[SPEAKER_00]: That's a gay app named for a gay app, podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Bob.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hank Owens is on, that's a gay ass podcast with the same microphone he uses in his gorgeous Instagram videos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hank Owens, this is a dream come true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for coming on this gay ass podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am honored to be here, my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it truly is a pleasure, and I know that all of our mutual friends are gleeking out right now, but the fact that I get to chat with the Bob himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, we have a lot to discuss.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a lot of research for this episode because yes, I have followed you and love your videos.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the merch one of the shirts you're wearing right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank goodness for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: but I didn't know you had such a crazy herstery um question number one I think we're going to get straight into it you revealed in a video that your mom was on Broadway in the 70s true or false brew that is true she was a wild girl she had a bright and storied past
[SPEAKER_01]: She left home when she was like 18 from like a house of 13 siblings, Catholic to the max.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she went to New York to study the American Academy in dramatic arts.
[SPEAKER_01]: She danced with Martha Graham.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was on Broadway, should hair.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew you were going to say hair.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you say a cookie girly from the seven dudes who went to New York,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you kind of might be like taking the hippie energy from your mom, would you say your energy is sort of like granola crunchy dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I wouldn't say my mother is like that anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's quite tight-laced.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she had a wild pass, she was parted with RuPaul and LA in San Francisco.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was Batman Leron Cindy Loppers personal trainer, she did the damn thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I know everybody take a second to take that in the hilarious part about this conversation is before we record at Hank said he was nervous and now you're giving us two seconds into this episode your mom was Bet midler and Cindy Loppers personal trainer fucking go and so talk about Mrs. Owens What's your mom's name?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your mom's first name?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's best
[SPEAKER_02]: best are you joking what an icon okay best we thank you so much for not only being a Broadway gal making that mittlers touchy tight but also for gifting us with Hank Owens the sexy but also really interesting dude for the listeners who don't follow you your your social content is really amazing you've been traveling
[SPEAKER_02]: all over.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're about to go on a European trip.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are in LA for a month, you're sort of living a creator dream, which we're going to get into.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you also were a professional dancer for years and years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like to show off a perfect happy trail in my humble opinion.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Hank Owlens, let's ask you the famous podcast question to get right into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's fault is it that you're gay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who do we blame, babe?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, that's a hard one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought a lot about this and I think I've got to say it's a it's a boy named Kevin Who is a fifth grader when I was in kindergarten and I was obsessed with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow I would like drop things in front of him in the hallways when I passed him I would stalk him on the playgrounds like I was in love And you were totally five years old at this point
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, probably maybe like six or seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're six or seven in kindergarten?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I was I was obsessed and that was the awakening.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the I never thought it was bad or weird or wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just what I felt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we're like, tell us where she graphically was this crush happening, where were you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Austin, Texas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're Austin, Texas.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're a kindergartener and somehow we have taste in fifth grade boys.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just love how it can pop up so early in our lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Austin is obviously like the liberal hub of Texas, but did that save you then from the gay bullying or did people sort of clock that you were a queen?
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't experience gay bullying until I got to seventh grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't really in public school until I was in seventh grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in a charter school where we only went like 8 a.m. to noon, so there wasn't really enough time.
[SPEAKER_01]: for bullying, and everyone I was around was like gymnasts or figure skaters, so it was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I went to public school in seventh grade, it was like the American movie stuffed into the lockers, put into trash cans, my distinctly remember my English teacher calling me a fairy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like deep into ballet at that time and it didn't really phase me that much because I was like I'm getting out of here like all of you are suckers and so by eighth grade when I was 12 I moved away from home to go to ballet school and I thought that would be my sanctuary But shockingly I'm sure shockingly everyone here Most male ballet dancers are straight and so I was relentlessly bullied in ballet school.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Rudol
[SPEAKER_02]: What the fuck is up with straight ballet male dancers?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that sounds right or fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I unfortunately found myself in an extremely straight school.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a Pittsburgh Valley Theater school, which was at the time a notoriously straight company where every single person in the company was either dating or married to one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like to get in the company, you needed to essentially be in a relationship with somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was not.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did your ferry us do to get in?
