says, I don't want a grade B imitation of a heterosexual marriage. I want whatever this is really supposed to be. But I was attacked by gay groups saying that, you know, he just wants to turn us into heterosexuals. I don't want to have children. Well, I never had children. Believe me, raising Matthew Broderick was enough.

I didn't have to have children. Well, my kids actually all went on to greatness. You have Patrick Dempsey and Matthew and Fisher Stevens. Fisher Stevens. He's working a lot right now. Yeah, he's working a lot. But those are my kids. Yeah, right.

Well, I mean, but that's interesting that there's always this infighting to me that they have to judge. But that's what happened when aids hit when aids hit there were those of us who screamed and yelled okay this is going to be up to us yeah we had no we had no heterosexual ally right we had one person yeah anthony fauci recognize that name yeah that's the only person we had yeah we had anthony fauci and that was it. So we had nobody to guide us. We had to decide

should we close the baths? Should we insist everybody use condoms? Should we, you know, the same crap, same kind of crap that you see going on

with masks and gay people laugh at it. Yeah. You fucking pieces of shit. If we had a little shot to take with a booster, you don't think we would have taken our shot and gone on with our life.

You, me and these big heterosexual guys are scared of getting a shot. You fucking cowardly little pieces of shit. That's what, I look at them as pieces of shit. Yeah. These ballplayers and all that. I don't want to be told what I do. You're scared to get a shot

and just admit it. Fucking little faggoty ass piece of crap. So anyway, yes, well, you'd be very happy to have been able

to get a shot. Sure. But we had the same arguments. Yeah. Should we insist everybody use condoms? We keep the bathhouses open so we can give out condoms.

We taught. These were community meetings? Community meetings and we had... Because this is a New York thing. I mean those kind of... Well, New York, San Francisco, LA, it was spreading all across the country. But like those gay centers where the bath culture existed and that culture

was like known and people traveled there to do that. Someone had to create sort of a government in a way. Right, which of course you can't because there's no way to, first of all, who's going to be a lesbian or a gay man? Told you we were busy having that fight. We didn't have enough stuff to fight over.

So you did, but ultimately the decision was to get people to wear condoms. Yeah, but many people didn't, and they died. Yeah. And now there's no cure for AIDS, and we've turned our community into a community of drug addicts. Yeah. I mean, I'm very glad people are taking PrEP,

and I'm very glad people have a drug to take so they don't seroconvert, and that even if they have HIV in their blood, they take a drug that keeps them from passing it on. I'm happy about that, but I'm not happy that they have to take a drug and I don't understand why we still haven't found a cure for AIDS. I still believe, in my own naive way, I still believe the drug companies like it that way. They make more money. Of course they make more money. No money and a cure.

There's no money and a cure. But you really believe that? That there's not people working on it? I don't. Oh, I know there's people working on it. Whether they found something or not is something different. I don't have anybody to ask. Sure.

Do you ever have survivor's guilt? Of course. Yeah. I got three dead people in my backyard. You think I don't have survivor's guilt? Of course. Yeah. I got three dead people in my backyard. You think I don't have survivor's guilt? Yeah. Of course I do, and I write about it in the book. Yeah.

I'll tell you, when I was recording the book, it wasn't when I was writing it. Writing it was fine. You know, you're in that head, and you're just telling the truth, and you're just going down your road. Yeah. But when I had to read it back is when it started hitting me. When I hit that sentence that I sort of just described that said,

and then our heterosexual friends put their arms around us, gave us a hug, said, we hope you do okay. And they walked away very glad it didn't affect them and left us to die. And when I read that sentence and left us to die and when i read that sentence left us to die i actually stood up from the microphone and left the building for an hour because i guess yeah yeah that was a very hard truth to to finally tell and because of that time like it you know people has their families had turned on them so i mean i would well it was everybody but i mean why do you have people in your backyard? I mean, how did that unfold?

They wanted to be there with me. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, they just wanted to be there with me. But Ari Melber had me on his show to advertise Bella Bella, but he has two guests on, and they didn't tell me who the other person was. And I walk into the room, and it's Peggy Noonan. Yeah.

And I just like looked at Harry who I didn't know at the time. I know him now. Yeah. I know him now well enough to call him Cookie. Yeah. And I sort of looked at him and he didn't understand. And because of the shape of the show, we only had a couple of minutes and blah, blah, blah. It wasn't a discussion show.

