What’s up Bayou City! It’s Space City’s time to shine when Mike and Kyle talk about the 713 in a very obvious ploy to sell live show tickets. See you at the show, H-Town!
In this episode: News- 4:52 || Main Topic (Houston)- 17:24 || Gayest & Straightest- 1:11:51
Come see us live in Houston! Visit www.gayishpodcast.com/live for tour dates, details and tickets. We can’t wait to see you!
On the Patreon bonus segment, Mike shares Houston’s performance on HRC’s LGBT friendly city rankings. If you want to support our show while getting ad-free episodes a day early, go to www.patreon.com/gayishpodcast.
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
INTRO MUSIC [MIKE JOHNSON SINGING]
When you know that you are queer but your favorite drink is beer, that’s Gayish. You can bottom without stopping but you can’t stand going shopping, that’s Gayish. Oh, Gayish. You’re probably Gayish. Oh life’s just too short for narrow stereotypes. Oh, it’s Gayish. We’re all so Gayish. It’s Gayish with Mike and Kyle.
MIKE JOHNSON
Hello, everyone in the podcast universe. This is Gayish.
KYLE GETZ
The podcast that reminds you to buckle up… for this dick!
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, [chuckles] okay. I mean, it’s good advice either way, whether you finished the sentence or not.
KYLE GETZ
Yes. Exactly.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, I’m Mike Johnson.
KYLE GETZ
I’m Kyle Getz.
MIKE JOHNSON
We’re here to bridge the gap between sexuality and actuality. And, today…
KYLE GETZ
Today, in this shameless style that you’ve come to love…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaaah. This is not just a ploy to get Houstonians to buy fuckin’ tickets for our fuckin’ live show, you dickbags.
KYLE GETZ
And- [Mike chuckles] Oh, hey, lovely listeners, we care about you and want you to attend our show, because we think it’ll be fun for you and all of us.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaah. I was gonna sing a song about Houston but then we’d have to put it on the list, and it’s bad. I don’t want it on the list. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
There’s a Houston song?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah… Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Okay. But you don’t wanna-?
MIKE JOHNSON
If I talk about it more, we have to put it on the list. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Okay. Okay. This is an ominous- Sure.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
We don’t have to talk about it. Um, come out to our Houston show. Gayishpodcast.com/live for tickets.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaaah. It’s on Sunday, October 15th at Kiki, at noon. Do it.
KYLE GETZ
Do it. I want to read some feedback.
MIKE JOHNSON
Great. Read some feedback, Kyle. Wait. First, is it gonna make me cry?
KYLE GETZ
No.
MIKE JOHNSON
Is it gonna make you cry?
KYLE GETZ
No. No one’s- No one needs to cry about this one.
MIKE JOHNSON
Then I’m out. I don’t want it. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Oh. Okay, you can tune out. You can sing your Houston song to yourself while I read this.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay. Great.
KYLE GETZ
Uh, this was on our Discord.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh.
KYLE GETZ
“Just finished this latest episode while making breakfast. Great episode, as always.” This is about the Circuit Party episode.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
“And shockingly relevant, as I just went to my first circuit event this weekend.
MIKE JOHNSON
Hm!
KYLE GETZ
“I shared a lot of the hang-ups that were expressed about these events, but I honestly had the best time ever. It might have just been the party I went to – Arizona only has so many options – but the folks there were diverse, the events were a blast, and I got to really revel in being queer for a weekend. Anyway, thanks for another great episode, y’all.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Aww.
KYLE GETZ
And we got this- Oh, that was from… fuck me. Uh, Gayrizona. I don’t know how to say “Gayrizona”.
MIKE JOHNSON
Great.
KYLE GETZ
And we got that feedback in nicer and meaner ways, of people expressing that we, you know, have a lot of hang-ups about the events, and there are events that are welcoming, and accepting, and would totally be fine for us to attend, and we wouldn’t feel as alienated – I think – as we feared.
MIKE JOHNSON
I also got more than one person who DM’d me to let me know that they were in the 11% that goes for the booze, not for the drugs.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, really?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. [chuckles] Like-
KYLE GETZ
Great.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s fine. Like, I don’t know- You know, you can do whatever you want to. You don’t- [chuckles] I felt like they were maybe trying to justify things. Or, like, were we judgy about it? I don’t know. Like…
KYLE GETZ
Uh, we were a little judgy on circuit gays.
MIKE JOHNSON
Alright. Um… that’s it?
KYLE GETZ
Nope.
MIKE JOHNSON
No?
KYLE GETZ
Uh, National Coming Out Day is October-
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh, well, son of a bitch. I was just moving that in my notes. I was like, “Well, maybe we can talk about it later.”
KYLE GETZ
Oh.
MIKE JOHNSON
[sighs] Come out, come out, wherever you are, young listener.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Wait, why were you gonna talk about it later? Were you gonna talk about it on the news or somethin’?
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, ‘cause there’s a section in my template that says “calls to action” and that’s at the end of the show. But, like, this part of the show, we talk about whatever we want to. It’s fine, Kyle. Just-
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] Okay. Okay. Um, it’s National Coming Out Day October 11th. So, if you haven’t come out and want to, this is a fun time to do it. And, if you’re already out, it’s a good time to celebrate being out. And if you’re not ready to come out, that’s okay too. So it’s a time for anyone to celebrate, no matter where you’re at.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. I want to I want to reiterate: everybody has the right to come out in the time, place, and manner of their own choosing. And, there’s a national holiday around coming out if you needed that little extra oomph to get that heinie out of the closet.
KYLE GETZ
Mhm.
MIKE JOHNSON
Here’s- here’s your push. But also, if it’s not safe to or you’re not ready yet, that’s totally valid too.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, absolutely.
MIKE JOHNSON
I send a message to my team every year saying just how fucking gay I am and thanking them for letting me be out at work.
KYLE GETZ
Aw, that’s really sweet of you.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Everyone should do that; it makes you a good person.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, that’s a great idea. That’s a great idea. [Mike laughs] Okay, now the news.
MIKE JOHNSON
Now the news.
[News segment intro plays, sung by MIKE JOHNSON]
Shut your mouth hole it’s time for your ear holes, news, news, news.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Okay, Mike.
MIKE JOHNSON
News the first.
KYLE GETZ
Great.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay, Catherine Leavy, 37 years old, on this last Thursday, pleaded guilty to one count of making a false bomb threat and one count of intentionally conveying false or misleading information that a bomb was on the way to the hospital. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
To the hospital?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. She found out that Boston Children’s Hospital provided gender-affirming care to trans youth. And, uh, she was convinced that that meant that they were doing genital surgery on babies, and sent them a message saying, quote, “There is a bomb on the way to the hospital, you better evacuate everybody you sickos.” Oh, not a text message. This was a phone call. So the hospital was locked down, a bomb squad was dispatched. Of course, no explosive devices were found because, like… they’re way more interested in making noise than action, I think. But uh, authorities then were very quickly able to trace the call to a phone subscribed in her name and establish that the phone’s GPS indicated that it was in her home at the time that the telephone call was made. And uh, yeah. So they searched the place, found the phone. She had an interview with law enforcement at the time and she said “Yeah, Boston Children’s Hospital is fuckin’ sickos.” Like [chuckles] “They’re doin’ surgeries on babies.” Like, it’s just- Oh my god.
KYLE GETZ
Well, okay… they’re doing surgeries on babies and that’s called “circumcision”, so… [both chuckle] if you’re worried about surgeries on babies, let’s start there. But you’re- They’re the “sickos”? You’re the one that called in a bomb threat on a children’s hospital. Jesus Christ, man!
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yep. Yep. It’s just so- Oh my God. It’s not happening.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, I don’t understand. Like, there are so many actual problems that we could be focusing our time and attention on, that are not this made up horseshit.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, like- And again – I go back and forth on this – even if it were true, it’s not just because this little girl wakes up one day and says “I want a penis now,” like, and then they just do it with no, like- Like, it’s a team of doctors and psychiatrists, and, like, they involve the parents, and it’s got to be- It’s not just the capriciousness of a child. And this- Anyway… And, it’s not happening. Like, that’s the other thing.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. [Mike sighs] It’s something that- It would- It sounds scary, and so I could imagine someone being worried about it… and then you look into it for a second and you learn it’s not, and then you get to stop there. Like, yes, be worried about the potential dangers that may befall children of all kinds. Let’s all be worried about it and care about children.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, I don’t care that much. Good ahead.
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] Or we don’t care about kids. They can fend for themselves. [both chuckle] Whatever.
MIKE JOHNSON
No, yeah, you’re right. You’re super right. Well, she faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 If she’s convicted on both counts. And uh, given that it’s Boston and super-ass liberal, the chances of that are pretty good, I think.
KYLE GETZ
Good.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah! Anyway… news the second?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, The Trevor Project has named their Suicide Prevention Advocate of the Year and has selected this year Dylan Mulvaney.
KYLE GETZ
Yaaaay.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yaaaay! She’s the reason I drink Bud Light now. Um, with her- [Kyle laughs] With her Days of Girlhood series of videos on TikTok, which has amassed over a billion views, The Trevor Project says that she has, quote, “emerged as a beacon of trans joy, positivity, and inspiration for the LGBTQ community.” Um, and like I alluded to just a moment ago, she’s gotten a lot of hate from anti-trans forces because she promoted Bud Light beer. So…
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
…But Light needed to be cancelled, I guess. I legit- I mean, I’m doing keto now again, Kyle, so I’m not drinking a lot of beer. But when I was drinking beer until very recently, I legit would, like, look for Bud Light and have one just because… somebody’s gotta reward that behavior. [laughs]
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah. How’d that Bud Light taste, Mike?
