[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a gay up name for a gay up podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guy Branam is gracing that's a gay ass podcast with his gorgeous moustache in West Hollywood of all places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guy Branam are you ready to answer some really dumb questions about pop culture and otherwise.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm champing at the bit to answer dumb questions about pop culture and otherwise.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank goodness Grish because Guy Branam, I have been a fan of yours for so long and it feels sort of crazy that we haven't run into each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: before now, but I think the universe was waiting for your GAS podcast debut, and it's going to be absolutely magic, but because I am a gay journalist, we're going to start really controversial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guy Brandham, you have a Protestant father and a Jewish mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: They say Catholic and Jews make a
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a tint, sounds like a medication for a really pain-flast to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yes, I mean, look, the number of things that we can solve with the shop these days is very exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a couple of months ago, I was dealing with a young man who was just so upset that he was going to have to get an injection for Climitia.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was just like,
[SPEAKER_01]: child.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just huge, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is just, I mean, how lucky we are to be born.
[SPEAKER_00]: How you love born.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are like, get over it's like you've, I mean, God knows it's not the first thing to be shoved into your ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also something to be said for the weirdness that people have with medication in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not going to shut out the specific straight man in my life, but I know more than one straight man who has stopped taking anti depressants because he didn't need them anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, like fully spiral.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what is it gay to take Vanessa's all right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, gay to have emotions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: They aren't the best at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we hope that they learn to tap into their humanity, but I part of the reason why I'm thrilled to chat with you is because you've been a part of so many big gay pop culture moments very much recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is of course for any gay who might not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a gorgeous part and stop that train.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the thrill of interviewing Randy and Fenton, the world of Wonder Founders.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had an amazing New York Times feature on you and what the old gaze remember, which is a perfect series you're doing on the interwebs.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have, of course, been on Chelsea Handler show.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a show that's called Brief Food Full, but it's traveling the Glor, but you wrote,
[SPEAKER_00]: probably the best episode of television in years with the lesbian episode of Hacks, co-written with Andrew Law and Bridget Parker.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were in the movie, Bros. You are just a stunning comedian, voice perspective, and someone that the world really really needs.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that something that I picked up on in the New York Times feature that I want to start with,
[SPEAKER_00]: There is it says your father was a construction worker your mother worked for a gay couple at a flower shop Brandem says that she liked the couple but that didn't stop her from using a slur to describe them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to know if you remember what that slur was
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the thing is, I said it in the interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: It what like, well, the thing is, is there were two couples in our town that we just called the Faggotz.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you knew by intonation, which the Faggotz, you were talking about, and context clues.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were a pair of doctors who owned a nutboard shirt behind ours.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had some gay doctors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gay doctors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like, gays are just from the bear who moved up because they had their dream of being like on the new walnut farmers and they had too many dogs that were constantly hopping out of their truck and getting a fight with our dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they were Bob and Dawn owned flower shop also to be clear my mom liked to don but not Bob.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was interesting because she later told me that one of the reasons that she'd freaked out so much when she told her was gay was that.
[SPEAKER_01]: she worked with a bunch of gay guys in Northern California in 1983 and 1984 and just sort of like not just was confronted with the realities of HIV AIDS, but sort of at the point in time when you really didn't know what was going on and it was very like devastating to that workplace.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also like the other aspect of it was my dad went to go and he was doing some renovations and painting
[SPEAKER_01]: and they were, I was going to work with him because I had to do that all the time and they didn't want me to embarrass them by saying something weird about if they were gay or sorry, remember them in our kitchen explaining they are married like a man and woman are married and it was like one of the few pieces of like good positive like, you know, being told about Ganes as a child and then my great school music teacher she lived with her friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so lesbians don't deserve rights, but yeah, I think it's funny how often times the straight people in our lives try to like compare to the straight experience of like just like a man and a woman can get married.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when I came out, one of the things that I like resented about my older brother, which I've far gotten over.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I came out, he was in college in Miami, Florida, where I thought it was like teaming with Faggot's.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I told him I was gay, he goes so
[SPEAKER_00]: is the way that you like guys, is that the way that I like girls?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you bet my mind alien?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is having my feelings of pining in a different way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there are things about it that are just sort of like, yes, can't you understand that this just works the same, but then there are also there is this need to be like same love and love is love is love is love is this needs to sort of say like they're almost like straight people they could they could almost be straight people and it's like I don't think that should ever be our selling points.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, because the longer I live on this planet, I feel proud to not be straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel proud to not subscribe to Hetero Norma Tee, the Tee.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, before I do the podcast question, I just post so many great things online, which we'll also get into what the old gaze remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that you put on threads of all places was about having children.
