My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris is writer/comedian Mano Agapion [https://www.instagram.com/manoagapion/?hl=en], whose work you may know from his appearances on Hacks and Bajillion Dollar Properties, his writing on the new Punky Brewster, or from his podcasts We Love Trash [https://www.patreon.com/cw/welovetrash] and Drag Her [https://headgum.com/drag-her-a-rupauls-drag-race-podcast]. Mano developed his sense of humor alongside the weirdest comedies he could find, growing up in an immigrant household, and for a long time thought that he had to keep his gay life and his comedy life separated. Until he figured out that being gay is, itself, very funny.

We've Decided Trauma is Funny (Ep 573 - Improv/Mano)

When you compare what queer life was like at the end of the 80s to the start of the 2000s, the differences are so shocking it’s hard to believe that those years are only separated by a single decade. The author and historian Hugh Ryan [https://www.hughryan.org/] has a new book about the people who shaped that decade, entitled My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/hugh-ryan/my-bad/9781645030577/]. I spoke to Hugh back in 2020, when he released his previous book When Brooklyn was Queer [https://www.hughryan.org/when-brooklyn-was-queer]. We spoke about his love for pulpy sci-fi novels that filled his middle school days with magic horses; and about how he became a mild mannered academic by day and rowdy party monster by night. And after a series of adventures, including one in which he moved into another person’s life, Hugh found a calling in queer history.

Sewers of Paris: Magic Horses & Middle School (Ep. 572 - Fantasy novels/Hugh Ryan)

You might’ve seen that I have a new video up on YouTube this week — it’s about the long hard fight for marriage equality, and how some Hollywood icons got involved in the cause [https://youtu.be/m4F2ozwvybw]. The battle for the freedom to marry has been very much on my mind lately, so I wanted to revisit an interview from 2022 with Chris Geidner [https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social]. You may know Chris for his day job, reporting and writing on some of the most pressing legal issues of the day — including his expert attention to all matters Supreme Court. But he’s just as passionate about musical theater, going all the way back to the time he was enthralled by Phantom of the Opera. In fact, it was one little twist of fate that led him to a legal career instead of a life in the theater — but, as he discovered, the two careers aren’t as different as one might think.

My Second Life (Ep 571 - Phantom of the Opera/Chris Geidner)

Next week sees the release of a new Supergirl movie, so for this week’s Sewers of Paris we’re diving into the archives to revisit my 2020 interview with artist Joe Philips [https://www.joephillips.com]. Joe’s illustrations of handsome, happy gay men were some of the first glimpses I got of gay life, back in the 90s when I was a teenager exploring the Internet. I remember finding his art both sexy and wholesome, showing scantily-clad young men in romantic scenes. It wasn’t until a few years later that I learned about his work on mainstream superhero comics … and his more erotic artwork. Joe’s portfolio spans a wide variety of settings and themes, not unlike his childhood, which spanned rural farms and big cities, with influences that include classic TV, Broadway musicals, church, and his grandmother: A practicing witch.

We’ll have that interview in a moment. First a quick reminder that I host weekly livestreams every Sunday on Twitch [http://twitch.tv/mattbaume], and I hope you’ll join me for those. Plus — check out my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo! [http://gaysitcoms.com] at GaySitcoms.com [http://gaysitcoms.com]; subscribe to my email newsletter at MattBaume.com [http://mattbaume.com], and if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, support the show on Patreon [http://patreon.com/mattbaume] at Patreon.com/mattbaume [http://patreon.com/mattbaume]. 

Also, if you’re in Seattle, I’m hosting a live talk about coming-out scenes [https://www.elliottbaybook.com/events/5654320260622] this Monday, June 22! It’s at Elliott Bay Books on Capitol Hill, and tickets are free. More info on my website at mattbaume.com/events.

Don't Make Superman TOO Sexy (Ep 567 - Superhero comics/Joe)

For this week’s episode, we have two guests: Andrew Klaus-Vineyard and Daniel Talbott are the directors of a new documentary short called Welcome to Tool Shed [https://www.welcometotoolshed.com/], which opens to the door to an iconic leather bar in Palm Springs. They’re just back from showing the film at Cannes, and it’ll be popping up at film festivals around the world in the coming months. Daniel and Andrew are longtime collaborators, first with daring theater projects, then with queer horror, and now with a documentary about how a generation that never expected to be senior citizens, and what they have to teach us about not just enduring difficult times, but thriving.

