Queerly Beloved
Join your host, Wil Fisher (AKA "I Am Sylvia Wil Gather Rainbow"), for playful and profound interviews with amazing LGBTQIA+ peeps working in the field of spirituality and personal growth. Wil is a life coach, spiritual healer, and drag queen who loves getting super wu and chatting with fascinating folx about all things spiritually queer and queerly spiritual. You'll love hearing guests' spiritual path stories and gain knowledge as they share discoveries, insights and wisdom. Plus, these interviews tend to be a lot of fun- so expect to have some of that as well...!
Queerly Beloved
Hedwig, Wholeness & Queer Magic with John Cameron Mitchell
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In this episode of Queerly Beloved, Wil Fisher (aka. Sylvia Wil Gather Rainbor) sits down with the legendary John Cameron Mitchell, the actor, writer, director, singer, and cultural icon best known for creating, directing, and starring in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. John also wrote and directed Shortbus, directed Rabbit Hole, co-wrote and directed How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and created the podcast series Anthem: Homunculus and Cancellation Island.
In this rich, funny, provocative, and deeply human conversation, John shares reflections on the 25th anniversary of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the ways this beloved story continues to offer queer people a sense of complexity, liberation, and hope. He and Wil explore Hedwig not simply as a story about trauma, patriarchy, identity, survival, and the longing to become whole.
John also speaks about his relationship with Catholicism, ritual, queer spirituality, and the way queer people often learn early how to live inside nuance and contradiction. Together, explore humor as a queer survival tool, the limits of labels, the Radical Faerie community, psychedelics, dancing as medicine, AI, punk, and the sacred importance of staying human in a time of fear and disconnection.
They also discuss:
- John’s first remembered role as the Virgin Mary at a boys’ boarding school in Scotland
- Catholicism, ritual, theater, and queer complexity
- The danger of reducing people to labels or stereotypes
- Radical Faeries, Harry Hay, queer magic, and non-corporate expressions of queerness
- The difference between substances that expand connection and substances that deepen isolation
- AI, creativity, heartbreak, and why human art still matters
- Punk as kindness, courage, DIY action, and real-life connection
- The importance of feeling fully instead of letting fear shut us down
This conversation is a beautiful reminder that queer wisdom is often found in the in-between places, in humor, contradiction, grief, glitter, resistance, ritual, and the courage to keep becoming.
John Cameron Mitchell on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/johncameronmitchell/?hl=en
Learn more about Hedwig 25 here:
https://www.hedwig25.com/
Learn more about Wil Fisher and his work here:
https://www.wil-fullyliving.com/
Please subscribe to Queerly Beloved and leave a review if this episode moved you! 🙏
We believe it. We are gathered here today for some beauty conversations about all things virtually queer and queerly beautiful. And still be a wheel gathering rainbow. Beautiful life coat with the most great quick. And I'll be chatting with the most amazing post. If you like what I'm screaming, please remember to subscribe to hanging out. Alright, let's get super wood together. And spiritual aid. Queer A. Conspeek and Hangout. And let's go. Hello, beloveds. This episode is a big one. I'm so excited and so honored to bring this conversation with the one, the only John Cameron Mitchell, Tony and Obi Award-winning actor, writer, director, and singer, and all around queer icon. Let's just be real. He is the co-creator and the writer and director and star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which for many of us is more than just a musical. It's like a punk rock prayer. It's a queer myth. It's a glitter-covered invitation and wholeness. JCM is also the visionary behind boundary pushing work like Shortbust and How to Talk to Girls at Parties, starring Nicole Kidman, as well as the musical podcast Anthem Homunculous and Cancellation Island, which you should check those out if you haven't yet. And right now he's celebrating 25 years of Hedwig and the Angry Inch with an anniversary tour that brings the film back to the audiences with conversation, performances, headwig drag, and more. It's happening all around the country. So find the info in the show notes. You don't want to miss it when it comes to a city near you. And in this conversation, we begin with John's first role, playing the Virgin Mary at a boys' Catholic boarding school in Scotland. So iconic. From there, we explore his relationship to Catholicism, ritual, theater, and the ways queer people learn early to live inside complexity, nuance, and contradiction. We then talk about Hedwig as a story about trauma, fragmentation, and the longing to become whole. John also shares his thoughts on labels, identity politics, cancel culture, humor as a queer survival tool, and why queer people have so often served as artists, healers, truth tellers, and witnesses to what else is possible. We also get into radical fairy community and we talk about queer magic and ritual and psychedelics. And we talk about why human art will always carry something AI cannot. At the end, John offers a vision of punk that feels especially needed right now, not just punk as in fuck you, but punk as in kindness, connection, feeling, and creating something real together in real life. This is a conversation about queer complexity, creative resistance, and the sacred work of staying human and joy. Hello, John Cameron Mitchell, and welcome to Queerly Beloved. Well, thank you. I'd love to jump in with the first role that I understand you played, which correct me if I'm wrong, but is it true that it was the Virgin Mary?