[SPEAKER_00]: you said gay people having babies is like Jews having Christmas trees it's fine it should be legal but you should never be like well are you guys gonna have one because it is fundamentally part of your tradition not ours and I very much got married to a man who when we first started dating one of our like bonding facts was that we were like yeah we both want kids we absolutely 100% want kids and then
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that we're almost 13 years in, we're so proud to say to each other, we don't want kids one percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that we're proud to not want kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that we're proud to be like living our lives for us and not for straight approval.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, like the thing is it's like
[SPEAKER_01]: I love children so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I love children so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I was very participatory in my parents raising my knees.
[SPEAKER_01]: I care about my friends' kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care about your goddamn dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to hear about what the cute thing that your cat vomited up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to hear about the hard takes that your three-year-old has on what's going on in the living room.
[SPEAKER_01]: But fundamentally, and when I posted that, there were some people like, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it more a straight thing that I'm getting?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because your sex makes them and ours doesn't and I think so long as the idea is that the best thing we can do is almost achieve the things that straight people can.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always going to present us as being in some way.
[SPEAKER_01]: inferior or off or like pretending and the thing is is like my best friends are in the process came in of adopting a child and I'm so excited for them and I think it's so wonderful and beautiful but I also think that we need to
[SPEAKER_01]: The heaving is though the queer lives that have existed up until the point that IVF existed in gay adoption was legal.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in some way in complete.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's offensive chiming and it's why like you know my niece doesn't have a woman a dad and like she called my dad dad to some extent but like I've always been really proud that however
[SPEAKER_01]: intense or complex our relationship and what we are doing is uncle and mix and what I am doing is in the old and ancient tradition of gay uncle and um and you know I think that thing if you can have kids of your own but also you know like if you were the person who was taken somebody else's kids
[SPEAKER_01]: to Broadway shows with a museum or just making them aware of a world that's exciting to those because I do fundamentally think gay people are built to share ourselves through culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: It like not through genetic reproduction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as people want to do it, like look, my friend Luke has a little girl named Tess who's one of the smartest best people I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also there are so many of us who don't and can't for whatever reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also it is something
[SPEAKER_01]: been a real spiral thing of people saying, but it's so easy for lesbians.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then somebody saying, you're excluding trans people by saying that it is hard for gay men to have children.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I said, okay, maybe it is easier for you, but that is still structurally a bit of normativity than another trans dude was popping in with like, how dare you say that is easy for us?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what I'm fucking supposed to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a whole other channel of issues, which is why the internet should not have been invented.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like you're saying, multiple things can be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can love children at queer couples who have children are such special, amazing parents because they had to fight harder to have those kids and they are...