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s so bad. [both laugh] I hate it so much.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
But I, you know, felt-
KYLE GETZ
But you were supporting them.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, exactly right. It was- Anti-bigot Bud Light tastes delicious inside my soul.
KYLE GETZ
Mhm. Yes. [chuckles] Your tongue hated it but your soul loved it.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] Kevin Wong, who’s the senior vice president of marketing, communications, and content at The Trevor Project, said, quote, “In a world where LGBTQ young people too often face adversity and discrimination, Dylan Mulvaney stands as a source of light and hope, reminding us that there is strength in unity and power in vulnerability,” “Dylan is an exemplary possibility model for LGBTQ young people to envision a world for themselves where they can be happy, successful, and thrive openly and authentically.”
KYLE GETZ
Aw.
MIKE JOHNSON
Apparently she raised nearly $200,000 for The Trevor Project with her “Day 365 Live!” cabaret performance. Don’t know what that is, but it sounds exhausting. [Kyle laughs] Uh, but she- It was all a “Days of Girlhood” series that she did that celebrated her transition. And uh, yeah, she just seems- She just seems really great, and she’s adorable.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Good for her for doing all that work, and being out, and open, and visible. And she’s dealt with a lot of flak and shit, so, you know…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Awesome to have people like that out.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. And, like… we need to, like- I wish that we could get more mileage, actually- More traction, not mileage. But I think we should get more traction out of the truth, that to be anti-trans is killing kids because they will harm themselves and commit suicide in an unsupportive environment. Like, it- I just don’t- Like, regardless of how you feel in your heart about whether you understand it or support it, you can’t get around the fact that it directly causes suicide. So, like…
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
…at the very least, shut the fuck up.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
If not, get on board and be helpful.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. They don’t care about that, they just care about what God says, and God apparently does not care about children, I guess. I don’t know.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Um, okay, news the last.
KYLE GETZ
Great.
MIKE JOHNSON
US Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has died at age 90, and, um, she’s been a champion of LGBTQ+ equality, with a couple of exceptions that I’m going to go into. I think it’s important to not just, you know, make her a savior. But uh, some things I did not know about Dianne Feinstein: she was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the time that Harvey Milk was assassinated.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, I didn’t realize that either.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, apparently, she’s the one that found his body.
KYLE GETZ
Oh my god.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. But she started in 1969 and was on the board in 1978 when that board passed the most far-reaching gay rights ordinance in the nation, at least, you know, at the time. She became acting mayor in November of 1978, when Mayor George Moscone was assassinated along with Supervisor Harvey Milk. She was the one who found Milk’s body and the one who announced their deaths to the public as acting mayor. She referred to that day as, quote, “one of the darkest of my life.” She said that she regretted that she hadn’t been able to do something to stop Dan White, who was the shooter. He was the one that used the Twinkie defense, as you may recall. He resigned from the board of supervisors but changed his mind and wanted his position back but the mayor had already appointed someone else, and she wanted to explain that decision to him but never got the chance. She sort of felt that maybe he could be reasoned with, which… I don’t know, maybe seems like survivor’s guilt to me. Uh, she was mayor of San Francisco and uh, in 1982, vetoed an ordinance that would have allowed unmarried couples to register their domestic partnerships and extended spousal benefits to the same-sex partners of city employees. She said later that she didn’t oppose the concept at all, but that she just thought it was really shitty- “Shittily”? That’s not a word. …Poorly written law.
KYLE GETZ
Gotcha.
MIKE JOHNSON
And uh, San Francisco eventually got there and adopted a very similar ordinance in 1989. She ordered the city’s bathhouses to be closed during the HIV crisis, which is pretty controversial…
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
…and stigmatizing.
KYLE GETZ
We talked about that on the episode about San Francisco.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. I just didn’t- I didn’t connect the dots until she died that it was her. Like, when we were like “The mayor of San Francisco,” blah, blah, blah… like, that was Dianne Feinstein, was [chuckles] the one that was doing that.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, but she was elected to the Senate in 1992. She’s the longest-serving woman in the history of the Senate. She was only 1 of 14 senators that voted against DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. She favored civil unions publicly instead of full marriage equality, but that was something that even fuckin’ Barack Obama did. Like, just, things have moved so quickly. You sort of had to politically toe the line of saying “everything but marriage” if you were a Democrat.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, um, I don’t believe for a second that she was, like, not actually on board, you know what I mean?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, she spoke against California’s Prop 8, in 2008, which would have amended their state constitution to revoke marriage equality. And she also introduced legislation in Congress to repeal DOMA, in 2011. And she also introduced the newest version of the Respect for Marriage Act which makes marriage equality still US law even if the Supreme Court reverses Obergefell v. Hodges.
KYLE GETZ
Oh.
MIKE JOHNSON
Which, um- So, that actually- If the Supreme Court continues its crazy fuckin’ ridiculous trend of overturning rights for queer people and women… people of color – who knows? – at least marriage equality will stick around. Congress can undo that law, but it won’t automatically go back to no gay marriage in this country.
KYLE GETZ
That’s kinda nice, that there’s a little bit of a safety net. [chuckles] I didn’t realize that.
MIKE JOHNSON
A little bit of one, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She supports the – or, supported – the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Equality Act, Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. She had supported the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. She just… you know, except for maybe the bathhouses thing and not being as vocal about supporting marriage equality as she maybe could have been… she’s been just an absolute lion for gay people in the United States Senate. …Yeah, and I hope that her health issues and the calls for her to resign because she clearly was on the struggle bus for the last couple of years [both chuckle] don’t tarnish that reputation or legacy.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, but thanks, Dianne. You’ll be missed.
KYLE GETZ
Thanks, Big D.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckling] That’s the news. “Big D” is what we always call her, here on the show. [laughs]
KYLE GETZ
We always call her- We in the community always call her “Big D”. Um, speaking of other people with big Ds, I want to thank the following Patreon members: Gary… Oh Gary.
MIKE JOHNSON
Stands for “dollars”, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Stands for “Big Dollaz”. Thank you to Gary for having a single, easy name that even I couldn’t fuck up.
MIKE JOHNSON
Thanks, Gary.
KYLE GETZ
Thank you to Jacob Mundell. [gasps] Hi, Jacob.
MIKE JOHNSON
[gasps] Yeah, we know that bitch!
KYLE GETZ
Yeah! Uh, thank you to Patrick. Ooo, another name I’m not fuckin’ up.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, from SpongeBob maybe?
KYLE GETZ
Yep, from SpongeBob… [Mike chuckles] under the sea. …Carlos Calderon, and Roman alexander.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh.
KYLE GETZ
Oh.
MIKE JOHNSON
That seems redundant, right?
KYLE GETZ
…What? [Mike chuckles] …Oh, okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
No, he was Greek. Never mind, it’s fine.
KYLE GETZ
Got it. Got it. I gotchu. I’m with you now. Um, thank you to all of our Patreon members. I don’t know if we say this: we use Patreon funds to do things like have Derek, our producer, we do things like buy equipment, we do our live show tour because of it. So, we couldn’t do all the things that we do without your support. So, thank you so much. If you want to support us, go to patreon.com/gayishpodcast.
MIKE JOHNSON
Also, speaking of Derek, it’s his birthday. Send him gifts and/or bring them with you to the show in Houston and give them to him in person.
KYLE GETZ
Yeaaah! We have our PO box on gayishpodcast.com/contact.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaaah, do it.
KYLE GETZ
Do you wanna talk about Houston?
MIKE JOHNSON
No.
KYLE GETZ
Okay. [Mike laughs] Alright. Bye, everybody.
MIKE JOHNSON
Let’s talk about Houston! You’re from Houston, Kyle. You’re from Katy, but it’s Houston.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. It’s the suburbs of Houston, yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Do you claim Houston?
KYLE GETZ
Whenever I talk to people that are not from Texas I say “Houston” just because, like, who’s gonna know the names of suburbs? But if I am talking to someone who is actually from Texas I will say “Katy”, because people will know where that is.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, I am gonna talk to you about the history of Houston.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
Just a couple of little things though.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
Not too much. Well, okay, so first some stuff about Houston though that I thought was, like, at least mildly interesting. It is the 4th most populous city in the US. I don’t- I knew it was up there but I wouldn’t have said “4th”.
KYLE GETZ
Oh. Yeah, I probably woulda.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, that’s a big-ass city.
KYLE GETZ
It’s a big-ass city.
MIKE JOHNSON
New York, LA, and Chicago are the only ones with more people in this country. Let’s see… It is also, like, physically large. It’s not just populous, but it is spread out as fuck. It’s 640 square miles, so it actually has a really low population density, comparatively speaking, which I thought-
KYLE GETZ
Yep!
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, go ahead.
KYLE GETZ
There’s tons of space. Like, housing, that’s why housing is cheaper. And… yeah, there’s just, like… You have to have a car.
MIKE JOHNSON
There’s- I hate it. [Kyle chuckles] Don’t tell LA, but it’s also, like, why I hate LA. It’s the same thing, of just, like… so spread out. Oh my god.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
I don’t hate LA.