[SPEAKER_02]: I left Pizarre Valley Theatre when I was 15, so I got the hell out of Dodge.
[SPEAKER_02]: They only went to the hopefully San Francisco Gaiman's Ballet School for Ballet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did indeed go to the Mecca San Francisco Ballet School.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did really?
[SPEAKER_01]: I did really.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I transferred.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was one of two out gay guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you would think, this is Mekka, this is San Francisco.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the one place in the world where we can absolutely be gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, my two best friends at the time, who are indeed gay, refused, refused to acknowledge their gainers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm kind of going to take a guess then that is it because so many boys that do ballet are already made fun of for being gay That there's almost like an over-correction to some of them that are like proving their masculinity Do you think that's partly why they're like oh not gay dude what mean while they're wearing full tides and slippies
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish those the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really just because ballet as an art form is like a hyper masculine thing, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like to be a principle to be lead in a ballet, most like nine times out of ten, they're like super machismo.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to be outwardly presenting as gay kind of boxes yourself into being the fob in a ballet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, not the fob.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do want to co-sign the devastation of this because I did gymnastics growing up for too long.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't do it because I was super strong or macho obviously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did it because I loved watching the girls on the Olympics.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it kind of seems like the male gymnasts for the Olympics are also giving straight to, which I find to be deeply frustrating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me too, and in ice skating, my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I desperately wish there was more fags and I skating, it can I say I hope you do say fags over and over and over.
[SPEAKER_02]: At least we have Johnny Weir who did give us a questionable appearance on the traders, but he really fagged up the sport I'd say.
[SPEAKER_02]: He did and we love him for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we too worship him for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we do worship
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so then let's like take a zoom out for a second for the baller rena of it all leaner.
[SPEAKER_02]: You did 20, actually you dropped in one of your videos that you didn't graduate from high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were doing professional ballet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where where did the journey take you and why are we now post ballet life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so I started dancing professionally when I was 16.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I joined my first company.
[SPEAKER_01]: I left the school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was never really, I was like a very smart kid, school's quite easy for me, but I had no interest in doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I much preferred like learning what I actually wanted to learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I joined my first company, which was my dream, my goal, my everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like fuck, school, I'll never need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also I would rather be the person who never did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: was like the machinations building in my psyche at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I joined this company.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work out for some salacious reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so after my first European tour, when I was 16 that summer,
[SPEAKER_01]: I went back to Austin for a very brief period of time and Koja.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to interrupt this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You say the word psilaceous is it fun psilaceous or devastating psilaceous?
[SPEAKER_02]: Devastating psilaceous.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's something that we're not going to get into.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we are going to get into on the sub-stack side after this is some other fun psilaceous story.
[SPEAKER_02]: So some of make sure we're sort of...
[SPEAKER_02]: getting ourselves warmed up and stretched and ready for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so devastating salaciousness gets you out of that, go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I went back to Austin for a very brief period of time because it was August, you can't get into a school and August, you can't get into a company in August, like all that happens the winter before.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I called up a colleague of mine or
[SPEAKER_01]: a connection of mine who was the ractor of a school in Germany, Christian, and I was like Christian, I need to, I need some help.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he invited me to be a guest at the Puluka Huxula for Tolms, which is like Germany's premier contemporary dance school.
[SPEAKER_01]: and so I packed up my bags, I had just turned 17, I moved to Germany, I joined the school, it was amazing, I loved all my teachers, had a great time, but there was a guest teacher who came and she was like, you shouldn't be in school, you should be dancing, you know, it was like, yeah, I would love to be dancing and she was like, stand there for a second, this is like post-Balloc
[SPEAKER_01]: She calls up her friend, I'm not gonna say her name, she calls up her friend, and she's like, I have a dancer for you, and she hands me the phone, and I take the phone and on the other line, she goes, can you be in Zabukin tomorrow, and I got on a train, I went to Zabukin, which I was in Dresden, which is like Northeastern Zabukin is Southwest, so I got on a train, I took a 10 hour train overnight, I got to Zabukin, I got off the train, went to the theater,
[SPEAKER_01]: got the job went back to Dresden, packed up all my shit again.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like a month after moving there and moved to Zobberkin, joined the stands company and downstairs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Hank, you know what you're giving?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you are giving Gay Harry Potter, who found out he had special magical skills at a young age, had to grow up really fast and then instead of going to Hogwarts, he went to Zorber, Durberden in Germany, bitch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think a lot of our curious to know, were you out at this point or were you still pretending to be one of the fellow straight baller ballet dancers?