SPEAKER_03That's the first role I remember playing, yeah, in a boys' boarding school in Scotland.
SPEAKER_05That is so iconic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it wasn't it was also a you know, there was no ridicule involved. It was like a coveted role when I was 10, and uh the best singer, I guess, in school got to do that part. And uh yeah, it was all downhill since.
SPEAKER_05What is your relationship like with Catholicism? Was that was that enjoyable growing up in that well, you know, it's what it is.
SPEAKER_03It's like it's wherever you grew up, there were good things and bad things, and I was quite religious. I think moving around a lot as a kid, my dad was in the army, you know, it felt like a permanent thing, you know, religion, and then so I was quite devout, but then at a certain point it was just as you know, I had a brother who passed away and that didn't make sense, and then you know, obviously feelings of queerness, and that was like that that was evil, and I was like, Well, that's wrong too. So, you know, I had to kind of let go of the church. Uh, but the good parts of Catholicism, which had to do with taking care of people, uh, I appreciate and you know, I appreciate a lot of the things this Pope says, for example, you know, my favorite uh aunt is a retired nun who's very cool, very little, very supportive. Um, so there's good stuff in that, you know, just as there was good stuff in my militia base upbringing, you know, in terms of it was a socialist state, you know, for rednecks. And so people got taken care of and it was racially wildly mixed. So I didn't really understand things like racism and capitalism once I got out of there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's sad when people just write it all off as bad. You know, I I feel like there's yeah. There's also some richness, there's some richness in the the ritual in Catholicism, too, that I appreciate.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and of course that leads to things like theater and and uh other kinds of art. And um, you know, as a queer person, you understand there's complexity. Uh when you're an outsider, when you don't fit into the mainstream, you understand there are levels of reality, there's surface and then there's true nature. When things are given to you, uh you become very literal. So you get surprised by life because life isn't literal and life isn't linear and it it's complex and it involves a lot of loss. And you know, when you're queer, you understand these things earlier, and uh which kind of makes a lot of queer people become artists, journalists, you know, other people who who revel in in nuance. And to even say that one thing is what it is, it it it's not it doesn't make sense to us because we know there's always another side to it, which doesn't mean you can't celebrate the good parts of something that is that has bad parts. Um it's just don't take things for granted or for face value.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that there's a dedication or a deeper understanding of that liminal space that we as queer people hold. And because of that, we in some ways, I believe, have a duty to hold that up to, you know, as a mirror to the larger society, to remind people of the in-between.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that's what you know, Harry Hay, one of our early queer rights people, said it's like we have to make our own magic maybe amongst ourselves and then share it with the world. It's you know, it's very understandable to want to hide away in your own little community, especially if you're trans, for example, where you feel attacked. But there's also the joy and the necessity of taking what you've learned in that community and and shared it, you know, um, which is a little bit hard to do right now. But I find it very, very important. And I do it every try to do it every day. Um even the head big celebration of this year, the 25th anniversary, it's partly a true celebration of the this unlikely character who who spread around the world and and spread a sense of tolerance and and complexity too, and understanding it's not a trans story, it's not a gay story, it's a very specific story of trauma, of abuse by a certain kind of patriarchy telling you what you are, and uh, you know, defining a woman as a man without a penis and all these other things that cultures tend to do, and you know, Trump is doing right now with there's only two genders. When deep down we all know there's a we're all what we might call androgynous, certain non-binary, I don't find to be a useful term because who wants to be defined by what they're not? They're not, and it also gives too much power to, in effect, the binary. It's like saying person of color. To me, I that sounds like a temporary term because you're dumping a lot of people in a bin just because they're not white, you know, it almost gives too much power to to to the white, so to speak, because that isn't the majority. Um, so why define yourself against you know, the group that has the power as opposed to define yourself as your own thing?