[SPEAKER_00]: So lucky to have and and they're so great parents and we don't have to compare our gay lives Just some people in order to feel of value.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I completely agree with you, and I think the internet again wasn't a mistake But I do want to ask you the famous gay ass podcast question guy, Brian, and that question is who's fault?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it that your gay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do we blame even babe?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm going to say it's somewhere between my mother, the creators of the television show, Fee Man, and the cast of Bewitched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow, giving us many a cultural touchstone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct me if I'm wrong, is he man back in the zeitgeist, are they doing something with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there's a movie out now that it's failed miserably.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how dumb I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a full movie out that I have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Mattel after Barbie Mattel was like ramped up everything they have isn't right now Like I went in for a meeting with them and they were like no everything good is taken here are the four board games we have left Can you come up with something yeah, it's like this link you're getting a movie too, or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes But like general in 1980s like
[SPEAKER_01]: Schwarzeneggeri, he, manny, sort of, like, Roydie zeitgeist really did peak, um, pay a seven-year-old dead random, which you're not the first gay to come on here and talk about that era of culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we go over to the sub-stack side, I'll get to the nitty gritty of your horny side and sort of maybe if there's, like, a bit of an elastic connection that you're finding in your bedroom, maybe there is a
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I think what begs the question as Guy Brandon being somebody who grew up in Northern California goes to law school fights his way up to build this gorgeous career was your first boy boy kiss was it happening when you're living in your parent's home or do you know wait till you got out.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it wasn't even when I was in college.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in law school.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was closeted all the way through my time at Berkeley in the Bay Area.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't have been very reasonable to come out of the closet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my first boy boy kiss was August 24th, 2000, I believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a great year them the turn of the century even the turn of the century.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were also excited about George W. Bush getting elected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed like Britney Spears would have legal control of her own life forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: How could we have known?
[SPEAKER_00]: How far we have strayed from God's light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think Britney is okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think what her okay is is never going to look like what we expected to and when somebody is gone through what she went through, she's not going to be okay, like she's not going to be regular, but I think her being okay and being happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want her to get to play and control herself and swing her knives around and do it makes sense to her because she was treated like a performing animal for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are times when I like duck into that Instagram, and I am like, maybe somebody should be taking care of her, but it's like, no, like she's a human, like, I mean imagine the cookie broad she would be if she had stayed in Louisiana, you know, imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's also like there's two routes you can go with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's imagine what her person out would be like, it would be imagine also like physically like famed as a certain thing to a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was just talking about, you know, they do the before and afters of the Kardashians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they're always, their looks are always getting examined.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other side of it too is like, what is someone's psyche like if they haven't dealt with that level of fame?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm pretty middle of Lena Dunham's book and she's talking about
[SPEAKER_00]: So famous at what 24 years old 25 and I don't it's clearly not normal for the human body or brain to be seen or see so many comments about yourself for that many years
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's really hard, it does something to you, and it's extremely hard when people aren't formed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have such a particular interest in the very sad experience of like the Clay Aiken or the David Archoleta, somebody who like becomes very famous at the point that is,
[SPEAKER_01]: two years before they would have come out and say we're just a normal human being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, then it makes a business decision and all of these other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but one of the things I love about Brittany is that because she did spend the last 20 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: dancing and twirling every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: She does still eat like a Louisiana farm worker, then it's just able and it's like thin and fine because she's expecting a huge number of calories.
[SPEAKER_01]: But every time I see her swim a full fat coke, I'm just like, um yeah, like she's she's living in the way of her ancestors and if she weren't in Louisiana and working at Walmart, she probably would have gained a lot of hip-weight by now.
[SPEAKER_00]: child bearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since you brought up Clayton, I found myself going down a wormhole yesterday of the Clayton Kelly Rippa moment of many years ago where he put his hand on her mouth when he was filling in for Regis Filbin.
[SPEAKER_00]: What an interesting time in history that was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, um, I forget the terms of it, but did she say that she was offended or did other people sort of like lay into it?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought it was going to be the other people they'd into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there I saw the follow-up clip where we just came back the next show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Clayacans was on a Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm guessing this was a Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said to Regis how she found it disrespectful and how you don't put your hand on a woman's mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if she was a man that wouldn't have happened and she thought it was, I forget the word she used, but on like in proper in improper and it's something that was like, yeah, she was pissed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it like it's it's so hard because it's not like being famous from
[SPEAKER_01]: American idol prepared him to think about or be ready for these like it didn't need to train him and it is it is a very real thing that people do not respect the sovereignty of women's bodies and stuff like just comics that I know especially smaller comics female comics who talk about the amount that's men touched them or try to pick them up or various of their things that are just like this respect and all of that and I get that but I'm just so like
[SPEAKER_01]: Clay Akin was such a rude shithead when he came to all of this stuff and expecting him to host a morning show and understand the right way of being charming and collegial.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was probably a little unfair to him at that age?