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of pretending to be straight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I, in my first ballet school in Pittsburgh, my second year, I was living with a gay host family.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was 14 at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a gay couple, super rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: The hairdressers and they lived in this mansion outside of Pittsburgh and I really enjoyed living with them until they bought me an iPhone and started reading all my texts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had like a met this boy on an airplane when I was 14 going to an audition and we had this very steamy meet up in the Aaron Space Museum in D.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, texting about it and they read that and they told my parents without telling me and my mother just like showed up on my doorstep and Pittsburgh and was like, I think you have something you need to tell me And so I was outed then and I didn't really see a point in pretending to not be who's like, okay, well, this has already happened
[SPEAKER_02]: The ground didn't fall out from underneath me that much despite these evil fucking hairdress Gaze outing a 14 year old by looking at his tax.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's dark sided.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god You can't even imagine how dark sided it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: They tried to get me to emancipate from my parents so they could adopt me
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and I don't even want to know what their plans were after a menstruation, because it sounds nasty boots.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nasty boots for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents literally had to like, like, come drive to Pittsburgh to take me out of their house and like, in the middle of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they wouldn't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was leaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm assuming when your mom was like, I bet you're something to tell me and you were like, yes, I love the Aaron Space Museum.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, I'm gay.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was probably like, sleepy pie.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the gaze.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was doing push-ups with that middler at the Bauhaus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my mother did love the gaze.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was a, there's this guy named Dean who wrote the music for Footloose and she was like best friends with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was his beard at all, the red carpets and Broadway premieres and everything, but she grew up in New York in the 70s and 80s and saw her friends die of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she did not want me to be gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was very,
[SPEAKER_02]: That I was getting you know what it's like so hard for us because I think we were obviously not there during the AIDS epidemic and so like we cannot put a judgment call on the parents who had that fear for their kids like that part of it is understandable however from our vantage point
[SPEAKER_02]: to have.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm speaking from experience obviously my parents had the same reaction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, you know, cool if you being gay and all but you probably will die in that sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't necessarily put the feeling of pride into our hearts, but I understand that it comes from trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: It comes from
[SPEAKER_02]: Real real tragedy so it's like a it's like a you know, we have to I think we have to give sort of Empathy to our parents who do that while also acknowledging like it's it's hard for us now Leave the nest and feel excited about expressing ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was it was not the the welcome I wanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right Especially a 14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am very glad that I was separated from my father at the time because I didn't have to deal with his working through of acceptance in that scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the epilogue of that story is your doubt on board now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's it's impossible to watch anything on television without my dad asking me if I think the guy on screen is hot, so
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think my dad may secretly be bisexual.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I should actually say that, but one time we grew up next to this gay couple in the Colisec I lived in and I was home visiting and I went over to the gay guys' house and they showed me absolutely fabulous for the first time and afterwards I came home and they were like, what did you do with blank and blank and I was like, oh, they showed me this really fun TV show called Absolutely Fabulous and he was like, add Fab, I love that show and I was like, well, we're not going to investigate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what, whatever he is, we say, we accept you and AdFab is fabulous.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, no matter what happens outside of those circumstances, we say, A, gay man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I do have so many questions to get into before we go over to Substack.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a Substack tease, would you say now that you've gotten past these sort of...
