Real friends tell you when you are wrong. What do you do when you catch your best friend making out with a boy at a pool party and know full well she shouldn't be doing that?
My fabulous niece, my "baby-girl" Victoria Morales comes over to talk about why she called her friend's mother to tell on her misbehavior.
Everyone should have a daughter or a friend like Victoria who watches out for you when you've lost yourself in the moment.
Join Fausto, Marc and Victoria as we talk about our trip to the Shedd Aquarium where we saw dolphins take a poop underwater, petted millipedes, got bored by a lame "sea mammals" show and met a komodo dragon named Faust.
We also chat about some interesting animal news. There is a bird in England that is attempting to hatch foil covered chocolate eggs and attacks anyone that tries to come near them. There is also a swan in China that likes to feed the feed the fish in its pond. And the Dutch have invented a dog food that eliminates much of your dog's elimination.
Check out these fabulous photos from our trip to the Aquarium.
This is your brain. This is your brain on the Feast of Fools. This is heaven! Any questions?
Attention Manchester listeners and those that are up at noon Manchester time on Sunday:
Marc and I will be on FM 96.9 in the Manchester area on Sunday April 15th at noon. We are guests of Andrew Edwards who hosts Artbeat on ALL FM which is a community radio station in Manchester, England. Marc and I discuss how we got into podcasting and a few things about the show you might not know.
The show will also stream on the web at allfm.org so you can listen to it anywhere in the world.
If you can't beat your thymus, then beat Don Imus. The wealthy morning radio talk show host has been suspended for two weeks for calling the Rutgers University female basketball players "happy-headed hos."
There are a zillion of podcasters, talk show hosts, cable access shows that make outrageously offensive and racist remarks on a daily basis and they can't even get arrested. Why is this loser getting so much attention? It's because Don Imus makes a lot of money from talking on his morning radio show. Frankly, I had never heard of the guy until now.
Here's my take: who cares? In the face of the impact of the internet and the way it's changing these established shows; maybe these media types are trying to drum up publicity by sloppily making offensive comments. As long as they are talking about you, right?
Even so Mr. Imus has been going around apologizing for his remarks, but not really. Imus' apologies seem a bit empty. He's sorry he offended people. So what to do when your star host has offended millions of people because he made some stupid comments on his talk show? Fire him?
The guy isn't going anywhere. If MSNBC/CBS fired the guy, he'd land another lucrative job elsewhere.
If he's really sincere about making amends, why doesn't he use his alleged media power to help publicize the University? Why not help start a scholarship fund? From what I understand the guy is rich, he's well connected and he's someone who could take this misspeak into something constructive for everyone involved.
Everybody has hateful thoughts inside their head at times. Why can't we all admit we have some really hateful feelings brewing inside all of us? What is the responsibility of a talk show when it comes to making edgy humor that is offensive? Remember though, it's funny until it happens to you. Where do you draw the line?
Informing, inspiring and entertaining by any means necessary- Feast of Fools.
Some books are banned from our nations schools and libraries just because they are stories about gay people, period. What many gay teens resort to is smuggling the books into their schools and starting a passionate underground secret gay book club. It almost sounds like a plot to a novel itself, but it's not, it's reality.
Author, writer and gay teen literature superstar Brent Hartinger chats with us about his brand new book "Split Screen" a flip book of two stories: "Attack of the Soul Sucking Brain Zombies" and "Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies."
The two stories follow the hilarious and sexy adventures of gay teenager Russell and his best pal Min as they work as extras in a zombie horror film. I wish we had books like this when I was a kid. Then I would not have had to re-imagine The Hardy Boys so much. Mmmmm...Parker Stevenson.
You can think of Brent as a modern-day Judy Blume, writing books that inspire and nurture the spirit of gay youth and speak to those who never had the ability to comfortably be themselves when they were young.
Bret, Marc and I talk about the challenges faced by gays, why the gay youth of today reject some of the trappings of established gay culture and who exactly buys books about gay youth. You might be surprised to find out.
Pickles surprise! What's the surprise? That there isn't a suprise.
The suprise is seeing a young Lady Bunny, RuPaul and Latoma Van Sant and Sister Dimension frolicking around in a radioactive green background talking about how to make a "pickles surprise" sandwich with a anthropormophic pickle in farmer drag creepily stares into the camera.
