Matt Baume

My guest this week has been giving a lot of thought lately to what he was born to do. Wellington Love is one of the producers of the new documentary I Was Born This Way, which tells the story of Archbishop Carl Bean. That might not be a household name, but you’re certainly familiar with his work and

My guest on The Sewers of Paris this week is the Reverend Joseph Peters Matthews, the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick Episcopal Church in Lynnwood Washington. Joseph’s path to the clergy took him from the small-town South to New York City, along the way developing a love for musical theater that he p

My guest on The Sewers of Paris this week is David Duffield, who simultaneously lives in the past, the present, and the future. David’s work as a historian excavates queer histories that had previously been withheld from public view. It’s a project that gives those of us alive today a connection to

My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast is from the future. Sean’s the host of the TrekCulture podcast, an expert on all things Star Trek, and his name is even the inspiration for a Star Trek character in one of the novelizations. That’s fitting, because it was a novel that helped point Sean

The animated Star Trek spinoff should have been cheap and terrible ... but thanks to a fluke of timing and a very brave demand from Leonard Nimoy, it wound up having some surprising bright spots. (It was still pretty cheap, though.) So why is the writing and acting so much better than the same compa

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to have gay characters on the show, and even instructed writers to include gay couples on Next Generation ... so why didn't they? This week's bonus video's all about Gene's vision for making the future queer, the forces that stood in his way, and how actors

Why did William Shatner need to steal so many wigs from the set of Star Trek, and what was he doing that rendered them "unphotographable"? For that matter, what happened to the wigs belonging to the producer's multiple mistresses in the cast? We're tackling those hairy riddles in this week's bonus v

Happy mother's day, let's talk about the horniest mom in the galaxy! I've dug up some fascinating behind-the-scenes details about Star Trek, the character Lwaxana Troi, and the real-life saucy shenanigans going on behind the scenes of the show from the 1960s to the 1990s. Plus! If you're as excited

Is there any more friendship in showbiz as wholesome as Ian McKellen's and Patrick Stewart? I've been doing a lot of Ian-related research for an upcoming video about his show Vicious, and I just keep coming across really lovely stories about how close these two actors are -- so for this week's bonus

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the 1990s, when reality TV was new. Though the genre was young, many had already written off shows like The Real World as trash. But one young man saw an opportunity, and thought that maybe there was a way he could use television to save lives. His name was Pedro

This week, I’m continuing the monthlong Pride special, bringing you excerpts from some of the very best Sewers of Paris conversations I’ve had over the last nine years. This week, we’re talking comics books. We’ll start with a conversation with writer Andrew Wheeler, whose tales of adventure and int

Oh boy am I THRILLED to bring you this week's Bonus Video, because we've unearthed a bunch of documents that refute a long-held Hollywood legend about the film Some Like it Hot! I also have some great details about the not-famous-enough dancer who coached Marilyn Monroe through a variety of films, a

Backup link in case the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/428j8ljRpVs Hello there! I'm adding something new this month! Lately, a lot of Patrons have been sending me clips & questions & observations & whatnot, so I've decided to do a once-a-month Q&A video where I respond to some of the things yo

Backup link if the video doesn't play: https://youtu.be/01-MXyE7-xk I'm trying something new with video embeds this week, but I'm not sure if it'll have any effect. Let me know if this works better/worse/the same! Hi there! For this week's video, we're diving into a few of the multiversal appearance

Hello! In this week's bonus video I've got the story of Leslie Jordan's ~incident~ at a Starbucks, when he stood up to a literally-raging homophobe. Also the unfortunate time he was on Star Trek and couldn't quite drop his accent. We're taking a look at a fascinating little TV artifact featuring an

This week we’re concluding the United Federation of Style podcast with one of my favorite episodes, “City on the Edge of Forever,” which features some particularly unusual set decoration purely because someone in the prop department misheard their instructions. Also, Joan Collins (the mean mom from

Hello Patrons! Welcome once again to United Federation of Style, a podcast miniseries with me and fashion expert Samantha Rei in which we dissect the bonkers attire of Star Trek. This week’s adventure is “Taste of Armageddon,” which I picked mostly because of the absolutely NUTS headwear, but on clo

Here we go! It was only a matter of time before we got to “Space Seed,” the episode of Star Trek in which a group of frozen criminals from the 1990s are awakened and decide to conquer the universe. This is episode 5 of United Federation of Style, a podcast miniseries in which fashion expert Samantha

Hello there! Time once again for United Federation of Style, a podcast miniseries with me and my friend, fashion icon Samantha Rei. This week’s romp is the episode “Court Marial,” in which Kirk is put on trial for being a butterfingers who accidentally bonked a button and killed someone. Or did he??