[SPEAKER_02]: HIV trauma that our parents' generation gave to us and are you saying that you're expressing yourself freely now as a gay guy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a miracle that I am not a part of this statistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, we're going to find out how much of a miracle posts pay while bitch, another piece of controversy that you have given us in your socials is you also reveal that your mom was a Scientologist and that you very closely almost got sort of drawn into the fold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you someone who heard stories about the Scientology of it all?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know where Shelley miscavages?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's happening?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not enlightened in the lore until one Christmas, I got the mail, and saw that there was a handwritten letter from the Scientology Church, and I directed or addressed to my mother and I did indeed commit a felony and opened it, because I was so curious, and it was like this handwritten letter begging her to come back and how much they could help her and they missed her and they love her.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I brought it to my home and I was like, what the hell is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, oh, I was in the church in the 80s when I was living in LA with all the celebrities whatever, but she didn't last long.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was Catholic through and through, so she got out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, she's funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Catholic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Scientology and then a back-to-cast, like I don't know, I find I'm Jewish and like more like culturally Jewish I do enjoy a service here and there maybe, but I'm mostly just like into the food, into Harry Chastes, and the community of it all, but I don't know catholicism
[SPEAKER_02]: The only reason why I consider it to be partly culty is because of how they are deciding who has rights and who doesn't, who's going to heaven, who's going to hell.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, that's giving cult.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're trying to tell me simply because of the way I was born, I'm going to hell.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I don't know, it's really, we're really just a toughy subject, but the sign told you it all is interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the idolatry of the Catholic Church is pretty contenty, like the costuming, the pageantry, it's a big delay for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't subscribe to it because the cognitive dissonance of it all just like does not compute with me personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not in standing one else.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's not for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think and have always thought that I would be like highly susceptible to a cult.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cults always intrigued me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find them to be very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Coming from Bale, which itself is a cult.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just going to say that we both, you went to Bale School.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to acting school.
[SPEAKER_02]: We both been in cults.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I am familiar with the community aspect of it, the commonly subscribed belief of the mass, which I find very comforting in a sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to experience Scientology for myself and one afternoon I was bored and available, so I did the personality test only to discover and be extremely disappointed that they hate the gay people.
[SPEAKER_01]: They hate gay people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I don't have any
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wait, that's, I guess that's make sense as to why some celebrities are Scientologists but aren't out like don't they say, I mean, I don't think I'm going to get in trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who the fuck?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't think the Scientologists are watching this, but uh, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't John Travolta a Scientologist?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's very, you know, he's publicly straight and whatever happens behind the scenes as what happens behind the scenes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard other big, everyone drop in the comments.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who are the,
[SPEAKER_02]: find colleges that you think are presenting a straight but are actually big queers drop it drop it in the comments we still because I've heard I've heard stories I'm glad that you didn't get
[SPEAKER_02]: swept up into that cult.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that you probably are part of now more healthy cults, which is like you're into fitness, you're into showing your ass online.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think those are like really healthy healthier cults than then psychology.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, not only do you post some great photos, but you also post really cool stories about
[SPEAKER_02]: like your day to day, which I find to be a super engaging.
[SPEAKER_02]: You actually are now an LA for just a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're what about closer two weeks in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you went to the party hot dog, which is a very big fun gay Sunday party that I've been to many times as a fellow LA gay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go into maybe specifics post.
[SPEAKER_02]: episode on Substack, but you said you got real drunk.
[SPEAKER_02]: How was your night?
[SPEAKER_02]: You were very nervous to go out to hot dog.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you make out with any boys?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it a successful night?
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not make out with any boys, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would have been really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I did get very drunk.
[SPEAKER_01]: My god, the drinks at hot dog are crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the listeners who haven't been, you get assigned a cup when you walk in it's side, verse, top or bottom, and it's a solo cup, and you bring your solo cup to the bar to get these drinks, and I got killer Red Bull because I have a death wish, and I have a death wish, and I have a
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like really looking forward to the Red Bull meanwhile this man behind the bar pulls poison in all tear up, you have to kill it like the entire thing and then does a splash of Red Bull at the end, and I was like oh no, three of those and I wouldn't say like I drink that often like maybe
[SPEAKER_01]: once every two weeks or maybe, maybe once a week, if I'm feeling yeah, carnitzy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got, I got turned up and then I went to the Eagle afterwards, which was wonderful and amazing as all of the Eagles are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love the Eagle.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was slightly disappointed with the Eagle.