[SPEAKER_01]: you know and it's like it's hard that's not as permanent job and understanding the right level of we are friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know it is probably something that Clay can would have done with one of his girlfriends and he thought that that was the appropriate thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if there have been a camera on me in college when I was figuring out how to be a gay guy that right enjoyed like I shuttered to bring up this memory but in full transparency
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in, say with me, a Jewish Occupella group, and I had just come out like two years prior, and I remember there was this girl who was non-feeder school.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was just like a conservative Jewish girl at NYU, and I went to pretend fully pretend to touch her boobs with not the intention to actually grab her tits, but I remember going to do a bit, and she grabbed herself and she goes, I don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember this deep sense of shame of like, oh my god, this woman thought it was going to like attack her, and then I'm like am I that person?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was
[SPEAKER_00]: and of course it's taking me these years to realize like it's I was having an over familiarity as like I'm a gay guy I'm allowed to brew whatever I fucking want which is not the case right I think Clay was doing it on a giant national morning show no I mean it's that thing of having to everything on a national stage having to do that in public like I'm just so
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was a crystallized identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like kind of forced me to be like, you know, say who I was and where I was, but those people I know who wrote on the other side of it, who had to come out on stage, even if they weren't famous, it's just so hard to like shift to you are in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think there's a way that
[SPEAKER_01]: some of these social boundaries don't make the same kind of sense to a gay person because like, Clay, it can doesn't think that a woman's body is magical in distance and he isn't inclined to do in a various things to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he might be more likely to just treat it like the body of someone who is his friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I'm not going to hurt you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to sleep with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to do anything, but it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's clearly not taking everything into consideration.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to make sure that we get into what the old gaze remember, because as you said in the New York Times, it is to memorialize the frivolous and the serious and to reach young gays, who seem to believe both that they invented everything and that they need.
[SPEAKER_00]: to learn a history.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the videos that you have for what the old guys remember, you give a very important lesson on fashion designer Bob Mackie, who even makes a cameo in the lesbian hacks episode that you co-wrote.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to ask the question, did you see the share show on Broadway?
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not see the show show on Broadway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, I'm not good about seeing shows what I'm in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I grew up as a West Coast homosexual by, you know, cast album oriented when it comes to some of the of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, what I'm there, I generally have shows most nights.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I have friends to see and reminding myself that I do need to go and see shows like I I didn't see coal in um oh Mary until they were leaving and then I had to like take a special trip and like see coal do it and it was magical but no I mean I have not seen I mean I really should have seen beautiful the Carol King musical like I really love love
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad you brought up beautiful the Carol King musical.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one of the best done.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think sort of what have you called that jukeboxy by a musical thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring up Bob Mackie partly as a name drop because Christopher Gatelli, I just recorded with him and he choreographed the share show and he's done a bunch of big Broadway things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So any chance to bring up the share show.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it ever tours again,
[SPEAKER_00]: full like fashion parade in the musical where it's just look after look after look and Bob Mackie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just thrilled that you gave him his due.