I had to be polite and be nice. All I wanted to do was slap that bitch. She wrote the speeches for Reagan where he never mentioned AIDS. She was part of that decision to have the President of the United States not even mention the word AIDS. Because they knew there was no cure. They knew there was no quick answer. They knew it was a losing political battle.

So fuck the people dying. Fuck Americans being sick. We're not even going to talk about it. They can die on their own. And she was complicit. She was the speechwriter. You didn't say nothing to her?

I just felt I couldn't. So a couple of weeks ago, Ari asked me to be on his show again. I just did it the other day. And I said, if you stick me with somebody like Peggy Noonan this time, I'm not keeping quiet. And he laughed. He said, no, it'll be you alone. I said, yeah, you got to be careful about who you put me with. Because the days of my being quiet.

You know, I'm quiet when I have to sell something. I was selling it. And I was telling, you know, I was also telling Bella Abzug's story. Though the truth is, Bella would have shot her mouth off. Bella wouldn't have sat there quiet. Right, that's for sure. You know, she has two lesbian daughters. She would have sat there quiet.

Yeah. So, like, it seems when I read the book that the way you learned how to create and, I mean, you work hard. I mean, I don't understand how these books work. But half of this book is about you being confronted with material and making decisions on how that material should be staged and how the characters should act and how the play should come together and that's something you learned instinctively from just working because i don't understand it how you know creating a book really works i think i talked to lynn manuel miranda about it like but when you did even the remake when you did la cage or when you did any of these shows that you know that needed to be retooled is it just a sense of doing theater for a long time? No, there is an art to it, but it's a craft.

It's a craft. It's definitely a craft. Yeah. And I learned. I mean, I had written a bunch of musicals first, earlier experimental musicals like Freaky Pussy and Flapperstoska and Cannibals Just Don't Know No Better. Is Freaky Pussy going to come back anytime soon?

I don't think so. But that was a work of real political. That was a political statement because heterosexuals were at that time gentrifying everything. They were closing down little gay clubs and turning them into nice restaurants and all that. So this was my statement. I took a subway bathroom that a bunch of transvestite prostitutes were plying their trade out of during the winter.

It was cold out on the street. So they're working in a subway bathroom and a couple comes along and turns it into a restaurant called The Underground. Right. And there's nothing for these drag queens. They can't go to the police. Yeah. They can't.

And so they have their own gay masada of committing suicide. Oh, really? Yeah. One by one, they commit suicide. See, that's some hardcore 70s satire. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

You don't see that shit anymore, man. You do. There are people still doing that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, Taylor Mac. Do you know who Taylor Mac is? Look up Taylor Mac. Still does.

So you did musicals early on, but then you learned the craft. Well, the craft was something different. Arthur Lawrence, who had written Gypsy and other such stories, when he came on to direct La Cage, you couldn't help but learn. Sure. You got one of the true masters and you were given that job I had a job before him

I got hired before him I was put in a room I'm not even 30 and I'm put in a room with Arthur Lawrence who's written all this stuff and Jerry Herman who wrote Mame and Hello Dolly so that's it and it's me sitting there

if you fucking didn't think I soaked everything I could out of those two. It's crazy opportunities. Of course, it's crazy. And life gives you those opportunities. That's my whole philosophy. My whole philosophy is say yes if you can. Say yes. You don't know.

If somebody says to you, let's go have coffee and you're reading a book, you say, nah, I'm going to finish my book. Well, you can finish your book. Life is not going to get any better or change. But if you get your ass up and go have coffee, maybe nothing will happen there either. Or you might meet the love of your life, or you might run into somebody else who says, let's go do something else.

But your life only gets better the times you say yes. If you say no, nothing you gonna do nothing changes nothing changes and so when i was young i said yes and in la mama was so like at that place i always walked by it i never understood completely the history of it until i read your book about la mama like in that woman she took her you under her wing and let you do a lot of stuff right and she only did it because she loved Paul Foster, who was a gay playwright, and Billy Hoffman.

There were a bunch of gay playwrights. She was a designer for Macy's. What's her name, Ellen? Ellen Stewart. Yeah. She was a designer for Macy's, for Gimble's or something. Yeah. She brought the muumuu in from Hawaii.

Uh-huh. Remember the muumuu? Yeah. That was her movement. She made her money off the muumuu. She went downtown, rented a space. She had a push cart. It was there forever.