[SPEAKER_01]: There weren't any glory holes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, LA's eagle is not as glory-hold as some other cities.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does have its charm.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does have the trough in the bathroom where you are being next to men and there's a mirror in front of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has, you know, it does have like multiple rooms.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, there's no glory-holds, but we'll try to, I'll try to talk to the manager for you Hank and give you some glory-holds for next time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you do, and a lot of your videos start with saying, hey, Bob, how do the above of it all start?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did anybody call you that?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the herstery?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I, one of my great loves in life, his name is Alex, he's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were together for about two years and it was the thing that he called me and it just kind of stuck in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I continued calling people that who I loved and like wanted to endure and the reason why I do Instagram is to provide connection to people who don't necessarily have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have spent many years in my life not having connection to people feeling very lonely and I wanted to create a space where people felt that warmth, felt seen, felt heard and so I thought but would be a great
[SPEAKER_01]: great way to, you know, open the space in a warm way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's really, really well said because obviously social media is hell, but I think that when people do it well, it's with a mission underneath it, and obviously my mission with the podcast is to sort of take away shame, to celebrate what makes us gay, to celebrate our pop culture to celebrate, you know, do the things that we used to hate about ourselves, and I think it really comes through
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be isolating to be the creating shit and editing it by yourself, and I talked about this with Gunner Montana on a recent episode that really aligned with my experience, it's just like a creative girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you also just got a manager for the first time, and you mentioned in the video that you were super nervous before meeting this manager.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, you really present as somebody who is authentic, but also confident, what would you say your inner saboteur says to you when you get super nervous either before a podcast recording, before meeting with a manager like, what are the voices saying to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I am a chronically nervous person.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the voices saying that I'm going to fail?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the people I care about will be disappointed in me, which is God.
[SPEAKER_01]: the stake to my heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really have an inversion to failure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know everyone says maybe this is a terrible thing for me to say it's unflattering, but I know everybody says you have to get used to nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like not a person who's very used to nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel very lucky that I I went for the doors that opened.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were many doors I could have gone to, that would have not open to my touch, but I chose not to go for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I'm faced with uncertainty, that's very uncomfortable for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of uncertainty in this whole...
[SPEAKER_01]: sphere, and I know that the hallway of failure is in front of me, and I have to be brave and walk through it, but the thing I'm getting used to through all of this is just doing things afraid.
[SPEAKER_01]: like I am nervous and I am scared but I'm doing it anyway and thankfully I have like some people behind me friends who will catch me if I fall and I feel that that net exists but it doesn't take away.
[SPEAKER_02]: the fear and the the anxiety no yeah doing it while doing it while afraid is is the key but i think the control idea is also uh something that a lot of us face whether we're just like a gay person or a creative person i think like if we don't know the outcome we feel like we're going to be shun from the community that's
[SPEAKER_02]: You said it in a really personal way that is, you know, beautifully devastating.
[SPEAKER_02]: My, uh, my inner saboteur is similar, but the difference is I think that I will fail and then be like, instead of like letting down my loved ones, it's that I'll be cast out of the community, the village.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think like I like grew up feeling this deep fear that if I were to come out, I would be cast from the village.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's like a very real like pain in my stomach.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like, there are hunters chasing me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I fail, they will stick the dagger through my god damn back.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hanko and we're fucking doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's raise a water bottle to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we only have a few more minutes before we cross over to the horny side.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let me make sure, let me ask you the famous podcast question that gets us into the pop culture, but all Hank Owens, if the world was ending, you could only save one character
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not totally sure she fits within the like category, but my God, I would take people in chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would have the best time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you would.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what you would have to do is discuss her body double in Benjamin Button when she played the role of a ballerina and then they did a full wide cut of her doing full dance and you have to get the BTS and what it was like to shoot that as somebody who has ballet training.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to hear that story.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's a key plan shot on film or appearance that made you fall in love with her?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I really fell in love with keeping in chat in notes of a scandal Loved that movie
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but she was incredible in tar and most recently I saw black bag, which I'm a sucker for a spy film and I see I heard that was good and I didn't see it I need to see it Hank.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need I heard it was very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have watched it three times.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is I'm worth it watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also see a behind you Is that a calming by her name poster?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is
[SPEAKER_02]: I um love that you have that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I very much love that movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel about oh wait I think then they just bring they're I think they're bringing it back to theaters soon I just read uh for like a few days I don't know if it's like an anniversary what uh does army hammers cannibalism
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, to be totally honest, this is not my poster.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm staying at a friend's house here in LA.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for the honest, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I have mixed feelings about Colmy by your name.