KYLE GETZ
Do you?
MIKE JOHNSON
Well… I have fun every time I’m there.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, good!
MIKE JOHNSON
…But I would not wanna live there.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, same.
MIKE JOHNSON
Um, okay, so the history of Houston, Kyle. Do you know about the history of Houston?
KYLE GETZ
Absolutely not.
MIKE JOHNSON
I think this story is hilarious.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
So, [chuckles] basically, there were these brothers, and they were named John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, and they were a couple of entrepreneurs that bought a bunch of land where these two bayous came together. So, they legit were looking for a place to found a town, which, like, shit that can’t happen now, right? You can’t just, like, go wandering around in the prairie looking for places to start your own city, but that’s what these two motherfuckers did. [Kyle chuckles] And, on August 26th of 1836, they bought a bunch of land from Elizabeth E. Parrott who- a bunch of land. They paid $5,000 total but only $1,000 of it was cash, the rest was a loan. And then they’re like “How do we make this town amazing? I know, let’s try to make it the capital of Texas,” because then Texas was still its own country, the Republic of Texas, and their plan to make it the capital of Texas when it was being arranged was to name it “Houston”, after Sam Houston. Sam Houston was the… uh, he basically made the Texas Revolution happen, right? Like, Texas gained its independence from Mexico… uh, “Remember the Alamo,” blah, blah, blah. [Kyle chuckles] But what’s interesting about that, to me, is a couple of things. First, Sam Houston is like George Washington to Texas, in that, like, lots of, like, myths and “Don’t talk bad about him if you don’t want to get punched.” Like, just weird godlike sort of stuff about him. Also, he was still alive. So they’re- [chuckles] They’re like- Their plan was “Let’s name this town after this dude that everyone loves, who still exists.” And because, just like Washington, DC is named “Washington” for George Washington because there’s this, like, legendary myth of a person… that’s gotta work, right? Well, uh… so it sort of did. [Kyle chuckles] So, there were 12 people that lived in Houston in 1837, they named it Houston and said “Move the capital here, please,” and because they named it Houston and were using basically this man’s fame to accomplish that, they had 1,500 people moved there in six months.
KYLE GETZ
Wow. I’m starting a little city and I’m gonna to call it “Taylor”.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] After Taylor Swift?
KYLE GETZ
After Taylor Swift. And so we’ll all move- Or should I name it “Swift”? Which is the better city name, “Taylor” or “Swift”?
MIKE JOHNSON
I think probably “Swift”, if only because… there’s a lot of famous Taylors. Like, people might think that-
KYLE GETZ
There’s Lautner…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Taylor… I can’t think of literally any other Taylors, but-
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay. I was thinking like the president… Taylor, but anyway, it’s fine.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, yeah. Famous- [chuckles] Famous celebrity, President Taylor. Um, yeah, I’m gonna start a city named “Swift” and we’re all gonna move there because her tour is doin’ so good.
MIKE JOHNSON
But we gotta buy the land first so that we’re the motherfuckers that get rich off of-
KYLE GETZ
That’s true.
MIKE JOHNSON
-everybody moving to this town. Anyway, okay, so-
KYLE GETZ
Patreon.com/gayishpodcast.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. We’re gonna buy a town, everybody. [both chuckle] You can move there, it’s gonna be gay as fuck. [both chuckle] Okay, so… So they did all of this by running ads… the Telegraph and the Texas Register, especially in the city of Galveston, but also in other parts of Texas, saying, like, “Come suck Sam Houston’s dick by living in the town he’s named for”-kind of thing. [Kyle chuckles] So, let’s see… blah, blah, blah, there’s a history of enslaving people, that’s not great, in Texas’s history, and Houston’s history is not immune to that, unfortunately. Um, but, so, they were- They succeeded though. In 1837, the Texas Congress convened in Houston as the new capital of the people’s Republic of Texas. And so, that whole scheme worked. So, what I wanna- What I wanna talk about a little bit though is this John Kirby Allen guy, one of the two brothers. Probably gay. [Kyle gasps] The reason I say that is because, like a lot of history, he has the sentence in his bio, quote, “He never married,” which, that’s-
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. “He never married,” [Mike chuckles] that’s the sentence. Yeah. Or “Lifelong bachelor,” is always the sentence.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yeah. So, uh, his brother was married. His brother, um, there was some, like, shady shit going on with his wife’s estate, I guess, that doesn’t make a whole ton of sense – his brother Augustus – because she died and he got an inheritance and that was part of what they bought the land for Houston with. Anyway, I’m starting- I’m putting it out there in the universe that, like, one of the two main founders of Houston, one of the Allen brothers, was a homosexual because he never married.
KYLE GETZ
Interesting.
MIKE JOHNSON
Ummm… so, let’s see… Just two years later, in 1839, there was a yellow fever epidemic that killed 1 in 8 people living in Houston.
KYLE GETZ
Holy shit.
MIKE JOHNSON
And uh, they moved the capital to Austin. [both chuckle]
KYLE GETZ
Wah-wah.
MIKE JOHNSON
It was the capital of Texas for two years, and then they moved to Austin.
KYLE GETZ
I didn’t realize that.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Tada. There you go. [Kyle chuckles] Um, yeah, that’s really all I wanted to talk about right now, like, history-wise. I just thought it was really interesting that there was a potential homosexual that started Houston.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah, did they say anything about, like, cavorting with men at the nighttime, or..?
MIKE JOHNSON
No, not that I’ve-
KYLE GETZ
And he associated with some other dude?
MIKE JOHNSON
Mmm… Well, so, they did have- There was a group of entrepreneurs from Nacogdoches that got together, and I don’t know if they were in bed together just, like, financially, or actually in bed together. [Kyle chuckles] He did convince a bunch of dudes that they needed to invest in Houston.
KYLE GETZ
Ooo.
MIKE JOHNSON
Let’s see… He did have a partner, a business partner, James Pinckney Henderson.
KYLE GETZ
[gasps] Boyfriend!
MIKE JOHNSON
Boyfriend. We could totally- We could totally start that rumor. Uh, he was married to a woman named Francis Cox and they had a bunch of kids, so…
KYLE GETZ
Oh.
MIKE JOHNSON
Maybe- Maybe- Maybe not? But who knows. Being married doesn’t make you not gay, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
That’s true. That is true.
MIKE JOHNSON
The other things that I did want to say though, about Houston: Houston has a bunch of nicknames, and I don’t know if any of them- Like, have you ever heard it called “Bayou City”, or do you call it “Bayou City”?
KYLE GETZ
I’ve heard it called “Bayou City”. I was gonna- When you said it was by two bayous, I was gonna say “Bayou City”, but I should have.
MIKE JOHNSON
Mm. Mm. Or “Space City”?
KYLE GETZ
I don’t think I’ve heard that one. I mean, NASA’s there, so that’s cool.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, NASA’s there, which, like… God, it’s gotta be a lot of smart people down there. Uh, “The 713”, which I assume is the area code.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
But is it like Seattle, where, like, there’s actually more than one area code but, like, that’s the OG area code that people-?
KYLE GETZ
There’s more than one area code.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, you’re fancier if you have a 206 number?
KYLE GETZ
Oh, prob- I don’t know the implications of a 713. I know that is one of the area codes though. But Houston’s so big nowadays, there must be a million these days.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, at least according to Wikipedia, they call it “H-Town” town.
KYLE GETZ
H-Town, yeah!
MIKE JOHNSON
Which… that seems harder. It’s harder for my mouth to make those sounds than “Houston”. H-Town.
KYLE GETZ
But it sounds so cool!
MIKE JOHNSON
H-Town. No. Hate it. [Kyle chuckles] And then I’ll end with just, like, a little bit of weather history, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Ooh.
MIKE JOHNSON
I’m interested in your-
KYLE GETZ
Mosquitoes!
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. [chuckles] That’s not really a weather system.
KYLE GETZ
I know. Eh, it feels like it sometimes.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, true or false: it snows in Houston sometimes. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
It ha- Well, it has snowed in Katy. I remember, when I was a kid, we were doing our Christmas play and then it started snowing when we finished our last song. And so we were all, like, wearing these mittens and hats which you would never need. It was for the show. Because you would never need mittens in Houston, and it started snowing and we all ran outside and it was really exciting. And then it- Like, it’s the littlest kind of snow that melts on the ground. So it doesn’t even stick around, but yes, it has snowed there before.
MIKE JOHNSON
Now, this is really interesting to me – I think it’s interesting, anyway – from 1895 to 2018, how many times did it ever snow?
KYLE GETZ
Oh God.
MIKE JOHNSON
How many times was there measurable snowfall in those 123 years? [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Um, 5. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s a great guess. Only 38 times. But, like, that’s just wild to me.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, it snows- It snows in Seattle, like… basically every year at least once.
KYLE GETZ
Every… couple years, yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
But, uh, on February 14th and 15th, 1895, apparently Houston received 20 inches of snow, which is the largest snowfall from one storm that has ever happened.
KYLE GETZ
Wow.
MIKE JOHNSON
And I can’t even imagine… Like, in my mind, because it never snows in Houston, if it is gonna threaten to snow, the whole city goes into a fuckin’ panic and people run for the grocery stores and they close schools and shit.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
They can’t even handle flakes of snow that immediately melt, much less 20-ass inches. Ohhh my god.