It's still there. It's crazy. It's still there. I just made a video for their 60-something anniversary, and I said, oh, fucking, I was there 52 of those years. Yeah. So La Cage was another sort of defining play for everybody. Right?

Absolutely. And then what was your biggest success in your mind? You don't know. No, I couldn't care less. You know, I said to Robin Williams once, I said, I've done all this political work. I've written all this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done all this crap work. I've written all this stuff. I've done all this crap.

And when I die, people are going to say, oh, he's the guy who played Robin Williams' brother in Mrs. Doubtfire. That's not true. It is true. How many of these things you think I do to sell a book? You know how many. You're out on the book trail. I'm going to sell some books. Exactly. I like the books.

And when you're selling Books, yeah, there's not a single person doesn't ask about Doubtfire. Really? Yeah, they're all that's about Robin They all ask about Doubtfire. I barely remember that. You know, like I know you live in the garage Yeah, I know I live in a garage by but I was more fascinated with this the idea I've always been fascinated with the idea of That the the unity of the the gay community and what come out of it to maintain their community. You know, that sexuality and identification was the means by which they were able to survive was always fascinating to me. Right.

And then one year I was on world tour, doing my one-man show on world tour. I think I say this in the book. It was called This Is Not Gonna Be Pretty. Yeah. And we're in Dublin and we had the night off. Yeah.

And they said, what do you want to do? Like, we arrived in Dublin. We didn't work that first night. Yeah. And I said, well, let's go into town

and go to a gay bar. Yeah. And they looked at me and said, we don't have any gay bars. What do you mean you don't have any gay bars? We got rid of anti-gay laws years ago.

So gay people go to straight bars. I mean, we're all mixed in together. And I thought, where's my community? What do you mean? I need my people. That generation's gone though, right? But you need that generation as well because when it comes to us being, when we come under attack, there are 300 anti-gay laws now coming down to the courts.

300. There are only 50 states. An average of six anti-gay laws per state. It's insanity. And DeSantis. I don't know. He can't even go to Florida anymore. I know, but he's running for president on anti-gay.

Yeah. He found one that works. Look, I'm terrified. Yeah, I'm not even gay and I'm a Jew, but I'm terrified of fascism. Yeah. It seems real to me right now. Yeah, it is. And who is it coming from?

Old white men. Somebody said, I think it was John Oliver, he showed a picture of Putin and just looked at it and said, if he was just four inches taller. He's funny. Well, but it's true. It kind of is, yeah. He's an old guy wanting to be important again.

And if he could just make the Soviet Union again, then he'll be remembered. Stop it. You've got hundreds of billions of dollars in gold in the basement. You've got these two lovely daughters. Go. Take the rest of your life off. Why do they keep working? Why do you have to murder thousands of innocent people to prove that just dick still works?

Go fuck thousands of people instead. I don't understand it on any level why people continue working. If they've made it, come relax. I laugh when I watch some people that have been on the news show for like 40 years. And I think, you haven't made enough yet. Yeah, I know. What are you still doing? Right.

I'm going to go home. Right. Go to heaven. And they say, oh, thank God it's Friday. Yeah. It could be Friday every day for you. Sure, I am. You're not that good at this.

Yeah. I don't know. I guess people don't know what the hell to do with themselves. But that's what I mean about young people. Yeah. We don't make the room for young people to take over, and we really should. I agree. Okay, let's talk about Tevye.

Do we have to go, though, soon? No. Okay, because I've got people waiting for me. Where? Me and Billy Eichner. Oh, okay. Come with us. We'll have fun.

That'll be fun. He's funny. Yeah, I just did a cameo in his movie oh yeah no more so we're not gonna talk about Tevye let's talk about Tevye we love Tevye you do right you loved it you never thought that would happen no no I love that part of the story you know we were they were working on casting yeah like how's your fall production that I didn't want to happen yeah they're working on casting. Yeah. Like, how's your fall production that I didn't want to happen. Yeah. They were working on casting that, my friend Susan.

