You may have seen writer, actor, and comedian Jeffery Self on the shows 30 Rock, Desperate Housewives, and Jeffery & Cole Casserole alongside Cole Escola. Or you might know him from his books, Drag Teen and A Very Very Bad Thing. Jeffery’s latest book Self-Sabotage: And Other Ways I've Spent My Time came out last month. And for this week’s episode, we’re heading into the Sewers archive to revisit my conversation with Jeffery from 2017, when we talked about forming a rebel theater troupe in his small southern hometown; testing his capacity for sass on television; and creating the circle of friends that he knew he needed in his life.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. You may also enjoy my YouTube videos about the making of iconic movies and TV shows — my latest is about the film Dog Day Afternoon. And check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.

You might’ve seen this week’s guest, Andrew Gurza, in the news lately. An activist and advocate for people with disabilities, he recently drew headlines for talking openly about how sex workers have changed his life, and why he believes the government should pay for them. Andrew has a new book coming out this month called Notes from a Queer Cripple: How to Cultivate Queer Disabled Joy (and Be Hot While Doing It!). And for this week’s Sewers of Paris, we’re diving into the archives to revisit my conversation with Andrew from 2017. At that time, he was hosting a podcast called Disability After Dark, and had recently organized a successful accessible sex party in Toronto. Now, his mission has continued: To demolish cultural taboos around disability and sex.

As you might’ve heard, I have a new video up on YouTube about the film Dog Day Afternoon, and a queer bank robber who stunned New York way back in the 1970s. For this week’s episode, we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archives to explore queer life (and, occasionally, crime) in New York of the ‘70s. Back in the spring of 2020 I spoke with a man who remembered that era well; he earned the nickname Tree thanks to his six-foot-five stature, and he’s been a part of New York’s gay community going back to the fifties, when he didn’t even know a community existed. Tree’s been a member of Brooklyn street gangs, worked with the mob, and counted among his friends Buddy Holly, Bea Arthur, and Rock Hudson.

My guest this week is author and architect Robert Raasch, whose recent debut novel The Summer Between is a coming-of-age adventure set in Greenwich Village of the late 1970s. It’s a topic that Robert knows well, having lived through that time himself — making the most of the thrilling disco and loft parties and sexual exploration it had to offer. And now his book offers a glimpse back at the best of those years, and maybe some inspiration for recapturing that energy of liberation.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. You may also enjoy my YouTube videos about the making of iconic movies and TV shows. And check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.

My guest this week is writer SW Kent, whose new novel is The Storyteller from Balincia. He’s been a storyteller himself since he was a kid, but for the first act of his career he had to rest his fiction-writing muscles so that he could concentrate on his job, which largely concerned programs for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In that role, he helped people in marginalized communities tell their stories. Now it’s his turn to tell his own story, through his favorite genre of dark epic fantasy.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. You may also enjoy my YouTube videos about the making of iconic movies and TV shows. And check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.

We’re trying different for this week’s Sewers of Paris. Instead of one guest, we have three — the cast of the new film Throuple. It’s a polyamorous romcom, a concert film, a coming-of-age story … and also a culmination of a long journey for Michael Doshier, Tommy Heleringer, and Stanton Plummer-Cambridge, who each individually struggled to find their place in the world before coming together for a movie that was extremely difficult to get made.

Throuple has its theatrical debut in New York and LA this week, and then it’ll be available online later this year.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. You may also enjoy my YouTube videos about the making of iconic movies and TV shows. And check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.

With the Oscars this weekend, we’ve reached the culmination of the year’s awards season. And for this week’s Sewers of Paris we’re diving into the archives for a chat with an awards show legend: Bruce Vilanch, who's been slipping sly queer comedy into our entertainment since before some of us were even born. Starting out as a joke writer for great divas of the 1970s and then moving on to variety shows, the Academy Awards, and a notorious holiday special, Bruce provided a subtle queer infusion into American showbiz for decades.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. And you may also enjoy my YouTube videos — I just released a new video about the movie Cruising, and how a Hollywood director accidentally wandered into an explosive fight between New York’s gay leaders and the NYPD.

Also check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.

My guest this week is director Corey Sherman, whose latest film is Big Boys — a story of a teenager who isn’t even out to himself when he goes on a camping trip and starts to develop feelings for his cousin’s boyfriend. Corey’s work has often had an autobiographical element, going back to his college webseries Billiams about a queer wolf attending a liberal arts school. Big Boys gave him a chance to tell a personal story that had been building up inside him ever since he was a kid, running around with a camcorder and making movies with his friends … and also holding onto desires that he wasn’t sure he was supposed to have.

We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, if you’re enjoying The Sewers of Paris, I hope you’ll consider supporting the show on Patreon. And you may also enjoy my YouTube videos — I just released a new video about the movie Cruising, and how the Hollywood filmmaker accidentally wandered into an explosive fight between New York’s gay leaders and the NYPD.

Also check out my weekly livestreams on Twitch, my book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, and my free email newsletter. There’s links to all that in the episode shownotes, and at MattBaume.com.