KYLE GETZ
There was one time, when I was going to school in Austin, it, like, iced over and we couldn’t deal with ice. Everything shut down because, like, we didn’t have the tools to deal with icy shit. So yeah, there’s no way we’d have the tools to deal with 20 inches of snow.
MIKE JOHNSON
I guess that’s it. That’s good.
KYLE GETZ
Okay! Then I’m gonna tell you about the LGBT… kinda consensus of Houston.
MIKE JOHNSON
Great. Okay.
KYLE GETZ
Um, so, this is-
MIKE JOHNSON
This is gayta.
KYLE GETZ
This is gayta, yes. This is back to our old reliable Williams Institute, which is the Public Policy Research Institute based out of UCLA School of Law focused on sexual orientation and gender identity issues, and this is the same thing I use for… I think it was the LA show that we did. Or, what-? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s the same data that I’ve used before, but I wanted to talk about it for Houston. So, there is both the raw number of gay people – so raw, so gay – [Mike chuckles] and there is the percentage of gay people that are in Houston. So, in the top 10 list we got, like, number 1: New York. Oh, that’s where I used- I used this data for the New York- Doesn’t matter. …New York number 1, in terms of the raw number of gay people. LA’s number 2. Chicago’s number 3. It’s interesting, you mentioned the top 3 – or, the top cities – in population…
MIKE JOHNSON
Mhm. Mhm.
KYLE GETZ
…Houston is not number 4.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh, really? [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
It’s not number 5, it’s not even number 10. It is number 11, in terms of the number of people- of gay people.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s really interesting.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Where are they all instead? [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Well, Dallas has a higher number. So, um, New York – just for reference, New York, the number 1 city – has 700,000 LGB- I should be saying “LGBT people”. Dallas is number 6, with 211,000.
MIKE JOHNSON
Wait, Kyle, did I pick the wrong Texas City for our tour?
KYLE GETZ
Yes. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh no.
KYLE GETZ
Houston is number 11, with 170,000.
MIKE JOHNSON
…Okay.
KYLE GETZ
So, Dallas is way more gay than Houston.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s a lot of people though. That’s a lot of homosexuals.
KYLE GETZ
That is plenty of homos, I will give you that. In terms of the percentage: number 1, San Francisco; number 2, Portland; number 3 is Austin. So, Austin has 5.9% of LGBT people, based on the metro area. This is all metro areas, so it’s pretty inclusive. Um, Seattle’s number 4, LA’s number 5. Houston doesn’t even rank in the top 25 cities.
MIKE JOHNSON
Whoaaaa.
KYLE GETZ
Houston has 3.5% LGBT people.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay. Okay. I mean, that- Okay. That tells me though that, like, there’s a pretty narrow range, right? It’s not like it’s 1%. Like, it’s- There’s just a long tail there or whatever. Like, there’s some super gay-ass cities and then, like, everybody else is kind of, like, pretty gay… [chuckles] but not-
KYLE GETZ
I don’t know. It’s- When you compare it to, like- The top 5 all has 5% or more people. Yeah, I don’t know. So, Houston doesn’t rank among the top 25, but DFW has 4% gay people. San Antonio has 4.4%.
MIKE JOHNSON
Mm!
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Austin had 5.9% gay people. So it looks to me like Houston is actually not that gay, considering it is the 4th largest city. Like, considering how big it is, it is not as gay as it should be, I guess is what I’m saying.
MIKE JOHNSON
I wonder why.
KYLE GETZ
I wonder why. It’s because it’s conservative, it’s a lot of oil and gas companies that are there… I think it’s, like, ehh… it’s a kind of a shitty place to live. I’m from there, [chuckles] so I’m allowed to say that, I think. I don’t- I didn’t love- It’s, like, humid. I don’t know. I didn’t love living in- I never actually lived in Houston city proper, so I guess I’m just talking about my experience in the suburbs of Houston. So-
MIKE JOHNSON
You should’ve shit on Houston and pissed them off right before our show there, Kyle. [laughs]
KYLE GETZ
Come on out to our show, everybody! …I don’t know, I think it’s really conservative, especially compared to places- I mean, for sure compared to Austin, but even compared to Dallas. Like, compared to other cities, it’s just a really conservative place to be.
MIKE JOHNSON
‘Kay. I wonder if there’s also… Like, New Orleans is pretty close. Austin is pretty close. Like, there’s a- There’s this phenomenon we’ve seen before, of, like, there are some cities that become “the gay one” just, again, because we’ve decided that it’s the gay one, and that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And it creates, like, a rainbow drain in a region. Atlanta-
KYLE GETZ
“A rainbow drain”, wow! That’s what I call my butthole.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] Just goes in there and… goes away.
KYLE GETZ
Never comes out.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] Um, Atlanta gets that sort of reputation – right? – that, like, there’s no gay people for this huge-ass radius around Atlanta.
KYLE GETZ
Huh. I hadn’t write Atlanta down on my list. We’ll have to do an episode on Atlanta, and we’ll find out what its percentage is.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh, okay.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, um, talking about numbers and whatnot: for the Patreon segment, I’m gonna talk to you about the Municipal Equality Index, which is… the Human Rights Campaign, HRC, has, like, a whole system for, like, rating how good-at-gay-shit cities are, so I was gonna- I’m gonna talk to you about that.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
…And tell you where Houston sits.
KYLE GETZ
Oooh, I’m really curious how good they are at gay shit, especially knowing that they’re a smaller percentage of gay people than I would expect given the population. I wonder how they fare in, uh, in gay equality.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Spoiler alert! …It’s a number. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
[laughs] What do you want to do next? Should I tell you about a celebrity that’s from there?
MIKE JOHNSON
Ummm… no.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
I’m gonna tell you about The Wagon Wheel.
KYLE GETZ
Oh okay. I don’t know what that is.
MIKE JOHNSON
The Wagon Wheel… I wish, I wish, I wish we could have gone, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
What’s The Wagon wheel?
MIKE JOHNSON
It was a bar that opened in 1936. So, let’s think about that. This is before World War II. This is… just- That’s the zone right after Prohibition. And it was branded as “The Wagon Wheel Nite Club”. And I have a flyer, I’ll send it to Derek, maybe, so he can do, like, social media stuff with it. But it says “The Wagon Wheel Nite Club”, “Airline Road at Little York”, “UNIQUE RENDEZVOUS featuring Female Impersonators of Distinction”. [Kyle gasps] It was a drag bar.
KYLE GETZ
Ooo.
MIKE JOHNSON
So there a- Houston had a drag queen bar in 1936.
KYLE GETZ
Woooow.
MIKE JOHNSON
They said it was- They used the branding “A Unique Rendezvous For Stay-Uppers”, which, I don’t know, has something to do with math, maybe? [Kyle laughs] But uh, “Dave Gold And his groupe of Female Impersonators of Distinction featuring MURRY PICKFORD (Male Sally Rand)”, I don’t know what that means, “MICKEY DELL ([an] Exotic Dancer) DOT WILLIAMS ([as] Modern Hulla) JOHNNY KAYE ([as] Slave of Fashion)” …that’s a problem, um, “LEE NORRE (Cyclone of Dance) JEAN LANE ([as] Strip Ala-Minskey) [and] GOLDEN DEVINE (Sweet Singer of Songs) and DEL LEROY (Houston’s Own Boy Stylist) [and] PETE VAN and his PLAY BOY BAND”. They, uh- The Houstonian ran an article on them, in 1937, that said “The Wagon Wheel Night Club, located four and [a half] miles from North Main on the Airline Road at Little York, is featuring Daisy Gold and his sensational Gay Boy revue, which is proving quite popular with night club followers. Since there are no night clubs with floor shows left in Houston, the Wagon Wheel has been playing to capacity crowds. Dave Beckerman, former manager of the club Casanova, operates this nite [club].” “Three floor shows are held nightly and a cordial invitation is extended to the public by Manager Dave Beckerman, who promises something different.” So… it’s just wild to me that, like- This keeps coming up over and over again: gay people did not spring out of the earth at Stonewall.
KYLE GETZ
Right. Right.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, there was not just underground queer shit happening. There was overt, in-your-face queer shit happening all over the place, including Houston-fucking-Texas in 1936.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah. And you’ve also said that it also- gay shit didn’t just come from New York City.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah!
KYLE GETZ
Like, there are plenty of other places that were super gay, and it’s not just- It wasn’t just Stonewall and it wasn’t just in New York.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
…or in San Francisco. It was other places too.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep! Yeah. So- And, Houston- Houston had all these drag queens. So, the- But that doesn’t mean it was necessarilyyyy… great.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
So, uh, there was a grand jury that was convened in 1938 [Kyle gasps] to study The Wagon Wheel.
KYLE GETZ
I didn’t know they could… summon grand juries to do that.
MIKE JOHNSON
I- Uh, May 1938, The Houston Press says “[A] grand jury will turn its attention tomorrow to the type of entertainment being presented at the Wagon Wheel Night Club.” Quote, “‘I’ll call it to the attention of the grand jury,’ Mr. McPhail said,” who is the foreman of the jury. Uh, “[This] club specializes in female impersonators who sing lewd songs and do obscene dances. ‘I’m strong for stopping that stuff,’ Mr. McPhail said.”
KYLE GETZ
Mhm.