Our art-school gal-pal John Q Sanchez joins Marc and me to discuss in detail the colorful, brilliant work of the late great video artist Tom Rubnitz. Our friend Mister Pussypants has been busy putting up several of his videos on You Tube, and naturally it's been a hit and inspired hundreds of video responses.
I personally find "Pickles Surprise" to be a tad yucky with that unappealing slice of ham being plopped on a mayonnaise sandwich. I personally think the pink "Strawberry Shortcut" is the stronger of the two videos, which allow a very young Lady Bunny's charismatic talents to shine.
Don't think for a moment that just because we're digging our art critic heels deep into early 90s video art that nothing happened this week! On the contrary.
Jersey city resident Corey Andrew, like thousands of job seekers recently posted his resume on a job hunting site, hoping to land work as a writer, attracting Sgt. Marcia Ramode, an Army recruiter.
Andrew, an openly gay African American man had no interest in joining the Army and so replied back to Sgt. Marcia in a sarcastic tone revealing his sexual orientation. What sparked then was a hilarious and offensive three-day exchange of insults like Sgt. Marcia's:
Go back to Africa and do your gay voodoo limbo tango and wango dance and jump around and prance and run all over the place half naked there."
Upon finding out Marcia's Native American heritage, Mr. Corey replied:
"Native Americans are more intolerant of fools than they are of gays, so take that to your next rain dance."
I just love a good cat fight, don't you? Also, lots of talk talk about Disney's new embrace of gay couples wanting to stage a wedding there andSparty the ambitious lip syncing guy from Guam. Jennifer Hudson, look out!
Yes, it's Lizz with two Z's You may not immediately recognize Lizz's name, but you probably enjoy the fruits of her labor.
Comedian and television producer Lizz Winstead created the news parody program "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central as a response to CNN's paradigm shifting coverage of the first War in Iraq in the early 90s. Since it's inception the show has become a major source for people's news despite the fact that it's a comedy show.
Lizz chats with us about about how The Daily Show was conceived, their original choice for host and wether she ever got an apology from Craig Kilborn about the nasty comment that got him suspended.
Ms. Winstead has a had a lot of odd jobs, from working at the Red Barn to the relaunch team for Broadway Production of Grey Gardens She has come up with fantastic taglines for the show including "What's wrong with snacking on a little cat food in your bathing suit?-Grey Gardens, The Musical" She highly recommends the show so get your tickets now. (Check out the episode #101 of the Broadway Bullet podcast for more on Grey Gardens at www.broadwaybullet.com)
It's funny that Lizz takes us to task (and by surprise) for asking in a previous post why her good friend pornographer Chi Chi LaRue is on OUT Magazine's "Power 50" Who would have thought that this funny lady has the famous porn director as a friend? It turns out they are friends from their days in Minnesota. Lizz lets us know that it might not be that ChiChi has made a gazzillion dollars in skin flicks that put him on the list but rather as top gay pornographer he knows where all the gay bodies are buried. Eek!
Lizz Winstead's emrbace of podcasting and internet culture is a refreshing and exciting to hear. She thinks podcasts are comedically funnier than radio and TV. The word itself is funny and the medium is fresh. Remember, this one of the masterminds who created the award-winning "Daily Show."
Inspired by watching too many hours of Star Trek Voyager and Gary Barlow's mission statement in the local gay paper Chicago Free Press, I came up with one for the Feast of Fools. (It's a work in progress.)
Feast of Fools is an uncommon voice for an uncommon community. FOF exists to serve, inform, entertain and inspire people everywhere about the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience. We work for progress in whatever form it may take (social, cultural, economic or political) and challenge our audience and ourselves for self-improvement, exploration and scientific thinking without spiritual sacrifice.
We're committed to delivering the promise of the internet to bring communities together where none existed before and to create a universally accessible database of the human experience.
Get on your knees! New York City based OUT Magazine has just released it's "Power 50" a list of what they claim to be the "Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America." We respectuflly beg to differ.
Any list that doesn't include Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge, actor George Takei, Siruis Out Q Producer Larry Flick, Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney or writer David Sedaris seems odd. Even the writer of the cover story in Out magazine, Michael Musto is way more influential than the blogger Perez Hilton. And why include pornographer Chi Chi La Rue but not Wigstock founder Lady Bunny?