[SPEAKER_00]: That does beg the hacks question.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lesbian episode is my husband's favorite episode of TV probably ever, and so I want to thank you for your work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for what you have given us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you've talked about it a bit before, but I want to hear from you, did you write the episode with Cherry Jones and Leslie Bib in mind or already attached?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was one of those things, one of the great things about the collaborative process of TV writing is that you do, you were able to share flashes of genius and it was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: In my show, be fruitful, going to the Edinburgh Conference Festival as long as I do say that the plus and LGBTQ plus represent certain communities who are sometimes but not always part of the queer community and one of those communities is straight guys who like attention too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, of course, now I'm speaking of Paul W. Downs, creator of hacks, co-creator and director of that episode, who just while we were doing this,
[SPEAKER_01]: was very clear about cherry jones and like cherry jones made perfect sense for this sort of like because the you know the initial conversation was do we try it do we see if Alan and Porsche would be willing to do something like this and then we're like that might not be as fun as having people like sink their teeth into like real original characters and so cherry jones made perfect sense as like
[SPEAKER_01]: high status alpha.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another four hours, Pedro, what's one of the sex producing partner who was definitely like a a comp, a representative for that sort of person.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then later in the day, he was just like Leslie did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: So magnificent because, of course, in this situation like this, you want to cast queer people in queer roles because for such a long time it didn't happen, but also ours is a very gay show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've already got a lot of gay people on that set and just sort of the like delicacy with which
[SPEAKER_01]: Leslie Biff can sink her teeth into comedy is something that not most people can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we wrote it with them in mind, and so you were able to like match voice and everything like that, but then there is this wonderful thing that you get and also they weren't at the table read when we did it because we hadn't cast them yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't until I saw the episode that I realized what they were doing and like both of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: like have the most fun with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leslie Bid particularly, he's playing herself onto every piece of furniture in the most like seductive and ridiculous way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it really was just a thrill to see how much that was a good idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's also well said that Paul W. Downs is a part of the LGBTQ plus community as a straight guy who wants attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I've seen his like men's health fitness segments, it's he's like, got such an interesting combination to me of like beautiful, hot guy who clearly loves strong women.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, he's so not problematic, but then there's a confusion of him being straight, but then like, so you're like, well, I do, of course, fantasize about being with him, but I also fantasize about giggling with him, but also I love to look at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, Paul W. Downs, I find to be such an amazing unicorn.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's such a great guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He really, he loves putting on a show.
[SPEAKER_01]: He loves entertaining people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he really, the thing he brings to the job as show runner is just like he's the most in love with the things that are gonna be fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the most in love with the things that are gonna make are really, really delicious scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like the ways that he does love attention, but also
[SPEAKER_01]: Like loves people who love attention, like is always reading like biographies of Joan Rivers or other iconic ladies is always just sort of like celebrating other performers but then like speak celebrated himself and it really is so fun to get to work with someone as a creator and writer who also
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's such a fun performer, but getting to see him approach it for so many different angles is really really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this last season it was really great because I met Paul and Lucia when they were performers, you know, and so I knew both of them as standups and sketch performers and Lucia has been behind the camera for, you know, all five seasons of hacks and then she like got to splash in to a very ridiculous and awesome character straight woman who won't stop trying to have sex with the gay man like, you know, like they're
[SPEAKER_00]: like rooted in her narrative, if it's when it's, uh, I think we can all learn from all of them, especially like what you said about Paul loves to celebrate other people and himself, like there is nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I aspire to it's trying in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did they'll bring up Joan Rivers and
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's really interesting to learn about your careers beginnings, and then your Times article, it says, thankfully there was Chelsea Hanler, who started a talk show in E, called Chelsea Laylee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brandon became a regular, then started writing jokes for Joan Rivers, whom he calls a battered creature with a specialty for taking in broken birds.
[SPEAKER_00]: By broken birds, he meant under-employed gay comedians who had previously worked with and fallen out with
[SPEAKER_00]: So first question is, what was it like working with these women that any gay guy would kill to be in the same room as?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, it was, it was really awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I started a Chelsea lately, I was really scared.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was intimidated by the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I got there and realized that there weren't any other gay guys was like, oh, there's something I can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: There, like, there is help that I can provide.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like there was something, you know, at that point in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the industry, if you were a game, and it was just understood that your job was to write for funny ladies, the notion of writing about gay guys or anything like that were for gay guys was just not really there, but it was really fun to get to learn to
[SPEAKER_01]: take on her voice and work with it and find jokes that would work for her that could work for nobody else and she is such a big joyous and generous performer like it was really, really fun and then you know Joan like this is somebody who forms my comic sensibility like we were everyone in that room was like a fan first and it was also it was a room full of the kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: gay guys and women and like, you know, though there were people Jackie Clark was writing on happy endings, but would still come and pitch jokes for for fashion police because it's fucking Joan Rivers, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, happy endings was it was the best one of my favorite things of all time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was just like seeing Joan being icon that simultaneously, seeing the things that had made her an icon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like there were bad things.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was scared to pay us a union rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was scared if she didn't have 12 writers at the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like people were fired week to week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you got invited back week to week.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no permanence in that job.