MIKE JOHNSON
So, then, turns out, on June 10, 1938 someone lit it on fire. [Kyle gasps] Uh, “The Wagon Wheel Night Club was destroyed in a fire on the Dallas-Houston highway last night and caused damages estimated at $19,000.” It is blamed on arson. Um, and police believed that it was set by two men who were seen to run from the building 15 minutes before the blaze was discovered. And then all of those drag queens that were playing there started appearing at other clubs in other towns, Corpus Christi in particular apparently, like, got a bunch of those drag queens, because a lot of the same names appear in the flyers for these other places. East Liverpool, Ohio, one of them ended up there. But they just, like, scattered to the winds and, like, I don’t know, maybe that’s why Houston’s not a gay town.
KYLE GETZ
Huh.
MIKE JOHNSON
Maybe, like- You know. I don’t know how long it takes to recover from that kind of a kind of a… that kind of a incident, but yeah. Like, there’s a narrative where their happy gay drag queen club got burnt to the ground so they all scattered to the winds and made other cities gayer instead.
KYLE GETZ
Mm. There’s also this kind of thing that it seems like it’s a similar thing to what happens today, is someone makes this big public show of investigating or putting gay people on trial and that then riles up the base of some group, and then they do the horrible shitty thing that is- that was- You know, it just kinda riles up that group, and that’s what caused them to care about this place and burn it down.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. And then how do you- How do you, like, prove? …It’s like January 6th and the riot at the Capitol, right? Like, when Donald Trump is like “You gotta show up and you gotta fight like hell,” and then a bunch of people go there and, like, break all of the glass and try to kill a police officer… is he responsible for that? Right?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah…
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, is a bunch of- Is this foreman – this investigator – who’s like “Grand jury, we gotta run these sickos out of town,” and then they burn their club down… is that his fault? I- Maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard- And the same thing is happening with trans people now, right?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly what I was thinking, yeah. What is the- And, I mean, I guess, nowadays, I do blame it on the politicians that are pushing this narrative. So yeah, I guess they are at fault if they say that- Or, that- Putting together a grand jury for this club sounds like that- what we would call today “just asking questions”. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
Right. Right.
KYLE GETZ
You know?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Like “Oh, no, we were just investigating to see if there was any wrongdoing.” That seems like “Well, we were just asking the question.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yep, yep. Uh, the last thing that I wanted to tell you about this, this whole thing, is Houston… fined this girl named Madge Morris for walking down the street dressed in “man’s garb”.
KYLE GETZ
Oohh.
MIKE JOHNSON
She pled guilty and, quote, “Policemen Bass and Spradley arrested her Sunday night in the Fourth ward. The officers noticed a rather [quote] ‘dudish young fellow,’” [Kyle chuckles] “they told the judge, sauntering down a street, and when ‘he’ was asked to lift ‘his’ hat a bunch of hair revealed that ‘he’ was a woman. She told the officers that she had been attired in the garb but a ‘few minutes,’ when arrested,” and they fined her $12.45, which, this was in 1912, which is about $300 today.
KYLE GETZ
Wow. You always hear about the opposite, like men wearing women’s clothes. Like, you know, I imagine drag queens… but the opposite happened, that’s interesting.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. Anyway, that’s just some- That’s some gay-ass shit. I just- The Wagon Wheel sounds like it was amazing.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah!
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, there’s all of these pictures of these drag queens. If you wanna see what drag queens from the ‘30s look like, there’s this flyer. Like I said, I just sent it to Derek. And um, they- It sounds like what drag queens do today. Like, they were singin’ songs, and tellin’ jokes, and being nasty. [Kyle chuckles] And, um, I wish, I wish I could just, like, go one night when it was in its heyday and see, you know, what’s the same and what’s changed.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, that’d be interesting. Huh. That’s cool that existed.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. …Sorry it got burned down. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Speaking of… things that are fun and exist, I guess…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, sure. Celebrities! Are you gonna talk about Beyoncé?
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] …Yeah. [laughs]
MIKE JOHNSON
Are you really? [laughs]
KYLE GETZ
Yeah!
MIKE JOHNSON
Great. I was like “What gay-ass celebrities do I know are from Houston?” and…
KYLE GETZ
Yep!
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay, great.
KYLE GETZ
Beyoncé said, in the song Run the World (Girls)…
MIKE JOHNSON
Girls!
KYLE GETZ
Girls! …“Boy, this beat is crazy. This is how they made me. Houston, Texas, baby.” She, uh, is- often mentions Houston or the Third Ward in her songs. She reminds us that she is from Houston and she is a gay-ass celebrity.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Well, she’s not gay-ass, but gay-asses love her.
KYLE GETZ
Gay-asses love her. So many asses that are so gay love her. I read about her Renaissance tour in an article on Pitchfork. And this is- You know, this and Taylor Swift are, like, the biggest tours right now. These tickets… Gays were waiting, you know, the second the tickets came out, to buy these tickets. And I see even more gays, I think, for Beyoncé, like, putting together outfits and wearing, like, you know, black and sparkly shit to her concert. Um, do you s- You’re shaking your head. Do you see this as well? People-
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think maybe the outfits are my favorite.
KYLE GETZ
Mm.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, people go all fuckin’ out.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And I just- I love me some good people watching.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, absolutely. Um, Pitchfork says “Her vehement demand for joy as an intervention was on full display,” about the concert, which, I think it’s referencing the fact that, these days, and especially for LGBT people – maybe that’s my own view – there’s a lot of, like, hardship and rough stuff going out in the world, and so it is injecting this sense of joy and power into the world, which I think is great. Her- Have you seen this? Her 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, dances beside her in the song MY POWER, and BLACK PARADE.
MIKE JOHNSON
No, but that sounds adorable as fuck.
KYLE GETZ
She’s… okay at dancing. [laughs]
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh, great. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
I mean, better dancer than me, so I’ll give her that.
MIKE JOHNSON
Is she better than Ariana Grande, who cannot dance?
KYLE GETZ
Uh, you know, I think she could take Ariana Grande. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay.
KYLE GETZ
I love your theory that Ariana Grande can’t dan- What does she- Just kinda wiggles her hands around a little bit?
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s not a theory, I have solid evidence that I’m happy to share [Kyle chuckles] with anyone who wants to go down this rabbit hole with me.
KYLE GETZ
Is it the video Rain On Me?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yes!
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] She can jump.
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, she does a good job of jumping to the beat of the music, that’s true.
KYLE GETZ
That’s- I mean, to be fair, that’s how I dance… you know?
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s a good- It’s a good one.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s a good “I don’t know what to do with my body, so I’m just gonna jump up and down.” [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
I’d rather be drunk, but at least I’m alive.
MIKE JOHNSON
Right.
KYLE GETZ
Um, in her Renaissance tour, dancers and performers include people who are nonbinary, trans, plus-size and, apparently, in the case of a trumpeter for her famous all-woman band… pregnant. [Mike gasps softly] So it sounds like she’s doing a good job of incorporating a variety of different kinds of people in her… you know, in the casting and the performance of her shows. This Pitchfork article talked about how she let voguers vogue. So, people like Darius Hickman, Carlos Basquiat, and Honey Balenciaga, allowed them to express the beauty of voguing, apparently, during the show, which I did not realize that they did that during the show, which is awesome.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus, it’s- Like, it’s less exploitative because she’s not White like Madonna was when she stole voguing. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Totally. And, apparently, the day before the show that this Pitchfork writer went to, O’Shea Sibley was murdered, and that was the murder that took place because O’Shea was dancing to Beyoncé.
MIKE JOHNSON
At the gas station, yeah.
KYLE GETZ
And, apparently- Uh, yeah, at the gas station. So that was kind of a defining moment that then made the Renaissance show, I think, all the more meaningful, that happened the day after.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah. But something I wanted to talk about is: I feel like Taylor Swift gets so much of the credit for having the biggest tour of the… of the moment. I always see Taylor Swift come up as, like, “This is the biggest tour, this is who’s hot right now,” the Eras Tour, blah, blah, blah… and I don’t see Beyoncé show up as much.
MIKE JOHNSON
Hm. Hm.
KYLE GETZ
Do you feel the same way about their tours?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yes, I do. And I also think… Um, it’s weird to me, like, who has the biggest concerts. Like, that’s… Don’t concert sell out all the time, and then it’s really just a question of venue? Like, I- I don’t know. It’s weird.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, we’ve sold out shows too.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. [Kyle laughs] It’s just- It’s just weird, to me.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, like, when she was in Seattle recently she played whatever… whatever arena it was… the football field. What’s our football field called now? “Lumen”?
KYLE GETZ
“Lumen”. Are you talking about Beyoncé, or Taylor Swift?
MIKE JOHNSON
Taylor Swift.
KYLE GETZ
Mm.
MIKE JOHNSON
And, like, “Oh, it’s the biggest concert that’s ever happened,” 80-sumn-thousand people or whatever the fuck. And then, like, the next week it was like “But Ed Sheeran beat her by like four people,” or whatever.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, did he really?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah, there was an article about that. I’m like “BFD. Why are we-” Let’s work on the climate, you know?
KYLE GETZ
[laughs] Oh, you mean Climate Pledge Arena, that we have here in Seattle?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
That’s going to fix the climate, right?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. Thanks, Jeff Bezos, for doing almost nothing. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
For doing nothing and naming a stadium the dumbest name that has ever been named. We have a stadium called “Climate Pledge Arena” and it is about Amazon’s pledge to help fix the climate or whatever. I don’t know what they’re actually doing, but…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, yeah. I still call it “Key Arena”.