[SPEAKER_01]: This setting of it all, spectacular.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God, I want to go to that village in Italy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The prodigal nature of Timothy's piano and guitar playing his character, amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Loved.
[SPEAKER_01]: The book, because it's a dream, but the age discrepancy of everything, I do feel a little gritty about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Army hammer, I feel like just needs to, needs to go and be rich somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, he doesn't need to, he doesn't need to be with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He can be, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the age thing for a second, do you, do you feel you have a specific sensitivity to it based on your experience as a 14 with those evil hairdresser, guys?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would say I have a lot of experience in my life that make the age thing a little testing weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you also feel like we're probably around a lot of adults more so than other people when when you were doing all of the dance training.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and performing so that that makes a lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, yeah, no, I'm I'm justaging your or hang for for any of the age shit you had to deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I've been through it there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, therapy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, um, thank god for therapy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then let's get over to the saucy of questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But before we do so, will you tell these listeners where to follow you?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if there's anything you would like for them to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I would love for you to come and join the Bubbaverse on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_01]: My handle is Hank Owens Underscore, and yeah, I'd love to see you coming up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hell yeah, it's all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have linked your IG in the description.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have a door following you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, to get us into some of these saucier questions, you recently posted a cool video where you were posing on Zoom to be lined raw with this amazing artist, Pepe Muneos.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're wearing all kinds of skimpy undies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you always been someone who is comfortable in the nude?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I had been ashamed of my body for so much of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the fuck hank?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why then, what changed?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, last summer, before I started Instagram because I've only been doing this in September.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, last summer, I, there's a place in Austin called hippie hollow and its Texas is only nude beach and I had been for much of my life but I'd never gotten naked and I was so sick and tired of being the boy in a speedo at the nude beach.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was dedicated and committed.
[SPEAKER_01]: To being comfortable naked at this beach and so I would go like three times a week and I would say to myself that I was gonna take my speedo off every time and it took me maybe like I don't know seven visits for me to actually do it But when I did it was so liberating and so freeing and it really kind of opened
[SPEAKER_01]: A crack in a door to allowing myself to be comfortable in my own skin, and I just did it all summer long.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very sunburned, I was the most tannid ever been my entire life, which felt like an accomplishment or a reward in and of itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you put sunscreen on your dick?
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear that your dick can burn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also hear that, and I did, but that was basically the only place I put sunscreen on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did like a...
[SPEAKER_01]: I did look a terrible thing where I was like, I'm not wearing sunscreen at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck, skincare, that was a stupid choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm coastline, I coastline a lot of our freak flag goodness, but fuck, skincare and cancer give it to me is not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not something I'm gonna coastline there.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing is, is that I don't tan, like I'm Irish and English and Dutch, like notoriously white people.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was like trying to really tan max and just decided not to wear sunscreen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I hope that you, next time you go to a new beach, you cover that perky ass with lots of SPF.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, when I have people on for this part of the conversation, I like to ask if there's any memorable hookup or dating tales that come to mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hank Owens, do you have any stories that are either super hot, exciting, embarrassing, formative?