Hi Patrons! Time for episode three of United Federation of Style, a podcast adventure that I recorded with fashion expert and designer Samantha Rei. We’re taking a rollicking journey through the weirdest costumes of Star Trek and this week we’ve got “Shore Leave,” in which the crew beams down to a v

Hello Patrons! We’re back with another episode of United Federation of Style, a podcast miniseries I did with fashion expert and designer Samantha Rei where we dissect the strange outfits of Star Trek. This week, we’re tackling “The Menagerie,” a weird flashback-heavy episode in which Spock steals t

Hello there! I’ve got something new and nifty and a little different from my usual fare to share with you: Earlier this year, my friend Samantha Rei and I recorded a little limited-run podcast miniseries called The United Federation of Style that’s all about the fashion of the future – specifically,

My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast has some catching up to do. David is a writer who grew up in a religious family, and until his early 30s was closeted and struggled through ex-gay treatments until he finally came out. Helping him to make the adjustment: Star Trek, where he came to rea

Thanks to everyone who sent me clips & pics & memories of queer Broadway stuff (just in time for the Tonys!) after the last bonus video -- I love it! Keep it coming! Here's some highlights of stuff I missed (and at least one thing I got wrong), along with a never-meant-to-air video of the All in the

Hi folks! Today's Star Trek Day, and to mark this festive occasion, my friend Samantha and I wanted to share with you a work in progress that we've been working on. She's an expert on clothing, hair, makeup, and cosplay; I'm a lifelong Star Trek fan; and together we thought it would be fun to do a p

Hello there! I hope you had a lovely Bastille Day this week, and stormed at least one castle to overthrow a ruling class of decadent monarchs. If not, don't worry, there's still time -- Jeff Bezos is going to space on Tuesday so there'll be nobody at his house for a few hours. I also hope you enjoye

Hello hello! If you're in the US, I hope you're enjoying a nice long thick holiday weekend; and if you're not in the US, sorry to gloat about having a long weekend but if it's any consolation at least you have health care. Here is a new bonus Patreon-exclusive video with some more fun stories that I

Hello and welcome to the Sewers of Paris. Have you ever been lucky enough to enjoy the sensation of villainy? For this week’s episode, we’re revisiting my interview from three years ago with Anthony Olivera, who you might also know for his incisive tweeting as Meakoopa. We spoke in 2017 about his lo

We're doing the French Mistake on the Cozy Pants podcast this week, with James' attention still fixed solidly on Les Miserables, and mine on the tattered shreds of my high school French classes. We discuss the new extremely weird Death Stranding game, and also Outer Worlds, in which I play a tacitur

Hello friends! This weekend is the 10-year anniversary of the Pink Party, a queer geek gathering in Seattle. In honor of that milestone, I'm digging into the Sewers of Paris archive this week to bring you an interview with its founder, Charlie Logan, originally posted in 2015. Charlie's story is ful

Thanks to everyone who pledges their support on Patreon, I'm able to put out bonus episodes of The Sewers of Paris! Here's a conversation with Zack Ford, who never planned to become the LGBTQ Editor at ThinkProgress.org. He was going to be a music teacher, and writing about current events was just a

We usually talk on this show about the entertainment that's changed the lives of gay men, but this week we're also talking about how gay men have changed entertainment. My guest is television writer Drew Greenberg, who's written romantic scenes between Willow and Tara on Buffy, helped introduce quee

How do you make up for lost time after spending years in the closet? My guest this week is journalist Adam Smith, who avoiding coming out for years because he felt that he needed to maintain a sort of sexual neutrality for the sake of his family. Now that he's finally experiencing the world as an ou

Have you ever been lucky enough to enjoy the sensation of villainy? My guest this week is Anthony Olivera, who you might also know for his incisive tweeting as Meakoopa. Anthony's always felt a sympathy for monsters and villains -- or at least, the figures assumed to be monsters and villains -- even