KYLE GETZ
I… I don’t know what to- I just call them those two places. Um, I had to go to a baseball game not too long ago. I had to look up, like, “Where does baseball happen?” [Mike chuckles] so that I could go to the right stadium. Um, why don’t you- You don’t care about concerts, then? You don’t care about how big concerts are, or..?
MIKE JOHNSON
I mean… Pfft. [Kyle laughs] No, I don’t care, I gue- I guess I don’t care. Like, first of all, if you were at anywhere with 80,000 people, you probably not having fun. Like…
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] What do you mean?
MIKE JOHNSON
You’re gonna be- You’re gonna be so far away, or you’re gonna be crushed to death. I hate it. I hate- The crowds of that size terrify me.
KYLE GETZ
You don’t- Do you hate concerts? Do you not like going to concerts.
MIKE JOHNSON
I like going to concerts if I’m guaranteed to have a chair and nobody hassles me about the fact that I am gonna stand there with no look on my face at all and enjoy the music that’s happening. I’m not gonna scream, I’m not going to dance, I’m not gonna sing along. I’m going to placidly absorb the experience. And sometimes I’ve gone to concerts with people and they’re like “I think Mike hated it,” and I was like “No, it was fuckin’ amazing!” I just- This is how I- This is how I interact with this kind of a thing. And so I want to have a seat where, like, I can actually see them, study them, hear them well because it, like… it’s not making me deaf but I can still get all of the nuance of all of the music. And it’s just so hard to do. Like, major big concert venues are just this intense… I don’t know. It’s hard for me to, like, thoroughly enjoy that the way that I want to.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Man, I would say one of the worst things that you can do is, like, tell the person, like, “You look like you’re having a miserable time.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Like, because if it’s true, then pointing it out is not helpful, it’s just gonna make them more self-conscious about the fact that they’re… it’s very visible. And if it’s not true, then you’re saying basically, like, “You look like shit.” Like, there’s no good out- There’s no good outcome of saying that to someone.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. I agree.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. So, I don’t know, I think that… I am reminded of Adele saying “What does Beyoncé have to do to get Album of the Year?”
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah…
KYLE GETZ
And I think Beyoncé just always kinda gets second place in things, and it’s hard to explain that with anything other than racism, but I don’t… I don’t know. But yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
KYLE GETZ
I think her concert is as big- I don’t know. Surely there’s actual numbers that could tell me what’s true or not, but her concert, at least among the gays, seems to be an even bigger deal.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. And, again, if you fill every single seat in the biggest place that exists in a city…
KYLE GETZ
…You’re a rock star.
MIKE JOHNSON
Great, good work, you know?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
I know.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
What- Do you care about concert size?
KYLE GETZ
No. I mean, it’s- I am- would be less likely to- If everyone’s seeking out some kind of concert like this, I’d be less likely to go. Like, I’m not gonna dole out hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go to a concert. So, I think- I would be more likely- The one time I did try to get, like, the day the tickets came out, refresh the page and try to get tickets, was to Kesha a while ago and I didn’t- I didn’t get the tickets. So, that was the one time I tried. Her, or I might, like- Yeah, so, maybe – as I’m talking myself into – maybe for certain people I would care enough about them, but I don’t care enough about Beyoncé or Taylor Swift to try to, you know, dole out 100s of dollars. I might care about Kesha enough, I might care about Tove Lo enough, um, I might care- I’ve gone to a Britney concert but it was a little bit more reasonable back in- [like an old-timer] back in my day…
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
…um, it wasn’t as- It wasn’t this insane. So, I don’t know.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, it is wild to me how expensive shit is. Like, I just-
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, don’t you have- Don’t you have, like, a car payment, or, like, circuit parties to pay for? [both laugh]
KYLE GETZ
Don’t you have three-day circuit parties that you gotta pay for? Yeah. What else do you have?
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, I wanted to talk to you about that lesbian mayor.
KYLE GETZ
Okay!
MIKE JOHNSON
Houston had a lesbian mayor, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah!
MIKE JOHNSON
Do you remember her name?
KYLE GETZ
Fuck. Anne… somethin’.
MIKE JOHNSON
Annise Parker.
KYLE GETZ
Annise- [chuckles] I got the first two letters of her name right.
MIKE JOHNSON
You did so good. I’m so proud of you.
KYLE GETZ
Can I tell you what I remember of this?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yes. I want you to tell me what you remember.
KYLE GETZ
She got elected and my dad said that he thought that she tricked people into voting for her and then came out after that. So he was a little bit- He was critical of the fact that she, like, after elected, talked about being a lesbian. My point back to him was “If she had talked about being a lesbian during the course of the campaign, you would have criticized her for talking about being gay and ‘Why is that relevant to being an elected official?’” blah, blah. Like, there’s no good option for her to- um, for her election. And, plus, she was out and got elected a second time, so it clearly- Clearly people liked her enough. So, I think some of my dad’s inherent biases against gay people kind of shined through when her election happened.
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, so, there’s some problems there with your dad’s [chuckles] perception, in that she was, at the time- She did not come out after the election; she was out.
KYLE GETZ
Right.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, The New York Times- The morning after the election there was a runoff. Nobody got the majority of the votes needed on actual election day, in 2009. It went to a special election on December 11th and, uh, The New York Times said “Houston Is Largest City to Elect Openly Gay Mayor”. Like, so, the idea that she was, like, on the DL until after the election is just- it’s incorrect. And, even if- Even if! …Even if she had “tricked” everybody into not knowing she was a lesbian somehow, she was reelected in 2011, she was reelected in 2013. Like, that’s a “Fool you thrice, shame on your mom,” or something.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. [chuckles] Exactly. [Mike chuckles] Shame on God, or something.
MIKE JOHNSON
Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, she was- Um, she and her wife, Kathy Hubbard, have been together since 1990. Um, they got married in 2014, so maybe because she wasn’t married that’s- Uh, anyway, they have a couple of adopted children and lives in East Montrose, which, that’s where the gays are.
KYLE GETZ
Mhm.
MIKE JOHNSON
But uh, in June of 2020, Queerty named her among the 50 heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people.”
KYLE GETZ
Oh, no way.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. And I know that you lived in Seattle when all of this was going down, because she was elected in 2009 and you already lived here.
KYLE GETZ
Yep.
MIKE JOHNSON
But uh, I was wondering if you remember the crazy shit that went down with the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance.
KYLE GETZ
Mm-mm.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay, so, in 2014, she wrote a, um… ordinance called the “Houston Equal Rights Ordinance” and it, among other things, guaranteed that there would be no discrimination against people in housing and occupation, for- in the city of Houston, based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
KYLE GETZ
And, as a reminder to people, that is needed because we don’t have nationwide protection against these kinds of things, which is just horrifying and so backwards, but that’s why individual states or cities need to do this kind of shit.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep, absolutely. Well, so- So she wrote this HERO ordinance, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, and it passed the Houston City Council 11-6.
KYLE GETZ
I do remember this!
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. There was, like, a lot of discussion about, like, trans women in bathrooms that people were, like, fearmongering.
MIKE JOHNSON
HERO became known to some people as “the bathroom law” because the ordinance, in part, protected, quote, “transgender residents ability to use the restroom consistent with their gender expression, regardless of their biological sex.” Now, I- I mean, this is almost 10 years ago and, like, the landscape has changed so dramatically and quickly in the space of trans rights. I think, even though 2014 doesn’t feel like that long ago, this was early. This was, like, an early example. So, uh, then people were mad – big mad – and started this opposition thing, and they started gathering signatures to add a ballot measure to the November of 2014 ballot for that election to repeal the ordinance. Uh, city law required 17,296 valid signatures from registered Houston voters for a veto referendum petition, basically forcing it onto the ballot. Opponents of HERO presented about 50,000 signatures to the Houston city secretary’s office on the 3rd of July, 2014. So, then, this is- I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel about this, Kyle. The city then – again, with this lesbian mayor whose bill it was that they were trying to veto – looked at the signatures and said “No, there’s not enough valid signatures.” So, they needed 17,000, they turned in 50,000, and they still found technical problems, petition sheets that were not signed by the signature gatherer responsible for them, which invalidated the entire sheet. Um, they really, like, made sure that every i was dotted and every t was crossed and, if it wasn’t, they threw those signatures out. And so then the city announced that they were 2,000 signatures short, it would not appear on the ballot.
KYLE GETZ
That’s great.
MIKE JOHNSON
And that’s, like… Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
What? What’s wrong with that?
MIKE JOHNSON
I’m- I’m- I’m torn. Like, I guess… This is- First, congratulations. This is what Republicans would do, so, like, I’m really-
KYLE GETZ
For sure.
MIKE JOHNSON
I’m really happy that, like, we’re- we’re leveraging some of the horseshit to win [Kyle chuckles] – like, playing to win, you know – because Democrats usually don’t do that. But also, I kind of fundamentally believe in democracy. And if these signatures were being thrown out on technicalities and not, like, wholesale being invented… Like, if there really were 50,000 people that thought that they were signing this thing, and they are actual registered voters, and their signatures weren’t being counted not because of anything wrong with them or their signature but because we were being, like, extra with the compliance stuff… I’m against that. Like, I-
KYLE GETZ
No you’re not!
