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Ep. 47: The Origins of Gay Halloween

Halloween Roots: Before Halloween existed, the night before All Hallows Day (All Saints Day), was linked to the ancient Celtic festival ‘Samhain’ in the British Isles, meaning ‘summer’s end’.

European immigrants brought their rituals and customs with them to America. There are actually few accounts of Halloween in colonial American history due in part to the large Protestant presences in the Northern colonies and their strict religious beliefs. However, down in the Southern colonies where larger, more mixed European communities had settled, there are some accounts of Halloween celebrations mixing with Native American harvest celebrations.

In the mid 1800s, nearly two million Irish immigrants fleeing potato famine helped shape Halloween into an even more widely celebrated event. Scottish influence and the English celebration of Guy Fawkes Dat as well brought: Fireworks, ghost stories, nights of mischief bobbing for apples etc… Young women were frequently told if they sat in dark rooms and gazed into a mirror, the face of their future husbands would appear, however, if a skull appeared, the poor girl would be destined to die before marriage.

By the 1900s, the focus had shifted from a religious holiday to a more communal celebration. “Guising” was actually a practice dating back to the middle ages, when the poor would go around asking for food or money. During this time the children adopt this practice and make it about treats although this stuck to parties instead of going door to door as much as now a days. Also at this time the spooky superstitions have died off a bit and Halloween was more light-hearted. 

Throughout the early decades of the 20th century, Halloween became a bit more sinister in the act of vandalizing and even the KKK using it as an excuse to commit crimes against AAs. 

There is a claim from both Hiawatha, Kansas and  Anoka, Minnesota that they were the towns that started Halloween Celebrations as we know them today. The former starts in 1914 and the latter starting in 1920. 

Drunk History has a good one about Hiawatha, Kansas about a woman by the name of   Elizabeth Krebs’s who didn't want her garden vandalized so she personally planned and funded the  

From there, film and TV popularized and commercialized Halloween as a children’s holiday and that where we get to the Cliff’s Variety Store in SF.

Children's Halloween: Before the Castro was a famous gay district in San Francisco, it played host to an annual children’s costume contest that took place at Cliff’s Variety Store, starting in 1948.

When the gays started moving into the area and the families moved out the costume contest//festival slowly turned into a gay-centric event. It got so overtaken by the gays that by the end of the decade, drag queens were openly entering the costume contest at Cliff’s. 

By 1979, the Children's Halloween ended as the neighborhood's population shifted from families with children to more single men.

Rise of the LGBT Population and Halloween Celebrations in SF: Halloween in the Castro was tied to the LGBT culture of San Francisco and began in the 1950-1960s in the Tenderloin/Polk street area of the city where the mainstream gay bars were first centralized. 

After World War II, in the 1940s, the San Francisco Bay Area became a haven for LGBT military personnel who didn't want to go back to their old lives. In the 1950s, a group of gay bars in San Francisco's Tenderloin area helped create a strip of venues for "sex, drugs and late night fun". These areas around bars and sex clubs helped create a community identity and place of freedom. 

Halloween in the Tenderloin grew in the early 1960s with the growing LGBT community and welcomed tourists.

Beginning in 1970, an annual Halloween celebration was held on Polk Street in Polk Gulch, then still the most important gay neighborhood. By the mid-1970s, Polk Street was overwhelmed and closed to traffic.

In 1979, the adult gay Halloween party moved to Castro Street in The Castro, which by the early 1970s had replaced Polk Gulch as San Francisco's most important gay neighborhood.

In 1979, the owner of Cliff’s stopped the contest due to the shifting demographics of the Castro. But the ghost of Castro Halloween, as it came to be called, lived on under the leadership of the drag performance group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. 

Halloween  Becomes a Gay Holiday: The San Francisco LGBT community partied in the Castro almost every Halloween in the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s, when the party was shut down after a tragic shooting.

As costumed queens were invading the Castro, a New York puppeteer named Ralph Lee kicked off the first Village Halloween Parade in 1974. That celebration has since become the largest Halloween parade in the world, and it still attracts the most elaborate handmade costumes you can find south of Broadway.