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the emphasis is on what is not instead of the all that is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, there's it it's not it it still implies that the powers of be have power over you, and they do in one way, but then I don't think we need to do it with our language as well. I'm not a big language label person. I love words in my job and my love of words, but I don't like labels because I find them confining. Um, gatekeepy, you know, said you're not me, I'm not you. And identity politics, I think, has got us into trouble with good intentions, but it separated us by perceived historical oppression. And it's like, you know, straight guys are suddenly the the enemy to everyone. And it's like, guys, when you exclude a whole group of people like that, you are painting them with a broad brush the way they painted you, as say a queer person with a broad brush and saying, Well, you're queer, you're a gay man, therefore you're obsessed with sex and having drugs all the time, and you don't care about your you know, other people. You're a lesbian, you know, you go you call you all as soon as you meet. These are stereotypes that we can laugh at, but we we laugh because we know no one actually conforms fully to these stereotypes. Stereotypes are our collective reaction to the world. And we can we all know people who exhibit stereotypes, and we have to understand why, you know, let's say the snap snappy queen is dealing with a homophobic world where they're not welcome, so they come in with a with a uh an aggressive stance, and we know that stereotype. But to understand the people aren't just their stereotype, that is a defense mechanism, and then there's other parts of them, otherwise they just become stick figures and and stock characters in in bad TV shows. So but to understand where the stereotype comes from, you know, gives takes away its power and also implies that you are more than that one thing. And I'm not against them, it's just like to see that they aren't everything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, to look at the bigger picture, which creates more possible bridges instead of the division that happens when we're just labeling people and making them other.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And young people are just obsessed with these labels because they want to separate themselves from their parents or whatever, but then they start getting angry if people don't fit into them or you know, you don't belong here, or you know, they do violence on their own to their own friends, and that's where cancel culture comes in, which I find to be useless, you know, uh ultimately uh in the real world and a distraction from your own life. It's like don't pile up on some accusation if you don't really know the facts. People who do know, yes, go about finding account, you know, accountability, but don't just attack someone because you're afraid of being attacked yourself or whatever. This is what pushed some people to vote for Trump.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I've been listening to Cancellation Island, which is brilliant, by the way. And I love your use of humor to really bring those points through. I'm curious how you like to work with humor. It feels like very much a queer, a queer piece of magic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, humor's always been, you know, the gay male's weapon to sort of deflect violence and also call attention to hypocrisy and absurdity. You know, that's us, you know, queer people are often inherently satirists because we s we've been told a few lies about what is true, so we are very attuned to to uh inner what do you call it? Like uh when well hypocrisy, when people their actions don't match their words, or when they attack the very thing they're bedeviled by. We all know the most homophobic people are those who have sexual feelings for their own gender uh or sex or biological sex, and so they deflect by attacking others. It's an old story that we've known for years, and people don't seem to learn um in the mainstream. But uh by being queer people, we and by living our lives, we are in effect to some people a challenge and an assault, but to others we are a corrective and a commentator. And queer people have all always been priests, they've all often been arbitrators and therapists, they've often been kind of shamans between the natural world and maybe the supernatural. These are because of their again, again, their androgyny, which means they have access to different energies, they are given those those jobs, the fortune tellers, the you know, the seers, and and the healers often. So it's like we can forego those roles. Again, you know, some might find them stereotypical, but to me it's like these are skills we've learned growing up and that we can share our knowledge. Even the fact that queer marriage uh which became more legal lately has told some, let's say more stolid, straight people that a relationship can be more than one thing. You know, that monogamy can be negotiated, that kids can be negotiated, that uh polyamory is a you know, and then open relationships, which are two different things, are possible. You know, it's like it it wasn't discussed as much. It was an outlier before gay marriage, and then gay men who have always had some flexibility in their monogamy in their relationships are going, no, in some ways this has helped our relationship, uh, this looseness, others it's not a good idea. But again, the possibilities of change, you know, the queer person, in effect, is a uh is a uh a seer of the future. You know, it's like what is possible? Hmm, beautiful.