MIKE JOHNSON
That makes me feel icky.
KYLE GETZ
No you’re not. When it was in Florida and they were doing, like, the drag queen show that Mama Ashley Rose did- What is it called, “malicious compliance” or something?
MIKE JOHNSON
Malicious compliance, sure. Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
This is one of those malicious compliance kinda things. Like “You didn’t follow all the rules to the T, and so we’re gonna get this kicked out however we can.” I love it.
MIKE JOHNSON
Mm. Well, um, so a bunch of pastors then got together and said that this was clearly retribution against Christian people and-
KYLE GETZ
Oh, God, Christians always have to step in front of things that aren’t being hurled at them and be like “This is this is an a- This is attacking me and my rights!” Like, no one was talking about you! No one cares about you.
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, they filed a civil rights lawsuit against Mayor Parker and the Houston city attorney and, basically, the judge decided on April 17th that the opponents of the ordinance had not gathered enough valid signatures. Uh, so then that went to the Texas Supreme Court and the court granted the petition and ruled that the Houston City Council should have honored the city secretary’s initial signature count and must either repeal the ordinance or include it on the ballot. They included it on the ballot and, by a margin of 61-39 it was rejected and the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance was overturned.
KYLE GETZ
Mm…
MIKE JOHNSON
Ultimately, Mayor Parker left office and focused instead on working for nonprofit organizations in Houston. She became senior vice president and chief strategy officer for a community development nonprofit named BakerRipley. Uh, she is CEO and president of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and Leadership Institute, she’s a professor at the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice, and is on the advisory board of the Houston Zoo, the Montrose Counseling Center… She just is, like, just a rockstar private citizen now, doing all kinds of advocacy work and, um, still very active in the space of gay rights. But I can’t help but think that, like, this whole horseshit really just, like, dampened her spirit and she’s like “Well, fine. Fuck being mayor, then. I’m gonna go be awesome where I don’t have to deal with dickbag fuckface assholes getting in my way.”
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] Are we including Houston citizens as a nominee for dickbag fuckface assholes?
MIKE JOHNSON
Mmmmm… Nah.
KYLE GETZ
Okay, okay. Maybe not right before our tour. [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
I will hold judgment to after we go.
KYLE GETZ
Okay, yeah. We’ll go and see for ourselves.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. If Alexis and his giant dick aren’t still at Tony’s Corner Pocket, then yes, immediately shut it down.
KYLE GETZ
Have you talked about him enough that people know who that is, who you’re referring to? [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
Well, somebody- Like, one of our listeners on Discord sent me pictures of him. So, like, yes, I have.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, okay. Okay, gotcha. Man, she’s one of those people that makes me feel like I’m just such a terrible person for not doing anything. I’m not- I’m not on the board of anything. I’m not helping any counseling center, I’m not doing- I don’t know.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Oh well.
MIKE JOHNSON
You’re doing this gay-ass podcast though.
KYLE GETZ
That’s true. Yeah! Yeah! That’s pretty gay.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Anyway, Houston had a lesbian mayor and reelected her, and that says, to me, maybe… good.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
But then they did bad things for her trans bathroom bill.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
So, maybe bad. I don’t know. The jury is out, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Mixed reviews so far.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
I’m gonna tell you about the murder of Paul Broussard.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay.
KYLE GETZ
So, this is 1991…
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay.
KYLE GETZ
And Paul Broussard was- Uh, it was 2 AM, Paul Broussard was in a parking lot with two friends in Montrose, which, as you mentioned, is the gay neighborhood in Houston. And, uh, he was allegedly intoxicated. You know, presumably this was, like, after a night out. Ten people, ages ranged 15-22, who were also allegedly intoxicated on both alcohol and on drugs-
MIKE JOHNSON
So, definitely intoxicated.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, yeah. Including weed and LSD. They- There were these ten friends that apparently tried to go out in Montrose and were refused entry to a couple clubs. But they were driving in their car, they pulled into the parking lot, asked Paul and his two friends for directions, and then got out and attacked Paul and his friends.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh God.
KYLE GETZ
Including with fists, with steel-toed boots, with bear claws, and one of them had a small pocketknife.
MIKE JOHNSON
Wait, like those, like, doughnut pastry things? Bear claws?
KYLE GETZ
Threw doughnuts right at his face. [Mike chuckles] No.
MIKE JOHNSON
Sorry. He died, I shouldn’t make light of it.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah, eh. Yeah, that’s what we do on this podcast.
MIKE JOHNSON
It was over 30 years ago, so, you know.
KYLE GETZ
We’ve had some time. Um-
MIKE JOHNSON
It’s not too soon. [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Paul’s two friends got away but Paul was beat up. He was nearly unconscious. The ten friends then drove away. EMS arrived on the scene in the morning. Paul- Apparently they were going to go to a hospital that was about 8 minutes away but Paul asked to go to a different hospital and they agreed, so it turned into a 40 minute ambulance ride, which, like… I don’t know why they- It’s confusing as to why they wouldn’t have, based on the injury, said “No, you’re going to the closest hospital.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, go to the close one. Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Um, and then, according to the Wikipedia page, it said, quote, “It was another hour before a doctor could be located who was willing to address Broussard’s wounds.”
MIKE JOHNSON
…Because HIV?
KYLE GETZ
That’s the implication here, is that, because of [Mike groans] HIV/AIDS, that to work on a gay patient… You know, doc- They had to find a doctor that was willing to do that. Paul later died of internal injuries.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh God.
KYLE GETZ
So then, a Houston gay rights advocate, Ray Hill, apparently started looking into this and figured out that police were not investigating this at all.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay.
KYLE GETZ
So he then organized. He talked to the media, he planned the largest – according to Wikipedia – the largest gay rights protest in the city’s history.
MIKE JOHNSON
Hm!
KYLE GETZ
Eventually, because of his efforts, all ten of the friends were arrested. All ten plea bargained, and this never went to trial because there were plea bargains for all of them.
MIKE JOHNSON
Jesus.
KYLE GETZ
Right?
MIKE JOHNSON
Jesus.
KYLE GETZ
Some got probation, others got 15- Anywhere- For others, they got anywhere from 15-45 years in prison, depending on who it was. The guy with a knife, I think, got some of the heaviest prison time. A filmmaker, Alison Armstrong, was doing a different documentary for other reasons and then just started looking into this case. Um, so the film that she released was called “The Guy with the Knife”. What she uncovered is that there is a pattern of delaying responding to the gay community in Montrose by Houston first responders. Apparently, at the time, there was a saying that “If you get hurt in Montrose, get your car and drive to someplace else and then call 911.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Woooow. Okay.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s wild.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. So, eventually- I forget. Maybe because of this film, a medical examiner revised Paul’s cause of death to include “a delay in treatment”.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh, wow. Okay.
KYLE GETZ
So that’s at least good that it was added as a reason for his death. But yeah, that’s the murder of Paul Broussard. Apparently, you know, presumably because it’s a gay city the first responders wouldn’t respond to gay people and doctors might not work on people because of their fear of HIV/AIDS.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve- We’ve- We’ve seen before, like, other examples of the cops don’t investigate or they just kind of, like, half-ass investigate something because “No big loss, it’s just a gay.”
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Um… And that’s- That’s really- That’s really shitty. Like, thinking about that uh… We talked about those- that murder in Australia, the guy that got pushed off the cliff.
KYLE GETZ
Oh yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
And the police were just, like, you know, half-ass paying attention.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. It’s someone that they have to deem “worthy” enough or something. Like, I think you see- If you see people as less than equal humans, you care less about their lives, which is a horrifying idea that police wouldn’t care about everyone equally, but they’re humans that have biases and-
MIKE JOHNSON
And I imagine, like, a lot of gayborhoods have had similar dynamics. Just- That’s how history goes. But also, that has to become- Like, that’s by reputation or whatever.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Neighborhoods of color, just because they’re visually different, also get different levels of, you know, service from their local governments because of this effect. It’s just horrible.
KYLE GETZ
Yep. Absolutely. Yep, absolutely.
MIKE JOHNSON
Well great, I feel like we just shit on Houston for like an hour and a half, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Um… Houston is a strong, vibrant, humid city that- [both chuckle] that is- would love to be your home, if you’re considering living there. Um…
MIKE JOHNSON
I did read that, by some measures, Houston is the most racially diverse city in the country.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, no way.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah.
KYLE GETZ
I didn’t read that. Um, they got the Texans, which… go, football. So excited about that. They got the Rockets; they’re a little bit past their heyday, but who am I to judge? Um, you know, there is-
MIKE JOHNSON
Yay, sportsing.
KYLE GETZ
Yeaaah. I don’t know what else to say about Houston. No, Houston is a big city… [both chuckle] and that’s what I wanted to say about it.
MIKE JOHNSON
And we’re going there. Buy your tickets.
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, did we do it? We talked about Houston?
KYLE GETZ
We talked about Houston a bunch.
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay. Should we take a break?
KYLE GETZ
Yeah, let’s take a break!
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] Let’s take a break.
KYLE GETZ
H-Town!
MIKE JOHNSON
Ew. [Kyle chuckles]
[Break music plays, sung by MIKE JOHNSON]
This is the part where Mike and Kyle take a break!
MIKE JOHNSON
So, are we back?
KYLE GETZ
We’re back!