I'm sure we'd made it on the list if they had gone up to 100. We reckon we must be number 52 or so, right below Lady Bunny and on top of Clay Aiken, although topping Clay Aiken doesn't seem hard to do. Quarter Turns anyone?
We find odd though that "podcast" was Oxford University Press' the word of the year in 2005 and that TIME magazine named online content creators as their "Person of the Year," yet it's befuddling that no independent serious bloggers (Andy Towle), videocasters (William Sledd from Ask a Gay man) or podcasters (anyone from the FOF) made the list.
Although the name "OUT" magazine might suggest a publication for the "National Association of Exit Sign Manufacturers," the name is meant to suggest gay men and women who have come out of the closet. Strangely enough, in order to attract major advertisers, the magazine has decided to skip putting actual GLBT people on the cover. They put straight identified celebrities who they think appeal to their queer readers instead of actual gay people.
OUT Magazine's not all bad though, after all, they did prominently feature us in their first and only article on podcasting two years ago.
A better approach might have been to do it like AfterElton.com did, and just feature a specific industry like Television and Film.
One good thing about having a list like this on hand is now everyone knows who to hit up for money or jobs! Marc thinks the reason they are kissing so much NYC publishing ass is that they live and die by their contacts and in a limited world of gay-friendly publishing jobs, every little bit helps. Check out the jump for a devastating statistical breakdown of the list.
Today's show begins with a hilarious Easter poem by our fabulous music-geek friend Gregg Shapiro. Gregg's onboard today to introduce to one of his favorite musicians, Reuben Butchart. Reuben chats with us about his new album Golden Boy and his debut album Dusk. He joins us on his cell phone from the bottom of a stairwell somewhere in the depths of Manhattan. It seems so clandestine. We hope you enjoy it.
An uncommon voice for a uncommon community- Feast of Fools.
Here comes Peter Cottontail hopping down the trail, Easter is on it's way.
When speaking about this Christian celebration of spring with eggs and bunnies one can get into a hilarious sexual double-entendre, if you know what I mean. Blowing eggs, putting them in the hay, that sort of thing.
Don't get me wrong, although I don't believe in Christianity, I just LOVE Easter! And who doesn't love springtime holidays?
One of my happiest memories when I was a kid growing up in Puerto Rico was blowing the egg yolks out of the eggs during Easter to rinse them out and color them with bright colors, crayons and stickers.
Every now and then we would fill some of them with confetti and smash them over each others heads, making a huge mess.
On today's Easter-cast, Marc and I share out stories, tips and tricks on dying and blowing eggs for Easter or anytime of the year.
The warm weather coming around the corner means all the crazies are getting out of hibernation and acting up again.
Remember ol' Rev. Phelps? This guy and his Christian ministry have spent the last couple of years protesting outside of military men and women's funerals because the U.S. government is TOO tolerant of gays and lesbians, despite the fact that we can't get married in this country.
Now spring fever has hit this ugly man's mind and he's detected a new threat to our morality- the Swedish. A spokesman for the Swedish royal family has confirmed that Fred has been harassing them with hate-filled faxes.
"You're doomed to spend eternity in hell," you know, that sort of thing.
Listen as we talk about Madonna's new H&M clothing line and the eerie defacement of her billboards, April Fools backlash, and a secret little easter egg at the end of the show.
Hallelujah- the Feast of Fools podcast is here!
Featured Music:
Levi Kreis- The Gospel According to Levi: iTunes | MySpace | Site
Why do we need to a show on a Gay Guide to Chicago?
We often get the question from our listeners who plan to come to the Windy City for some good gay fun; "Dear Fausto and Marc-I'm coming to Chicago and I want to know what to do and where to go."
It's a difficult question to answer because Chicago has so much to offer to so many different types of people. We usually ask people what they are into and proceed form there. We'd hate to to tell someone to go ice skating at Millennium Park and later find out they suffer from pagophobia, which is the fear of ice. Now who would be afraid of ice? What do they do at cocktail bars? But that's the great thing about phobias- they are totally irrational.
What is not is irrational is the desire to come to Chicago, "Chitown," "The City of Broad Shoulders", "Hog Butcher to The World," "The City That Works" or as Studs Terkel calls it "Home of the Gayest Podcast in The World" (just kidding about the Studs part. Not sure which stud said that.)
Gay and straight Chicago has a lot to offer to the GLBT traveller. So much in fact that we are bringing in the big guns- Kathie Bergquist and Robert McDonald, authors of A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago.