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's just re-watching Short Bus and yeah, the the James have the Jamies have that scene where they're exploring their their open relationship, which I imagine actually, as I re recall that time, it was a little less common. There was a lot more monogamy in queer relationships than there is now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, gay men, I think there was always some flexibility. Sometimes female-bodied people, there was for whatever reason, biological or otherwise, there was a kind of aversion to separating uh sex from romance. Uh-huh. Yeah, or emotion, which guys can do a lot better, you know. Sure. Male-bodied people, let's say. Uh which is why, you know, a lot of trans people have this kind of wonderful, at best, a wonderful mixture of you know, like a lot of trans men don't want to be, they don't, they're not trying to imitate the straight guys, they're trying to create a new breed of male that incorporates gay males, which incorporates their their feminine bodies, which incorporates uh what they've learned. And to me, you know, that movement w at its best has a sense of the future again, of like we can rebuild him, we can make a better male. Um, not in a eugenics way, but in a philosophical way. And to me, you know, Hedwig has been part of that journey, you know. A lot of people look at the character of Yitzhak, who is often played by a woman who is a man trying to explore this femininity. And that complexity of casting, uh, my trans male friends especially are like, yes, I transitioned to free myself, not to put myself into another category of male cage. Yes, like I perhaps I'm more omnisexual after I transition. And and have I know some trans men who transitioned to partially to escape lesbian rulemaking. Wow. Which is funny, and then there's also transness that comes out of peer pressure and like oh my all my friends are transitioning, and maybe that's not the best decision, but who knows? You know, for each person, it's gotta come from within, uh, I believe for for it to to be but then again, we change as people, you know. It's like you know, we after coming out, I f I in some ways claim my masculinity more. Um it's because it was less of a panic, you know. And I've through acting, through writing, I've become the person I want to be, you know, and it you don't really know what that is until you get there. But I I'm I'm the person now in the la I would say in the last 20 years that I've always wanted to be, a relaxed person who's being creative, trying to be generous, and uh negotiating this complex world. But even in the middle middle of this fascist moment of panic, um and existential dread, you know, with climate, etc., that I'm somehow strangely activated and not depressed. Maybe it's because I'm engaging with it creatively, you know, engaging with the moment creatively with my own work, then I'm also getting out and on this tour. You know, this that we have like over 40 dates for the Hedvig Tour, which is all the dates are available at Hedvig25.com or on my Instagram, which is John Cameron Mitchell. And just going out and meeting people and seeing what Hedvig did for them or what they're gonna do for someone else, or you know, it it's it raises the spirits to be in the same room with these people around the world. I'm starting out in Mexico going on Friday. Epic. Uh yeah, I'll we'll be I'll be in Australia. Later I'll be in Japan, probably Europe, you know. So it's me, I I love Hedbig being an international person and the ultimate immigrant in a way. Immigrant to all kinds of things, you know, America as well as uh, you know, heterosexuality, or the she's an immigrant to a lot of places, but comes in with a lot of baggage because in those bags are things for everybody, they're gifts.
SPEAKER_05Gifts of liberation, you know, going back to this idea of queer people helping liberate us out of these boxes and show us what's possible. I I I want to circle back to Harry Hay and your connection with the radical fairies. There's a lot of rad Faye who listen to this podcast, and I'm curious what your experience has been like connecting with that community.
SPEAKER_03Well, it you know, I it's funny. I I live in New Orleans and uh mostly, and uh, you know, there's a plenty of fairies here. Uh we've had the fairy ball actually at my house, which is a bit much for the house. Uh a couple things got broke. But um there was, you know, the biggest commune is in Tennessee. There's gatherings in other parts of the world. Um that's the old, you know, old lady, you know, it's been around for a while. And I had a wonderful, you know, wonderful experiences realizing that my queerness could be expressed in different ways that weren't just standardized or corporatized, or you know, like uh you have to like Madonna or Lady Gaga, whatever these things that to me are very artificial. Um, and people expressing their queerness in in ways that were more organic, let's say, and less corporate, connecting with pagan rituals as well. You know, I'm a little suspicious of things that make remind me of forced religion, but but I do love ritual, you know, and I do love the Beltane ritual, which is an a a Celtic New Year's with the may pole, and it's very priapic and very, you know, beginning of the uh sewings period of the spring. And you know, at Short Mountain, the