By the 1980s, gay enclaves like Key West, West Hollywood, and Greenwich Village were holding annual Halloween street parties. These parties along with the fact that the queer community has been a trend setter for heteros for decades is what made Halloween big! 

2000 to Present: In 2002, 500,000 people celebrated Halloween in the Castro and four people were stabbed. In 2003 the city's Entertainment Commission took responsibility for organizing the event.

In 2006, nine people were wounded when a shooter opened fire at the celebration. Halloween in the Castro was canceled, and in the following years a heavy police presence kept the event from happening spontaneously. 

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Ep. 46: Six Classic Queer Horror Films

I. Fright Night (1985): Fright Night (1985) - Hot Vampire moves in next door, what do we do - gay subtext throughout also one of the main main vampires is played by an out gay actor. Stephen Geoffreys is an American actor who portrayed Evil Ed in the original Fright Night movie, which continues to be his best known role.

II. A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge (1985): Fright Night (1985) - Hot Vampire moves in next door, what do we do - gay subtext throughout also main vampire is played by an out gay actor.

III. Jenifer’s Body (2009): Jennifer’s Body (2009) - Ahead of it's time, this is a lesbian possession film with Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried. Very smart, sexy & wild. A newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror? She wrote JUNO and also TULLY w/ Charlize Thernon

IV. The Lost Boys (1987): The Lost Boys (1987) - Vampirism is a metaphor for AIDS and/or homosexuality in this classic, hot vampire film from the 80s. A pair of brothers, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim), who move to a small town, where Michael gets lured into a vampire gang led by Kiefer Sutherland’s David.

V. The Craft (1996): The Craft (1996) - Yall - if you queer and haven't seen this movie you must partake of your culture and vote this one. Kick-ass witches.

VI. Chillerama (2011): Chillerama (2011) - Sex Crazy, Horror Anthology with a Nazi killing Frankenstein-esque monster, biker werebear leather daddies and giant sperm.

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Ep. 45: The Top 11 Queerest Pokemon

(By Mathew Rodriguez in bold)

1. Jynx:

She is a literal fucking drag queen.

2. Mr. Mime:

From first look you know he is gay and he staying at home to take care of a single lone mother to make sure she knows how special she is - gay. 

Also the few times he wears clothes he looks like a retired gay that just moved to Palm Springs

Built in knee pads 

Other theory is that his move set if full of  (Reflect, Barrier, Confusion, Mimic) so he is a closeted gay

3. Jigglypuff:

Do I NEED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF

Attention queen - Basically Lana Del Rey in pokemon form 

4. Bellsprout//Weepinbell//Victreebel:

Just look at Weepinbell - what do you see? Also if you haven't seen the Victorybell scream meme, are you even queer?

Also the whole evolution chain goes like this:

Bellsprout: shy twink gay

Weepinbell: hungry slut bottom finding self through a slew of dom tops

Victreebel: Full realized, take no shit gay that has a complex network of other gays and call signal for them.

5. Starmie:

Gerderless and is a big fucking Jewel that is always ready to fucking fight so duh.

6. Ditto:

Ditto is out genderqueer or gendernonconforming, nonbinary sibling - in the game they also make every pokemon be either male or female but Ditto was the first pokemon to not abide by that rule and therefore has no gender. 

7. Butterfree:

Given the butterfly’s long history of representing trans people, it’s clear that Ash’s Butterfree is the strong trans woman of the Pokémon world. On top of that, when you were playing Pokémon, Butterfree are there to help your team out very early in the game, just like our trans brothers and sisters are at the forefront of queer liberation.

8. Clefairy:

Clefairy worship the moon and the moon is canonically queer, so like, who gon’ check me, boo? Also, they only travel in packs and talk to other Clefairy, just like queer people don’t like to be among cishets.

9. Pickachu:

Pikachu is a bratty sub that is, through his brattiness, actually a dom. He refuses to go into his Pokéball, and refuses to do what he’s told in general. But, after a lot of bonding, he’s actually the most loyal sub there ever was!

10. Ninetales/Dragonair:

The elegance and the Captain Marvel Lesbian haircut

Again the elegance and part of her is a freaking jewel accessory - high feeme queen energy here! 

11. Cloyster:

It’s a ginning vulva - what more do you need! 