And she said, I've got to leave because we're also casting Fiddler on the Roof. Uh-huh. Revival Fiddler on the Roof. And I said, oh, I want to do that. And she said, what, you're going to play Golda? And I sort of looked at her and you could see she got it very embarrassed right cut to a year and a half later telephone rings that susan on the phone just promise me you won't shave until we make this decision i said what are you talking about just promising you're not going to shave no matter what i say yeah all right i won't shave she

said i want you to do further on the roof as they play gold yeah why can't I shave if I play gold said not gold at Tevye yeah and I and like everything in me just collapsed because this was a show I saw as a kid we saw everything yeah in those days you can buy Broadway tickets for three dollars yeah for two dollars and50, I have the stubs. My mother would buy every single show. My brother, my father, she and I would go. We'd sit the first row of the balcony, $10 for the family of four,

and we saw everything. So I saw a bunch of nuns singing, and I saw a bunch of orphan boys go, give me more. You know, I saw it all. And then one day, a bunch of Jews. They were Jews. They had sisters. Yeah.

And they had kippahs on their head. I went, this fucking Jews. Because the Jews I knew. Right. Danny Kaye. Right. They all changed their name to be in show business. Everybody talked about Barbra Streisand.

They said, oh, she'll never be a star. Not with that nose. She'll have to get a nose job, and they're going to have to change that name. So instead of changing the last name, she dropped the A out of the first name and said, fuck you. Anyway, so it meant a real lot to me to see Fiddler on the Roof. And here I was being offered Fiddler on the Roof. And I said, so I called Jack O'Brien, who directed Hairspray. And I said, Jack, what do I do?

He's a very smart man. So he said, it's a very simple question. He said, you either do it or spend the rest of your life saying, you know, they asked me to do it with people looking the other way like, yeah, right. Yeah. So then I went to the, I'm the last person to play

Tevye with all three writers still alive. Right. The book writer, the composer, and the lyricist. I insist that the three of them sit in a room and hear me sing the entire score. Just for confidence, to make sure you could... Just because I didn't want them turning around saying,

if I knew that's what he was going to sound like, I never would have allowed it. And the three of them were always gorgeous to me. And they approved my doing the show, and I did it for, well, over a year on Broadway. I couldn't stay longer because I was booked to go to Las Vegas to do Hairspray again.

But then Topo who did the movie was doing it on tour and he got tired of doing it and they called me and said do you want to do the American tour? And I said yes, sure, why not? And I did it for another year on tour. Did it make you, like, you know, given the other tour? And I said, yeah, sure, why not? And I did it for another year on tour. Did it make you, like, you know,

given the other roles you've played in your life, what did that, how did, did it change you? So, the Minskoff Theater, where Lion King is now, is where we played. And you come out of that theater, and there's an alley that's like an underpass and that stage door and that's where the audience waits for autographs and on Wednesday matinees for whatever reason that's when the Hasidic Jews come so you come out and there's like a team of

people waiting to get autographs yeah and there's a bunch of Hasidic Jews there and I look down I'm signing autographs and there's a little boy with Jews there and I looked down I'm signing order that's yeah, there's a little boy With the pay is wrapped around his ears and just staring up me with these saucer like eyes And I just said cookie. Are you okay? And he looked at me said Are you really Jewish? And I just of course I burst out crying and I said yeah, I'm Jewish Yeah, I'm really sure and I signed his crying. And I said, yeah, I'm Jewish. I'm really Jewish.

And I signed his playbill. And I thought, so there's a life I changed there. It's going to be the same as my seeing Jews on stage. Now he's going to see Jews on stage. And he's going to believe there's a place in the world. Whereas my greatest fear, I think, was that somebody was going to say, you know, why could an openly gay man

like you play Tevye? Which would be a ridiculous question anyway. What else would a man in those days do? Yeah. Right. They were going to announce,

you know what, I can't feed the cows and I can't do, so I'm going to put on a drag show in town. It's not the way it works. You know? We're going to get married and have children no matter what.

Right. So it's just not the way it works. Right. So, because when Rosie O'Donnell came in to play my wife for a while, I thought, now this is the perfect couple. Yeah. This is the absolute perfect Hasidic couple. That's beautiful.

A gay man and a gay womanidic couple. That's beautiful. A gay man and a gay woman having five daughters. It's great. This is, yeah. And sobriety's good? Yes. Well, sobriety's rebirth. And I've been, it's been how long you been?

26. I'm 20, gonna be 23. Yeah. Wow. Almost the same time. I did, I got sober in New York. Yeah. Yeah, I went to the places. I did my time at Perry Street. You did? Yeah. Wow. Almost the same time. I did it. I got sober in New York. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the places.

I did my time at Perry Street. You did. Yeah. Yeah. I got sober in a small fictional town in Connecticut. Yeah, yeah. But I had already had five years of Al-Anon. Oh, yeah.