uh May Day or Beltane is, you know, everyone raises a giant may pole and it's very penis-like. But then everyone feeds each other, you can't feed yourself, you know, strawberries and fruit, and it and some might people might be on some nice happy drugs as opposed to the aggressive consumerist uppers of uh that are more in the zeitgeist. I think meth is is is powdered capitalism and it's worse than heroin. Um but sadly has found its way in the gay male community because of a deep lack of self-esteem among a lot of people. Um and its you know, history or or its reputation for in increasing sexual excitement, though of course it's very hard to come on it too. So it's a strange, like uh I I hate it. You know, it's it's it's made inroads in among fairies too, unfortunately. Um it's not a a group drug, it's a me drug. You know, it it's like cocaine, it's also a call powdered capitalism. It's about consuming, consuming money as well as consuming people. And I think it's very, very, very dangerous. It seems to give you this confidence, but it's a truly false one that that collapses the next day and uh makes things worse. So you know, if any of you kids are paying any attention, not don't even fuck with the first dose, it's gonna mess you up. Whereas I'm very um much a proponent of mind expanding drugs, you know, psychedelics used correctly, you know, with uh a lot of research and help along the way, whether it's microdosing certain things uh for your mood or even to head off Alzheimer's, as well as macrodosing and make going on journeys through things like ayahuasca and acid, you know, to find out more about yourself. And I have done that, you know, and and think it's useful. Uh there's social drugs as well as um asocial drugs or um let's say uh control the situation drugs. Anyone who has a problem with meth or cocaine should be forced to be bid videotaped on those drugs and then watch them later, and then you'll hopefully be embarrassed into sobriety in that case. And stop it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And yeah, I love hearing that you've worked with plant medicines to support your journey. I'm curious to hear any more about that, and maybe particularly in the lens of wholeness, feels like a really important theme in Hedvig. And I'm just curious about I see you as someone who has embodied wholeness. You as you mentioned, you've gotten to a point in your life where you are happy with yourself. And I'm curious, has that been a journey?
SPEAKER_03Luckily, it coincided with the fact that I still my body still works, but I take care of myself, you know, maybe a little too much, but um, you know, my little uh dealing with life moving every two years was to have my own little systems, you know, and my books and my routines and rituals, and I still have those.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I I I avoid things that that mess with those, like you know, too alcohol or cigar uh other things. At the same time, uh there's an ecstatic joy that I get in queer spaces when you know I have uh DJed with my buddies over 20 years, you know, with a group we call Matachine. Yeah, which is named after Harry Hayes group. And it's very much an all music is dance music, you know, to remind ourselves that throughout the ages getting together and dancing has been a very healthy thing, especially for queer people, and dancing together, which has kind of gone out of style. Two people dancing together has gone away. Certainly, slow dancing has gone out of style, but we bring that back, and we we tend to play analog stuff, you know, less uh less computer made. You know, there's gonna be a lot of AI music coming, which will seem just like a lot of the other pop music. Fine, people are gonna want that, but AI is never gonna have a soul, it's never gonna have its heart broken, it's never gonna have a bad childhood. So AI is limited as our guide. You know, you want your therapist, you want your pop star, you want your uh even politician to have lived a life, yeah. To have to have overcome some loss. And it it never really will. So weirdly, I'm less afraid of AI than others. Of course, it's gonna take away very simple jobs, which we have to be ready for and prepared for. Not for what I do. You know, I I know it's gonna disrupt. It's gonna be our God in a way, our new internet. Yeah. Um, and it's gonna disrupt people who are doing simpler tasks. And I say simple, like even writing a Hallmark movie, is going to be written by AI because those movies suck.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, they can't take over performances on stages, for example.
SPEAKER_03I mean, some will, but I I I I think of it as an aid to a human journey. Um, the fact that it can still hallucinate and lie is fascinating and weirdly hopeful to me. Because it it implies fronting, you know, imperfection, which comforts me.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh. That they are a little mischievous, if you will.
SPEAKER_03They're just trying to hide the fact they don't know.
SPEAKER_05Sure. How was that? Uh bring coming back to the stage after a long hiatus recently. And actually, a quick little story. You mentioned the Pope earlier. I just reminded was reminded of a TikTok where someone was saying that every time they announce who's playing Mary, Mary Lincoln, it's like the the smoke, the white smoke coming out of the Vatican.