Permission to Make Queer Art (Ep 569 - Gregg Araki films/Daniel & Andrew)

My guest this week is Caleb Roehrig, author of young adult mysteries and the occasional romance. Caleb had always wanted to be an author, but life intervened and he found himself living in LA, working as a producer on reality TV shows. He didn’t realize it at the time, but that work was a training ground for storytelling. Though he still might not have figured it out until an economic crisis forced him to try something new.


We’ll have that interview in a moment. First a quick heads-up that Sewers of Paris episodes will take a pause for the month of May — but you can come see me live, because I’ll be on a book and speaking tour all month long. Come see me in Stockholm; Vienna; Utrecht; and Heidelberg, Germany. Details and dates here! [https://mattbaume.com/events]

We Went Through the Ringer (Ep 568 - murder mysteries/Caleb)

The world just celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday — born in late April, a scant four hundred and sixty two years ago, which makes him almost as old as this podcast. Over the years we’ve had many guests on The Sewers of Paris for whom Shakespeare’s work was an inspiration, and this week we’ll hear my 2021 with Jeffrey Masters [https://www.jeffrey-masters.com/] — then the host of the acclaimed podcast LGBTQ&A [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lgbtq-a/id1151561226], and now a senior producer at The New Yorker Radio Hour. Jeffrey launched his career in interviews and storytelling with a move to LA, planning to be an actor. And at first, he found that his Shakespearean training left him unprepared for what Hollywood was looking for. 

Also: A quick heads-up that the Sewers of Paris will take a little pause for the month of May — but you can come see me live, because I’ll be on a book and speaking tour all month long. Come see me in Stockholm; Vienna; Utrecht; and Heidelberg, Germany. More details and dates are on my website. [https://www.mattbaume.com/events]

The Luckiest Little Homosexual in the World (Ep 567 - The Tonys/Jeffrey)

My guest this week on The Sewers of Paris is Jes Battis [https://jbattis.com/], who’s just written an appreciation and analysis of the movie Labyrinth entitled It’s Only Forever [https://ecwpress.com/products/its-only-forever]. Labyrinth turns 40 this year, which marks 40 years of Jes’ particular fascination with the goblin characters — and wondering why he’s always felt so eager to descend into their weird scrungly world. Fortunately, writing a book about it provided some clues.

To Be a Goblin (Ep 566 - Labyrinth/Jes)

To mark the recent re-re-re-rebooting of The Muppet Show, this week we’re heading into the Sewers archives to revisit my 2020 interview with Dan Steadman. Dan grew up in a household that was so religious, his parents forbade him from watching certain episodes of The Muppet Show, due to a guest appearance by Alice Cooper. His upbringing in a sheltered religious community found him placed in a lot of unusual circumstances, including a reboot of his entire identity when his family swapped lives with a family in Brazil. A career in showbiz took him to Los Angeles, where he worked alongside big-time celebrities and also faced a crisis — the more comfortable he was living as an openly gay man, the more he realized that he’d have to cut ties with some of the homophobic celebrities he worked with.

I Saw Myself in Kermit (Ep 565 - The Muppet Show/Dan)

A few weeks ago I came across an online video from a comic convention featuring a phalanx of comic book figures — life-size statues, painted to look like they’d walked off the pages of a comic book. Their creator is Greg Maraio [https://www.instagram.com/gregmaraio/], an actor and artist in Boston who fills his time between shows with this unique project that’s turned into an artistic calling … though for many years, it seemed like it was bringing him to financial ruin.

 We’ll have that interview in a moment. First a quick reminder that I host weekly livestreams every Sunday on Twitch [http://twitch.tv/mattbaume], and I hope you’ll join me for those. Plus — check out my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo! [http://gaysitcoms.com] at GaySitcoms.com [http://gaysitcoms.com]; subscribe to my email newsletter at MattBaume.com [http://mattbaume.com], and if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, support the show on Patreon [http://patreon.com/mattbaume] at Patreon.com/mattbaume [http://patreon.com/mattbaume].

Theater is My Version of Church (Ep 564 - Catwoman/Greg)

Revealing stories about the books, movies, tv, music and more that have changed the lives of gay men. Each week, a guest plucks a piece of entertainment from their past, and answers the question: how did it change your life?

Matt Baume

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