[SPEAKER_01]: but also she had, like, she had such a nimble mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was always ready to learn a new thing so that she would be able to get the joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: She always wanted to be, like, current and ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also, for good or for ill-saw the way that fear and fear of the bad times that she had faced was constantly pushing her along.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, I've never, I never got to interview Joan Rivers, and I've never spent time with her, but I have talked to people who I idolize and
[SPEAKER_00]: Through those conversations, I've had the devastating realization that Much like our parents, everyone is a human being.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, it's really been in a way like helpful for my own process to realize that Every person that we idolize still has, you know, diarrhea if they eat the wrong kind of ice cream or still, you know, has
[SPEAKER_00]: maybe imposter syndrome or whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do want to ask though, when it comes to the falling out of it all, what you're talking about, you and Kathy Griffin are Joan Rivers and Kathy Griffin.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guys who were the headwriters for factually, so were the headwriters and like the senior writer were two guys who had been Kathy's credited writers and like part of my life on the deal list on the first season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they had a falling out and they were in the wilderness for a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, I mean, this is public records, it's not hard to figure out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Tony Tripoli, who was then Jones head writer through Jones passing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they stayed with her for all of that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were some other writers who had just been with her forever, who had had.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know some troubles and difficulties in other places and and Joan hide such a sense of commitment to them and it was so weird and hard to reconcile that kind of loyalty wing sort of the very harsh way that she reacted when the fashion police writers tried to get you guys please it was a thing of she employed
[SPEAKER_01]: 12 or like 15 writers and really only like six of us stayed there the other one sort of like were people who were there for like a week or two and then left because they weren't really doing the job right and the argument was like what if you just paid the ones who are really doing the work a reasonable break for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also need to say there's this guy who writes for Jimmy Kimmel now who is like a bureau straight guy named Brian Cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who was so fucking good at writing for fashion police like he just you would you know, this is like a Pabst crushing straight guy who wrote the bitchiest jokes imaginable and he's just he's one of the best joke writers But it was also so beautiful to watch, but it was I mean my friend Eliza who so I was gone before the unionization thing happened But my friend Eliza She said
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a bag, she said, Jonah is a bag of knives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we surprised that she's cutting off now?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is, is for a room full of scrappy, queer, and female writers and comedians who knew that there would not be a place for us in this industry, unless we thought as hard as we could.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to look, that she was a bag of knives is the reason that we looked up to her, that she had that force and power to keep going, but it was also really hard when it ended up cutting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, I find that to be sadly relatable because we've all had relationships where you're like, Oh, that person does it to anybody else and never going to do it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when it does happen to you, you're like, I should have seen it coming, but, but listen, it's so cool to hear this lore from you, especially because
[SPEAKER_00]: talk about Joan River staying current you are a part of so many current things in addition to hacks you just did stop that train playing the gorgeous character of train traffic controller so let's get to a few quickfire questions before we cross over to sub-stack um as somebody who is in the transpo industry and stop that train what's your favorite airline are you a delta gay I'm delta gay
[SPEAKER_00]: for the premiere of Stop That Train you were a tiny crown on the top of your head which inspired the question and don't worry about how I got here.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about the musical once upon a mattress?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah just in a parkour is one of our greatest talents and like I really feel like that year so I'm most familiar with that I am not very familiar with Carol Burnett once upon a naturist But like I think it is light and fun and also having those musicals that are built for a high school to be able to really sink its teeth in and not be doing something yes
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't necessarily want to watch high school students die of AIDS.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't necessarily want to watch high school students explore what being married and single is like in 1970.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to spread a Virginia Wool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, like I want, you know, light and fun and like I think it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think theators first job is to make us happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I credit once upon a mattress the high school production of my older brother played in the pit for as one of the things that made me gay I was I think 13 when I saw it and I was like those are Broadway stars.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are doing the best thing anybody could ever do I need to do that Another quick fire question is something has been coming up on the internet lately that happens Every what three months is a picture of a group of white muscle gaze that has gone viral
[SPEAKER_00]: where people say, well what happens when you get fat in this group?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you get shot in the head?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your take on the conversation that comes around groups of like fit gay guys and why it keeps happening?