SPEAKER_03Or, you know, every time that's when the kitten dies. Um the I just I love some of the people I've seen. I mean, call me, call me gay, but I still like you know, there's something about a male body in a dress with that role that seems to work better. You if you're a female, you you have to sort of almost work harder to get to that point. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. There's something about that. Um, but I love I love the piece. I love Cole. I love that it's become a well, I remember telling Cole, you know, when you write a play, you don't have to do it. Remember, you don't have to do it, you can like have someone else do it and get the royalties. And they were like, I never hadn't really thought of that. And because they come from you know comedy and uh this cabaret, which is their own, you know, they have to be there, they can't replace themselves. Sure, yeah. Yeah, but now they can, and they're loving it. And uh discovering that you know, with Hedvig, I didn't have to do it either was a great relief. And um very happy that other people can find out stuff about themselves by playing the role. And uh anyone I've met has it's the hardest thing they've ever done, and it's changed them.
SPEAKER_05Wow. Yeah, what do you think that's about? What do you think has that role impact them in such a way?
SPEAKER_03Well, physically it it's harder than any role, and then you have to go to your depths of uh of heartbreak and and and uh you know if you had a bad childhood and all those things that you have to dredge all those up uh while presenting, you know, Hedwig, who's an amusing, you know, powerful presence to tell that so you it just ends up wringing you out, you know. And and any other role, most people have told me it seems easier after having done Headbig. Wow.
SPEAKER_05It's such a dream role for so many queer punks. It was a huge moment when one of my best friends got to play it in Boise, Idaho, and then in LA, my friend Adam Enright. It's like a life-changing moment for him. And yeah, it's it's such a gift, this this amazing piece of work that you have brought forth and that folks get to keep receiving 25 years later. I mean, what are your thoughts on how this work is going to be received in in this time, 25 years later?
SPEAKER_03Well, because of the attacks on queer people, I think there's gonna be more emotion in the room when we show the film. Um I I'll be singing a short set after, you know, talking to people, meeting people signing things to give it a special you know evening. And uh yeah, I'm just not I'm not there just to receive applause. I have you know, I want to be there with people and give them a bit of hope. And you know, David Byrne has been on tour and and and actually quoting me on tour um where he paraphrased me talking about in the Times about how punk is and you know, love and kindness is a new kind of punk that's necessary right now. Yes, and and he said that's true, it's a kind of resistance right now, especially. And punk has always had its own at the beginning, its goals were very similar to say the you know, the wokest of the woke, meaning uh, you know, fairness, meaning redressing harm, meaning suspicious of capitalism, you know, anti-fascist. These are all things that the punks also believed when it came up in the 70s. The only difference was the tactics were quite different. So today that tends to be more like stay in your lane, don't offend anyone with language, make sure you're precise, you know, know your hierarchy of oppression and you know where you fit into that, your privilege. And then the punk thing was like, I don't care where you're from, I don't care if you're offended. All language and imagery is useful in the goal uh in these uh laudable goals of making a better world. So if you're showing if you're uh resisting capitalism, you have to show what it does. If you're resisting racism, you might have to show a racist act, which today would be like considered racist. I don't need to see that, I don't feel safe. You know, you are racist by showing a historical racist act. No, we have to know what we're fighting. You know, we may have to show the the swastika to talk about what Nazism is, where someone else would be offended by that. And it's like I I'm more come from punk, I come from AIDS activism where we had to survive. We need to by any means we had to survive, and it worked. You know, we we are alive because of those AIDS activists, right? And so to me, a new kind of punk is necessary that's not just about smashing things, yeah, uh, but except for smashing fascism, you know, and and it you know, it's like but you have to create the alternative, not just smash. Like, you know, where do you go after it's smashed? What what do you have? Um and that uh is still to be determined what the the modern version of punk is. In other countries, punks you know, in this country punk never went away, but in other countries is more important, I think, because uh it was an it can c it can be seen in different ways and manifests itself, but punk at heart is making things outside the way you're told you're supposed to.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03Activating yourself, grab a guitar, it doesn't matter if you can play, it's like do it. Yes, DIY in IRL, not just online.
SPEAKER_05Yes, yeah, and what what's coming through for me is this importance of feeling, like it activates the feeling inside. You know, going back to this humanity versus AI, that's one of our superpowers as humans, is that we feel shit. And so part of our work is to keep feeling shit so that we can use that information to maybe take different action.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and if something is stopping you from feeling, you have to investigate that first. What has stopped you? Is there too much internet in your life and you've stopped feeling empathy for people? Are you watching too much bad news? Are you not talking to someone on the street because you're you'd rather just look at your phone? What is it that is stopping you from feeling? Is it fear? Is it like, oh, someone's gonna come get me? Oh, I live in the south and I'm a liberal queer, I need to have a gun. Questioning whether you're becoming what you're afraid of. And there's smart self-defense and all that as well, but there's also basing your life on fear of the unknown. I guarantee you that's gonna end in tears. Fear of the known is something else, right? That's walking, that's voting for Trump. That's you know discernment. Yeah, that's throwing a signal. This is fear of the known. Fear of the unknown is like, I don't know what's gonna happen, therefore, I'm gonna live my life in fear and in a defensive posture with a gun in my hand, and that's no way to live.