Honorable Mentions:

The Eeveelutions: so many choices of what kind of queer to evolve into

Bulbasaur: Plant daddy or vegan lesbian

Psyduck:  Psyduck’s power comes from constant anxiety and is unleashed whenever they’re being laughed at. If that isn’t relatable and queer, I don’t know what is.

Dotrio - the original gay thruple 

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Ep. 44: Sexualities You Might not Understand

1. Androgynosexual

An androgynosexual is a person who is sexually attracted toward both men and women, particularly those with an androgynous appearance — that is, partly male and partly female in appearance, or of indeterminate sex.

2. Autosexual

An autosexual is someone who has a great deal of trouble responding to someone else sexually but can respond fairly or very well to their own touch. 

3. Asexual

An asexual person is one who has no sexual feelings or desires. Keep in mind that an asexual person can still feel primarily attracted to one or more genders in a romantic, intellectual or emotional way, and can also enjoy physical contact and mutual nudity, despite their disinterest in sex.

4. Graysexual

A graysexual is a person who really doesn’t want sex very often, but who sometimes experiences sexual attraction or sexual desire. This word can also refer to someone who has a low sex drive, though the “gray” in graysexual refers more to the middle ground between asexual and sexual feelings rather than old age.

5. Objectumsexual

An objectumsexual is someone who experiences a romantic — and possibly sexual — attraction to objects. osexual

A person who finds intelligence sexually attractive or arousing. 

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Ep. 43: Interesting Porn Facts

A University of Montreal study found that most guys are exposed to porn for the first time at age 10.

Every day, there are 116,000 searches for child pornography, according to United Families.

At any second of the day there are as much as 30,000,000 unique visitors viewing porn. This means that there are about 30,000,000 unique visitors viewing porn right now, and now, and now.

The most searched porn related word in America is Creampie according to a recent Pornhub analysis. Teen is also very popular.

Male porn performers do not make that much. However, they make more money performing in gay porn than straight porn, as much as three times as much per film.

Someone from the University of Montreal tried conducting a study but when he tried to create a control group of men in their 20’s that haven’t consumed porn, he couldn’t find a single one.

Kanye West directed its 2018 inaugural awards.

There's a lot to unpack in that statement. Yes, Pornhub started hosting awards last year. Yes, Kanye West was the creative director. Who was recognized? Only the cream of the crop. Categories include Top Lesbian Performer, Top Fetish Performer, Top Threesome Performer, and Instagrammer of the Year.

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Ep. 42: Shelly Bauman

A young stripper named Shelly Bauman lost her leg in a freak confetti cannon accident. She sued and used the money from the settlement to open Seattle’s first gay bar, which she named ‘Shelly’s Leg’.

It operated from 1973 until sometime circa 1978.

On the 14th of July, 1970 at the Seattle Bastille Day parade in Pioneer Square, Seattle, Bauman was in attendance enjoying the parade. At 10pm a parade consisting of a Dixieland band, two cars, and an old fire engine exited the Sinking Ship to begin a performance. The water cannon on the fire engine was set up to fire confetti. The cannon was fired, and somehow it did not shoot confetti, but rather a ball of wet paper which hit Bauman. Bauman's lower abdomen was severely injured, and doctors were forced to amputate her left leg 

When Bauman recovered, she pursued a lawsuit against the cannon operator, the parade organizers, and the city of Seattle.

Her case settled with her receiving US$330,000. She used this money to found a nightclub which she named "Shelly's Leg".

It operated from 1973 until sometime circa 1978.

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Ep. 41: Frieda Belifante

I. Early Life:

Belinfante was born into a musical family. Her father, Aron, was a prominent pianist and teacher in Amsterdam who held the distinction of being the first pianist to present the entire cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas during a single season in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

She started learning the cello at age 10 and then made her professional debut in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw assisted by her father- which is concert hall in Dutch and is considered to be one of the first in the world. 

In her professional she managed and conducted HS, college and professional ensembles before becoming the first woman the manage the Concertgebouw or manage any professional concert hall in 1937 -1941. 

She was so good she was even asked to go to a prestigious masters class for conduction  in Switzerland and then won 1st prize over 12 other male conductors there! FEMINISIM!!!   