[SPEAKER_00]: Particularly if they're like abbed, abbed people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like it's interesting because they post the photos because we want to look at those photos like we are paying attention to those photos like there are other photos of people and you may not be willing to admit it but you find those people less attractive so you're not paying as much attention to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, there are definitely people who I feel
[SPEAKER_01]: like have chosen not to include me in their social world because I would be an ISO in their photos.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because I'm not contributing to the greater idea that they live in a glamorous and exclusive world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that we are an interesting point in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're queer men like being vocal about diversity, but also like to imagine themselves exclusive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how those things work together,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, there are definitely places where I wonder if I would feel comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I would feel like I was a human being there or a boost.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of that isn't my head, but also like some of it is just, you know, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: My friends have me in their photos, you know, and like my friends have me in their photos and some of them are hot and some of them are not and some of them are bespeed out and have abs and some of them don't and I do think that they're they're like
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a little bit of pride in having that world and there are other people who are like, well, you know, I keep fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to spend time around people who keep fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, like, that's natural in its way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure, but also it does feel a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like game it in so many ways can feel too curated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I think that's very well said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think also, again, with the mistake of the internet being invented, it's just people love to discourse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that those photos are like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but why not me and it is this sort of like from you from birth understanding that you're not enough that you will be marginalized as one of the reasons that I make noises about the like valuing Like reproduction thing it's like it's not I'm not seeing children of that I'm not saying parenting is bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying that sort of like systemically telling us that we're not enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: leads to situations where people are looking at photos of people in speedos thinking, why mine up there or thinking that I'm not in the speed of photo who am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: which is also well said because I don't know if you saw a clip from the podcast a few weeks ago got a lot of discourse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was around ethical and non-ethical chasers in the bear community.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was Nick Loughlin's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're basically he said that he didn't like it when guys said that they want to like feed him pizza and all of a sudden a lot of the comments were like,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that we're going to leave that conversation to the sub-stacks side, so that'll be a little teaser.
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition to talking about what you're into now versus 20 years ago, you gave a how take about one movie that you said was impossibly good that I want to challenge you on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so before I get into the extended substack paid girly portion, let's do the final question for the main feed, which is Guy Brandham, if the world was ending, you could only save one character act, trash, who would you save, Alfred Wooder, hey, wait, can I tell you something so gorgeous?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that not only do I love Alfred Wooder, but one of my dear friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: is her manager.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's so fucking spectacular.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me when Alfred Wooder comes into your mind is there a specific film or moment of hers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not only the many people remember, but it's called the gun in Betty Lou's hands back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I say it was just after kindergarten cop and touchdown pictures was putting together a vehicle for uh, penalty and Miller.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the premise of it is so fucking good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, in that 1980s cop movie, where there's like the older cop in the younger cop, two times in the movie he calls his girlfriend, who's back in the apartment, and it's like, I'm worried about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if there was a movie just about her?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if there was a movie just about her and Melby and Miller finds the gun from a murder and pretends that she's involved in the murder and then Alfred Woodard shows up as her attorney and Orkin and Alfred Woodard makes interesting, grounded choices
[SPEAKER_01]: there are also bunkers at all times in a way that is just like filling it with like there's nothing that Alfred ordered enters that she isn't filling with life and specificity that is also underplayed and grounded and like I've always said like if you want to in the same way that they like put a bunch of art
[SPEAKER_01]: objects in front of the cage is to figure out if they are the dolly woman, and the dolly woman can pick up the right ones, but if you put your eight-year-old in front of a movie, and then when Alfred Woodard comes on, he says, who's that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you know that he is gay?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's so many like great character actresses, but the other thing is like Alfred Woodard hasn't had a goddamn Academy Award nomination since 1983 and a moving that we don't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like this person has been crafting things like
[SPEAKER_01]: she's an artist, she's an artist, and that level of specificity if she were white would have had the opportunity to color in so many ways and so many directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like, to have had a career that was more the career of Diane Weast than what she got to have, but like I just love what she does and I love everyone who produces vehicles for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: god guy that is you just spoke truth to power um i also think that whatever gay guy or smart woman or straight guy that likes attention wrote the character name and working deserves an award you know it's a fucking woman you like i didn't do that the woman is on
[SPEAKER_01]: Facebook, and I considered writing her on message years ago, and it was just like your movie is the best movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, and then somebody who was a mutual friend, I told them that, and they were like, you should do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: She would like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, why haven't I?