This book is a must read for anybody contemplating visiting Chicago. Not only is it a great general guide that will appease your straight friends and give them all the info they would need for a totally hetero travel experience, but it gives the low-down on all that is on the down-low.
Join us as we talk about our favorite gay bars and restaurants and spots to visit in this fabulous town. What makes a shoe store gay? What makes a gay-borhood gay? What makes anything gay for that matter?
It's never too late for a local bar, hotel or other destination point to sponsor this podcast to attract people to their venue from all over the world. It will be downloaded for a very long time.
The podcast that is the blinking disco light at the end of a dark tunnel- Feast of Fools.
Happy April Fools! We were just kidding! Technically we posted the show at 11pm central time. Put down the gun, Amanda Steinstein didn't really leave the show for some lucrative deal.
For the time being she's stuck with us. But the outpouring of sentiment and love for our voluptuous violet venus has been moving. Amanda is great and we love her! Never take anything you love for granted.
Today's show begins with a surprise phone call from a famous drag queen who is hanging up her wig in order to pursue his dreams of being a QVC spokesperson. I did not see this one coming.
Join Amanda, Marc and me, Fausto as we talk about the controversial solid dark chocolate Jesus who happens to be anatomically correct. Yeow! Now you can consume the body of Christ with a delicious chocolate aftertaste.
The sad tale of the lovesick swan continues as Berlin zookeepers take care of our lil' friend across the pond who has fallen in love with a giant version of himself. What are the plusses and minuses of dating really tall or short people? I've personally dated tall basketball players and short gymnasts, people who are on the extremes with regards to height. It's not really that big (or small) of a deal.
Check out the entries of the Feast of Fools Family Photoshop Contest as we deliberate about who should win on the show. We picked this one and that one as the winners. Congratulations Nicola and Jae! Everyone gets a FREE Feast of Fools "Best of 2005-2006" DVD. Make sure to email us your address so we can send you your prize.
Call us on our new FREE HOT-line:
(773) 681-3833 and ask us a question!
Be sure to say your name, location and question, otherwise we won't be using it. Local fees may apply. Must be 18 and over.
The podcast that practically re-invented the internet: Feast of Fools.
Featured Music:
Eric Himan - All for Show: iTunes | CD Baby
The Wet Spots: Hello Kinky iTunes | Site
Bustin' makes me feel good! Today we're celebrating the Nine Year Anniversary of the Feast of Fools by going after some common and non-so-common myths and misconceptions about food, crime, sex and biology. You know the stuff we just love to talk about.
For example:
• Do the letters of the GAP clothing store mean "Gay And Proud?"
• Why did actor Dick York (the original Darrin Stevens on the TV show Bewitched) leave the show?
• Was Walt Disney frozen upon his death in order to wait for the day when medical technology makes his re-animation possible?
• Does eating celery result in negative calories?
• Can you tell about a loaf of bread by looking at the color of the plastic twist tag?
• Does micro-waving plastic release toxic chemicals?
• Is the Fiji Mermaid real?
• Are green potatoes poisonous?
• Does hair grow back thicker when you shave it?
• Will the police be summoned if you type your PIN number backwards?
• Did Lee Marvin and Captain Kangaroo fight together at the battle at Iwo Jima?
• Have any people ever had naturally occurring blue hair?
• Is the Feast of Fools the worlds most downloaded GLBT podcast?
• Is Grey's Anatomy a good TV show?
In case you didn't know the Feast of Fools began as a fund-raiser for the now-defunct Randolph Street Gallery. Although we couldn't save the gallery, the Feast of Fools went on and on, first as a drag show, then as a cabaret, later on as a rock and roll play, and now as an award-winning podcast.
The name comes from an essay that gay activist Harry Hay wrote about how people need to feel free to express themselves, no matter how foolish they might fear to come across. I just loved his idea, and I came up with the name "Banquet of Fools" to name the variety show, which was quickly renamed "Feast of Fools." Who doesn't like alliteration?
Join us as my mom does a surprise phone call and Amanda surprises us all with some bittersweet news.
The podcast that is like a baseball bat against ignorance and fear- Feast of Fools.
Featured Music:
Angel and the Reruns - Just released!: iTunes | CD Baby
Rachael Sage - Blistering Sun: Amazon | Site
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