SPEAKER_05It's not helping anybody.
SPEAKER_03No, you will kill yourself if you live that way. So, what is it? Can you find a place where you don't have to feel that? Can you surround yourself with people? Sometimes just being with people reduces that fear, just being in, you know, COVID messed a lot of things up.
SPEAKER_05Sure. Yeah, this isolation. And I I feel that a lot of people are in that state of unfeeling, but they're not aware of it. So I appreciate the invitation to check in. Like, are you feeling?
SPEAKER_03Are you feeling also when you start accessing how you feel, you start to feel other people? It's like when you've had another, when you've had a bad experience in your life and you feel very vulnerable, you tend to start to feel other people's vulnerability, and that's good. That is it may feel bad because you're going through it, but it also forces you to reach out to someone else. And it's in two people admitting that they're vulnerable that change begins to happen, you know. By yourself, it's hard to do. But whether it's you know, a version of that is AA, another version is just talking to a neighbor on a street or a stranger. And New Orleans has that kind of energy. New York doesn't. It takes you have to break through things to get to that level. And I I don't want to anymore. You know, it's like I I'd rather be here, you know, I'd rather be in a place that's more open. If I have to, I'll go to another country, you know, to feel that again.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that relational alchemy that is so important. And and again, is not what society is nourishing right now. It's pushing for more isolation. And that's yeah, I love the idea that punk is now is about loving-kindness, or there's space for loving-kindness and and vulnerability and connection, authentic connecting within the umbrella of punk. I don't know if you said that exactly, but I'm I'm gonna take some of that.
SPEAKER_03It's true, it's like punk used to be fuck you, and you know, but and that's part of it because you have you are challenging uh the status quo uh without being co-opted by it, but there's also within that a camaraderie, there's a joy in smashing things up together, yeah. You know, and sometimes it's smashing yourself up, you know. Other aggressive music tended to be about smash something else. But with punk, you know, in in Hedvig, there's a moment where I spit water out of my mouth at the audience, and I'm like, that's a rock and roll gesture. Actually, that's a heavy metal gesture. You want to see a punk gesture? She fills her mouth again and then spills it all over herself and says it's the direction of the aggression that defines the act. So the aggression towards self can be a healthy one, you know, to say, what am I? You know, it's the equivalent of someone cutting themselves to feel you know, something. Um, it doesn't from the outside look good, but it was necessary for that person to do it at that moment to get to the next level and to make to to define a time and place for their pain as opposed to just go through it without question. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. Yeah, we'll start to wrap up. So I we didn't talk about this class that you're gonna be offering at Omega. I'll make sure to put info in the the notes though, this storytelling class.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, I'm teaching uh a kind of a workshop at the Omega Institute in upstate New York, uh, about releasing your creativity through writing. Um tips that I've learned. Awesome. And uh, you know, there's all kinds of stuff coming up. I'm working on a new play about uh anti-Nazi artist uh named Claude Cahun, C-A-H-U-N, and supervising scripts for a film about an act up activist, uh, Peter Staley, who helped save our lives and AIDS activism, and another one about uh Alan Ginsburg uh in 1968 dealing with that time, which has a lot in common with today. And then I'm working on a memoir also. Um so there's a lot going on.
SPEAKER_05A lot going on. Beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I'll definitely have links in the show notes. Any final messages you want to leave the listeners with?
SPEAKER_03No, just know that the good people haven't gone away. They're just trying to figure out what to do. And the bad people we now know who they are. We know who the opportunists are and the people who don't care. And let's, you know, put our eggs in the basket uh of people who do care.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Go to the show notes to learn more about Comment's Tour with Hedwig, coming to a city near you, and you can also connect with me there. I'd love to hear from you. Oh my god, I just love it. Let's say that again too. And if you can think of a friend who would benefit from hearing you, share it with us. Sending so much love and light to you today and every day. Until next time. Peace.