So I knew what I was going to get into. But it really was a rebirth for me. And every day since has been this new life. Yeah. It's kind of a myth. You still go to the things? There's a beginner's meeting that I still go to. Yeah? I'm trying to find, like, I underlined two things in the book.

I found the book to be, you know, inspirational and entertaining and touching. I loved it, man. Oh, thanks. Well, most showbiz books, I don't like to think of it as a showbiz book, but they start out with the, I went to the theater and I saw a guy in the stage and I said, that's going to be me.

But as you know, that was never going to be me. I never wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to be a writer. This is what life does if you say yes. This is it. My personality is simply too addictive. I don't love, I obsess. I don my personality is simply too addictive i don't love i obsess i don't share i possess i don't partner i control what more proof do you need than my

confession to mourning the loss of sanfrancina i wonder if i have the capacity to heal it's heavy man like you know yourself i mean this is the thing about sobriety that that's what you're gonna you know you do the five years to get your mind back all that but eventually you can't hide from yourself anymore no no and this is this is hard stuff right but that's why it makes it easier to write yeah because you've been there you've you've had to do that to get sober yeah but like those kind of like I guess I'm up against that now in my own life about you know what do I want for the future and what you know well we all that's that's the great part is if you're clean and you're sober yeah you can actually ask that question yeah and you might be able to come up with an all-new answer that never was

before but when i was using i couldn't ask what i wanted yes because i was just going to get more of the same yeah but the self-acceptance is the hardest part. You know, we don't want you sober. I mean, that's it. Because the sadness of realization that, like, I'm wired this way. Right. And anything that I'm going to do to be happy is going to be against this wiring. Oh, I mean, the painters that I know and other artists and writers that just felt they couldn't

create unless they were drunk. Well, that's crazy. Yeah. The nice part for me was I couldn't create unless they were drunk. Well, that's crazy. Yeah. The nice part for me was I couldn't create anything if I was drunk. Whatever I typed out when I was drunk, I looked at the next day and went, don't bother. You're wasting your time. You got more honest, right? Sober.

Yeah. Yeah. But I knew where I was. I mean, I knew I was dying. I mean, I was dying. I was physically dying. I drove into a fucking garage and mean, I knew I was dying. I mean, I was dying. I was physically dying. I drove into a fucking garage and ran the car. I was dying.

Yeah, you tried. Talked it off myself. Ernest, we tried to do it. You were ready. Oh, yeah, I was done. I was done. As I say to people, people who really are done, they don't write notes. They don't write notes because whatever you write in a note, people are going to go,

that's wrong. It's not true. So I'd bother arguing. But it didn't work. No, because I'm too stupid. I didn't, I mean, I literally did it wrong

or I wouldn't be here. I did it wrong. Instead, I almost killed a dog. Instead of killing myself, I almost killed a dog. Well, I'm happy. I'm happy you didn't kill yourself. I'm glad. Well, I've had a dog. Instead of killing myself, I almost killed a dog. Well, I'm happy. I'm happy you didn't kill yourself.

I'm glad. Well, I've had a lovely time out here in Glen Ross. Oh, come on. It was nice. It's lovely. It's California. Can I go? Did I pay my dues yet?

Yeah, you're done. You're done. Can I go back home to Connecticut? You can go back to Connecticut and sit. To my small fictional town in Connecticut. Say hi to Billy for me. Well, he's here in LA. Yeah, I know. I know. You're going to see him now, right? Yeah, yeah. Say hi to Billy for me. Well, he's here in L.A. Yeah, I know.

I know. You're going to see him now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Nice talking to you, Harvey. Go to church. Nice talking to you. Okay.

That was Harvey. All right, Cookie. Okay, Cookie. Okay. Harvey. Harvey. Good book. alright cookie okay cookie okay Harvey good book it's called I was better last night a memoir get it wherever you get your books go to WTFpod.com

slash tour for all the tour dates and if anybody can give me any information about what happened to Gary Orgel I'm sure he's passed. I'm pretty confident of that. But let me know. And if you know anything, tell me anything about that guy.

He was a big part of my life. He gave me a book of photographs called Legends by a guy who took pictures of stars. And I just remember in it he says, you know, become a legend or something like that. And for years I was just sort of like, fuck, I'm not a legend yet. And disappoint Gary. I don't know if he lived long enough

to know that I became a legend, because I'm a fucking legend. Here's some guitar. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Boomer lives, monkey and Fonda and cat angels everywhere. And, you know. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company

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