II. Resistance:

SO again, she befriends William Arondeus who was actually the leader if the  Raad van Verzet (Resistance Council) - and they both take part in the CKC resistance forging those documents which ultimately leads to them bombing of the Amsterdam Civil Registry Office. 

SO - when the Gestaop starts following the members of the CKC due to the bombing - girl immediately goes into hiding but 13 men including William are ratted out and executed. 

SO - Bad Bitch Belinfante disguise herself as a boy for 3 months and then was helped by the resistance to cross over to Belgium then France where the French underground helped her make her way to Switzerland! 

Things were so bad by this time that when her and her travel partner reached the Swizz ALps in the winter of 1944 they had to cross the Alps on foot in order to get into the country!!!!!!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING WINTER!!!!!!!!!!!

iN sWITZERLAND - Her former teacher Hermann Scherchen saved her from being sent back over the border by verifying that she was a Dutch citizen and his former pupil. She was then given refugee status and was able to return to the Netherlands when the war was over. 

III. After the War: 

Belinfante emigrated to the United States in 1947, eventually settling in Laguna Beach, California and joining the music faculty of UCLA in 1949.

She the formed the Vine Street Players which proved fortuitous for her as it prompted local civic and cultural leaders to invite Belinfante to form a permanent orchestral ensemble in Orange County thus becoming  the founding artistic director and conductor of the inaugural Orange County Philharmonic Society -  the first such ensemble in Orange County (1954).

Belinfante's involvement with the Orange County Philharmonic came to an abrupt end in 1962 when her contract was not renewed - She later stated publiclay in 1994  that she believed gossip about her sexual orientation was the real reason for this - as it was originally played off as a money thing and that appointing a man would bring in more revenue. 

Belinfante continued her music and even became a famous booking agent in Laguna Beach. 

Belinfante summed up her career in a Los Angeles Times interview: "It was just too early for me. I should be born again. I could have done more, that's what saddens me. But I'm not an unhappy person. I look for the next thing to do. There's always something still to do."

In her later years of life was was recognized numerous times for her musical talents and her bravery in the war. 

There is even a documentary about her But I Was a Girl" (1999)

The United States Holocaust museum recognized her for her resistance

Her story was also featured in an exhibition, funded by the Dutch government, about the persecution of gays and lesbians during the Second World War.

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Ep. 40: Willem Arondeus

I. Early Life:

Willem Johan Cornelis Arondeus was born in Naarden, and was  the youngest son of an Amsterdam fuel trader.

He started working as an illustrator, designer of posters and tapestries and a painter.

In 1923 he was commissioned to paint a large mural for Rotterdam City Hall - the City hall survived the blitz of the Luftwaffle but I was unable to see if it was still there - I believe it is but also it dose not show up in any google search attempt I did - so maybe not?

In 1935, he switched to writing, penning two novels which he also illustrated, and in 1938 he published his most successful work, a biography of the painter and political activist Matthijs Maris. 

When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Arondeus was among the first to join the resistance movement, along with his friend, lesbian cellist Frieda Belinfante. They were part of an organization that forged documents for Dutch Jews so that they could hide from the Nazis - this was at the time when most Dutch were still urging each other to not resist and go along with the prejudice.

However, the Nazi soon began comparing personal documents to the public Dutch records. 

So, on March 27th 1943, In retaliation to this act, Arondeus led the charge in bombing the registration office in Amsterdam and destroying those records.

They did this by dressing up as Dutch police officers to gain access to the building and once they were inside they planted the bombs.

 The plan was a success, and thousands of files on Jews and non-Jews alike were destroyed - as well as possibly thousands of lives. 

They managed to destroy 800,000 identity cards, and retrieve 600 blank cards and 50,000 guilders. The building was blown up and no one was caught on the night of the attack. However, due to an unknown betrayer, Arondeus was arrested on April 1st, 1943. Arondeus refused to give up the rest of his team but his notebook was found, and as a result, a majority of the group were arrested as well.

On June 18, 1943, Arondeus was tried and sentenced to death, along with 13 other men who participated. Two of the group received clemency, but the others were executed on July 1st, 1943.

His final message before his death, as relayed to his lawyer, was to tell the world that “homosexuals are not cowards.”