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything you'd like to share?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been thinking about this, and I don't know that I have like a whole lot of hot steamy stories, but I do have some funny and embarrassing ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I was 19, I was engaged, and I know, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I lived like a fast mode, but yeah, I was 19 and I was engaged.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was living in Austin, Texas in between jobs and my fiance at the time, and I decided we wanted to do masculine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we went out and we found it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's a psychedelic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a really strong psychedelic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like pay-o-de-a-j-sint.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ash.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash, what's on Ash,
[SPEAKER_01]: and i was not a foreigner to psychedelics but i had never done masculine and the girl we got it from you know was questionable as they all are and my dose was substantially stronger than his and i
[SPEAKER_01]: tripped the fuck out so much so that I like rips the television off the wall I like pissed in our living room I was running around the apartment complex fully naked and my fiance was like okay This is getting to be a little bit too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to handle this and so he's like I can either call an ambulance or His mother and he chose to call me mother, which arguably an ambulance would have been better
[SPEAKER_01]: So my mother came to pick me up with my brother and because my mom was going to drive my car back and my brother was going to drive me and I get in this car and my brother proceeds to transform into an animated furry don't know why and the car transformer style origami folded into a stretch limousine I could feel the seats behind me transferring into these like plush leather
[SPEAKER_01]: like vibrating seats and we take off from the road onto this like rainbow highway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was convinced in that moment that I was Zeus's son going to Olympus.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like B welcomed back.
[SPEAKER_01]: My father's use, they were like fireworks going off, it was crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Needless to say, I didn't do masculine again, and that wasn't really a hook-up story, but it was relationship adjacent, and that it was for someone who didn't graduate from high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really impressed that you went to Zeus during your trip.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's actually sort of academic of you, and I really want to applaud that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Holy shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I could either go into like a poop thing during sex from the but no It was just fully you did property damage and then drove a highway Limisin on the rainbow road to Zeus and shout out to Doing drugs from people we trust and in scenarios that we feel safe and I think that's a beautiful last year shooting us all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if I was going to talk about a hot thing, that's like definitely a porn fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, and I'm going to tell this story on my Instagram one day, but I'll give you a little teaser.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Hank.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in Paris doing an audition for this company called Bally, Derlerrain, and it was 127 men, all auditioning for one spot that was available, one contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like a 12 hour audition, separated into, I think, five parts, and one of the parts was a contemporary class, and this was maybe like midway through the day, and the contemporary teacher walks in, he's this hot French man, like immediately I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: this one, this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he teaches the class, I have a good rapport with him because I'm just trying to have a good time because it's fucking 127 people and I just want to be seen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do the class, he likes me whatever blah blah.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the audition, I'm one of seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: we're waiting in the holding room to do the last phase, which is a singular improvisation we walk into a room in front of a panel of like 20 people and they give you a piece of paper with a picture on it and they say improvise.
[SPEAKER_01]: And uh...
[SPEAKER_01]: Before that happened, we were waiting in the holding room and I was having a conversation with this like tall hot Australian guy who is in one of the circuses in Paris and the contemporary teacher walks in and he walks straight up to us He starts having a conversation with this like hot red headed Australian their friends
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm seeing they're like, oh my god, this man is so hot just like drooling and he turns to me and he's like Oh, do you want to come to dinner with us tonight?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like this is a dream come true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to come to dinner with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the three of us red-headed Australian guy has to go off to the circus to dance and so this French contemporary teacher looks at me and he's like, I have an extra ticket to a dance performance tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to come with me?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, this is my dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm going to come with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to this dance performance after the dance performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: He brings this tiny restaurant in Montmartre, it's in Paris, and we have like, Fraguant, Baguette, and it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he invites me back to his apartment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm giddy inside, like butterflies, pitropattering away, so excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: He takes me back to the quintessential top floor Paris apartment with like skylights on a slanted roof.
[SPEAKER_01]: He like not brings a beard to bed.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have
[SPEAKER_02]: For the rest of the interview, head to sub-stack linked below where you will also find chats with Colin Braun, Rich Burns, Christopher Patterson, Rosso, Tyler Varval, Sebastian Dino, Cody Silver, Johnny Sibley, Sam Altizer, and more.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's at sub-stack.com slash at Eric Wills, and I will see you there for a gorgeous Harry Hornie time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love you, bye!