MIKE JOHNSON
We’re back!
KYLE GETZ
We’re gonna do our Gayest & Straightest.
MIKE JOHNSON
We’re Gonna do our Gayest & Straightest but, first… Hey, you sons of bitches…
KYLE GETZ
Hey…
MIKE JOHNSON
First, you pissed me off so bad I’m cancelling San Francisco.
KYLE GETZ
[gasps] Aww.
MIKE JOHNSON
Um, fuck it. We’re not gonna do it.
KYLE GETZ
Oh.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s not true.
KYLE GETZ
Well, no, it is true, but… [chuckles]
MIKE JOHNSON
It is true. We’re not gonna go to San Francisco this year, we’ll figure it out for next year. Uh, shit’s just too hard.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah, sorry about San Francisco. We haven’t been able to- We’ve been trying, and haven’t been able to find a time that worked for the rescheduling, so we apologize to everyone. You were refunded, so you should already have your money back but, um, yeah, hopefully we’ll be able to make it out next year.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. Now, the only way you can make it up to me is to come to the Houston show. [Kyle chuckles] Buy your tickets. Sunday, October 15 – so in less than two weeks – at KIKI, in Montrose, at noon. Go to gayishpodcast.com/live and get your tickets, you assholes.
KYLE GETZ
Please. [Mike chuckles] …Contact Info?
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah, alright. Our website’s gayishpodcast.com.
KYLE GETZ
Our social media is @gayishpodcast, or you can see all of our contact info, and our Discord server, or our Facebook group at gayishpodcast.com/contact.
MIKE JOHNSON
Our hotline, you can send us text messages or leave us voicemails, is 5855-Gayish. That’s 585-542-9474. Standard rates apply.
KYLE GETZ
Our email is gayishpodcast@gmail.com.
MIKE JOHNSON
And our physical mailing address, for Derek’s birthday presents, [Kyle chuckles] is Post Office Box 19882 Seattle, Washington 98109.
KYLE GETZ
Gayest & Straightest?
MIKE JOHNSON
Okay, let’s do our Gayest & Straightest, and I’m happy to go first.
KYLE GETZ
Okay.
MIKE JOHNSON
So, the gayest thing about me this week is: I was on a phone call- a zoom meeting, a meeting at work with my boss’s boss’s boss…
KYLE GETZ
Wow.
MIKE JOHNSON
…and that’s when I realized that, over my right shoulder, in the camera was a gigantic crocheted penis. [both laugh]
KYLE GETZ
Yeeees!
MIKE JOHNSON
I think it was blurred enough… I don’t think anybody saw it or got caught, but I definitely had the, like… put it down.
KYLE GETZ
Did you do that surreptitiously enough that you don’t think they saw?
MIKE JOHNSON
I- I clicked- I clicked the, um- I turned the camera off… [chuckles]
KYLE GETZ
Ohhh.
MIKE JOHNSON
…and then moved it. Yeah. That was amazing. Thanks again for those, Rudy, they’re fantastic.
KYLE GETZ
Thanks, Rudy.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, and then the straightest thing about me this week is: in the hour-and-15-minute-long Lyft ride from Boston Logan Airport out here to the goddamn suburbs for work in Burlington I got a car guy was my Lyft driver.
KYLE GETZ
Oh no.
MIKE JOHNSON
He wanted to talk about that car on the road, and he wanted to talk about this car, and then he wanted to talk about the noise that his brakes were making, and then he wanted to ask me all about my Jeep. It was just like… Oh my god, car shit is so straight.
KYLE GETZ
[chuckles] 100%. That’s a lot- Also, that’s a lot of talking to have to deal with for- with your Lyft driver.
MIKE JOHNSON
Oh my god. …Oh my god. Like, you know me, I’ll talk to a Lyft driver.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, especially if they, like, you know, want to do the talking first. That’s- You know, I’ll manage it, I’ll handle it, but that doesn’t mean I like it.
KYLE GETZ
Mhm. Mhm, mhm.
MIKE JOHNSON
[chuckles] I would definitely have preferred to just, like- “I’m reading about Houston’s lesbian mayor, sir. I’m getting ready for the show.” [Kyle chuckles] “I need you to shut up.”
KYLE GETZ
[both chuckle] “Don’t care about the squeaking noise your brakes are making.”
MIKE JOHNSON
Yep. Yep. How ‘bout you?
KYLE GETZ
My gayest is: you and I went out and then, after we went to a bar, I went to another bar alone. [Mike gasps] I went to CC’s and had a couple drinks on my own.
MIKE JOHNSON
I’m proud of you!
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. It was stressful and I sat at the bar, had drinks, someone came up and talked to me a little bit, and, uh, so I talked to another human being [chuckles] not on my doing but on their doing.
MIKE JOHNSON
Wow, Kyle.
KYLE GETZ
Um, and so yeah, I felt… I felt good about myself, that I took that risk and went to a bar alone.
MIKE JOHNSON
That’s really great.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Like, I- We’ve talked about it before. I went through this period of, like, intentionally forcing myself to do that for personal growth reasons or whatever, and it is hard.
KYLE GETZ
It’s really hard.
MIKE JOHNSON
That is not an easy thing to do and, like, so that’s awesome.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah. Yeah! Um, my straightest is you and I doin’ a double high five. I think- Why- Was it because- [Mike chuckles] Was it celebrating- I have a new job.
MIKE JOHNSON
You have a new job, hooray! I didn’t know if you were gonna talk about it or not. Congrats.
KYLE GETZ
Oh, yeah. Yeah! Thanks. Yeah. I need to sign the paperwork, but I’m finally- After a long, long time, I have a new job. I think we were high fiving over my new job, so, uh, that’s my straightest.
MIKE JOHNSON
Seems as good of a reason as any to double high five.
KYLE GETZ
Yep, exactly. And I think you said- After we did, you said “Straightest,” [chuckles] so I wrote it down.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, we have a listener’s Gayest & Straightest. Like I’ve said before, y’all: if you leave us a voicemail with your Gayest & Straightest, it’s probably gonna get played. Uh, this one’s from [in a Scottish accent] Paul Donovan. [both chuckle] I just fucked that up. My mouth is so tired. Paul Donovan.
PAUL DONOVAN [voicemail]
Hey Mike, Hey Kyle, it’s Paul Donovan from the UK, calling about the recent episode on Kylie Minogue and the mentions of Neighbours, which are triggering for any Gen X Brit. This show was originally a daytime soap opera and the BBC was forced to put on an evening broadcast because so many teenagers were bunking off school to watch the lunchtime showing. And it triggered for me a straightest and a gayest. Uh, the straightest thing was that it wasn’t until I listened to the podcast that I realized that Kylie sang Padam Padam; I thought it was the guy who did Gangnam Style. My gayest was: as soon as you started talking about the Neighbours bit, I immediately remembered the skinny dipping scene involving Guy Pearce and Jason Donovan, something deeply etched in my memory as part of my gay awakening. Thanks for everything you do, guys. Cheers.
KYLE GETZ
And… [chuckles] you did not think Padam Padam was Gangnam Style guy. That’s- [both chuckle] That’s hilarious.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaah. I actually would- One of my fears about skinny dipping is that somebody would take the clothes away. So, like, yeah.
KYLE GETZ
Ohh. Yeah.
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, okay, that’s it?
KYLE GETZ
That’s it! I think so.
MIKE JOHNSON
Thanks to everyone in Houston that doesn’t suck.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah! Thanks to all the LGBT Houstonians. While you are a smaller percentage than other cities, you are a mighty… group and we salute you… on this day.
MIKE JOHNSON
Yeaaah!
KYLE GETZ
I don’t know. Um-
MIKE JOHNSON
Come to the show! Come to the show in Houston in your town, y’all. And uh, we’re gonna be talking about- Like, our actual topic is, like, a secret as always, because that’s live show tradition, but we’re working together with the people that put on GLUE – that’s Gear, Leather, Uniform, and Etc. – and they have GLUE Weekend the weekend after we’re there. So, we’re sort of kicking it off in in a way. And so, come find out which of those letters we’re gonna talk about.
KYLE GETZ
Yeah! It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Uh, I also want to thank the following Super Gap Bridgers. Thank you to Kit Oliver, Andrew Bugbee, William Bryant, Christopher M, John Crawley, Stephen Portch, Joh Stoessel, Harry Shaw, Josh Copeland, Jonathan Montañez, Waddu, Forrest Nail, Patrick Martin, James Barrow, Steve Douglas, Explosive Lasagna, Michael Cubbington, Just Jamie, Kevin Henderson, Tomas B, Timothy Saura, DustySands, AE Coleman, Chris Khachatourians, and Jerome York. Thank you so much for your support.
MIKE JOHNSON
Thanks for your money. [Kyle chuckles] That’s it! This has been Gayish. From the Chris Khachatourians studios, I’m Mike Johnson.
KYLE GETZ
I’m Kyle Getz. Until next week, be butch, be fabulous, be you!
MIKE JOHNSON
See you next week.
KYLE GETZ
See you next week.
[Outro music plays, instrumental]
KYLE GETZ
Where were you in 1991?
MIKE JOHNSON
Uh, I was living in Zillah-fucking-Washington.
KYLE GETZ
Great. Um, so, picture it: Sicily, 1991.
[Transcriptionist: C Dixon, CMDixonWork@gmail.com]