[SPEAKER_00]: You should.
[SPEAKER_00]: You absolutely should.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think that it's important for us all to watch the gun and buddy lose handbag because I'm constantly listening, learning about character actress films.
[SPEAKER_00]: This also stars truly and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's Kathy Moriarty.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, um, just, uh, like, deep adventures of it's a movie that's composed only of character actresses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kathy Moriarty plays like a jaded horror.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is just the most.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just so fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: jaded horror is sometimes how I feel and I can't wait to see myself represented and I wish I had a behind the scenes camera like a candy camera at nine years old who was I saying as I was watching films.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I wish I could have a log of all of the women I was asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's that?
[SPEAKER_00]: But Guy Brandham just hit after hit, such gorgeous takes such amazing war.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do want to make sure we shut out again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you brought it up briefly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But your solo show brief be fruitful is not only doing Edinburgh and August.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing a JFL July 24th I continue to perform it and I want to make sure people support you and go see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We tell these listeners where to follow you and if there's anything else you would like for them to know
[SPEAKER_01]: I am at Guy Branden, across all social media, except for tics up, where I am at Guy Branden, comedy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's mainly just if you're going to be in or around Starland in the month of August, come see be fruitful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really proud of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just did it for the last time in LA before Edinburgh last night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, catching you fresh off of a stunning performance in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Guy, I've linked it all in the description.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are going to be continuing to follow and just devour your content.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's continue the conversation, especially as the paywall will go up in mere moments for the paid girlies on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: A question to get us into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You came out in law school.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said your first boy boy kiss was in law school.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I never had sex with any professor, so I was an undergrad at one professor who I secretly thought was like my gay men's war, he really loves me and I really loved him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then years later, I was like, you know, I was positive, but you were such an inspiration to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he was like, I have a wife and three children.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, I had like,
[SPEAKER_01]: When I moved back to Berkeley after law school, I had sex with a fair number of professors and graduate students, but not when I was in Minnesota.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, that's huge, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have always had a thing for, unfortunately, like, I don't like to use the word power, but I've always had a teacher thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always had the, like, we're not, I'm not supposed to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fact that you were able to land some Berkeley professors,
[SPEAKER_01]: I have always had a coach, and so my high school football coach was like a former representative, bodybuilder, and was like like gave me positive feedback and like a way that no masculine man ever had before, like really was a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, and that, yeah, did you ever get to fulfill your coach fantasy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, I had that sex was some cheerleading coaches, taught cheerleading coach, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's pretty much it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so then the speaking of the hookups of it all Before this I asked if there are any like formative or exciting or embarrassing or any Dating or hookup things that come to mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have any stories that you feel stand out in your mind?
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether they were really good or really not good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of really bad ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: One time when I was in New York for a job, I like had a hook up and I had just swallowed and I was in a period of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I forget why, but it was like really like I was very paranoid about
[SPEAKER_01]: throat hygiene, but I had swallowed, so I went to like, bring out my mouth before we continued with other activities, and then I saw him taking my wallets.
[SPEAKER_00]: 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 Varvel, Sebastian Dino, Cody Silver,
[SPEAKER_00]: more.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's at substack.com slash at airquills.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will see you there for a gorgeous hairy horny time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.