Speaker 1: Before we begin today's episode, we'd like to provide a
Speaker 1: brief clarification on behalf.
Speaker 2: Of my co host Ryan.
Speaker 1: While today's discussion takes place within the context of a
Speaker 1: podcast that focuses on LGBTQ plus lifestyle topics, perspectives, and experiences,
Speaker 1: Ryan wishes to note that he personally identifies as heterosexual.
Speaker 1: His appearance on this program is intended to support open dialogue,
Speaker 1: shared understanding, and respectful conversation across different communities and perspectives.
Speaker 1: His participation should not be interpreted as a representation of
Speaker 1: his own sexual orientation, but rather as an effort to
Speaker 1: engage thoughtfully and constructively with the topics being discussed. We
Speaker 1: appreciate the importance of transparency and authenticity for our audience
Speaker 1: and our guests alike, and we thank you for joining
Speaker 1: this conversation and always wanting food off culture chaos.
Speaker 2: And you saved me.
Speaker 3: Like a lost Christ streams your glass sales, got the
Speaker 3: words that builds the last.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Cuffs Basement. I'm your co host who
Speaker 1: is not as straight as Ryan uh Tim, and I
Speaker 1: am with.
Speaker 2: My co host, the one straight, Ryan McDonald. How are
Speaker 2: you doing?
Speaker 1: Ryan?
Speaker 4: Great to be here how are you guys.
Speaker 1: And CC, you're probably gonna hear it, So we're doing
Speaker 1: it early today and you're probably gonna hear a CEC
Speaker 1: running around, which makes me so angry because I told
Speaker 1: Shannon she's watching CEC alone so we can do the podcast.
Speaker 1: I said, I should be able to hear a pin
Speaker 1: drop in this house. But we have a very special
Speaker 1: topic and very special guests for this series and this
Speaker 1: month we do it every year to celebrate Pride Month.
Speaker 1: We have the newly Married, which is so wonderful. I'm
Speaker 1: major round of applause for that sound effect. It is
Speaker 1: Mark Fulcini and Refall. I don't know how to say
Speaker 1: your last name. Welcome back, Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 5: Good to be again, back back back again.
Speaker 1: Back back back again. Thank you so much for returning
Speaker 1: as our resident experts on being gay to do the
Speaker 1: Gayest series we do all year, every month for the past,
Speaker 1: every Pride month for the past.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how.
Speaker 1: Many years, because we did it before we start doing.
Speaker 2: It with Fall, so do you know how many years
Speaker 2: we've been doing it?
Speaker 5: Mark, I feel like this is our maybe or is
Speaker 5: it for the Ryan for this is the third one
Speaker 5: with me. The third one was with you. Okay, so
Speaker 5: we're four.
Speaker 1: I think I think five sounds right. The gay the
Speaker 1: Gay Cinema Podcast Series or or Queer Cinema Podcast Series
Speaker 1: is I think we changed it last year, but we're
Speaker 1: going with a theme this year. So normally we always
Speaker 1: just pick.
Speaker 2: We decided like.
Speaker 1: Any you know, pick anything within the community of LGBTQ.
Speaker 1: Plus it can be any movie you want. Rafall refuses
Speaker 1: to pick an American movie, but I found out a
Speaker 1: loophole that would force him to pick an American movie
Speaker 1: this year, and uh, we are only covering films made
Speaker 1: by the director John Waters. John Waters is an American
Speaker 1: director from Baltimore, Maryland, who is openly gay and includes
Speaker 1: many themes of gay, lesbian, trans.
Speaker 2: But also just like Serial Killers.
Speaker 1: Serial Killers. We did cover John waters movie already, which
Speaker 1: was Serial Mom. But Mark, describe, yeah, describe John Waters
Speaker 1: and your your history with him, and how if you
Speaker 1: if an alien landed on Earth and was like, describe
Speaker 1: John waters movies to me, what would you.
Speaker 5: Say, Oh, that's actually a really difficult question. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: because actually, like also I think that our picks, I
Speaker 5: mean three are in a certain style of John Waters,
Speaker 5: and then one is a more of his like mainstream
Speaker 5: like for a kind of main audience, but it still
Speaker 5: has a similar theme. And he's kind of just absurd.
Speaker 5: He's making he's counterculture, he's making fun of just the
Speaker 5: absurdity of life. I think, especially in this period I
Speaker 5: think where he grew up, like in the fifties and
Speaker 5: also in the sixties, he kind of it seems like
Speaker 5: he goes back to that period a lot in his movies.
Speaker 5: But yeah, John Waters. My I was thinking about, like
Speaker 5: how I like my first interaction with John Waters, and
Speaker 5: I remember specifically it was with Hairspray. I think I
Speaker 5: was at like my I was with my family. We
Speaker 5: went to like a friend's house or was at my
Speaker 5: grandparents and I was alone in the living room watching
Speaker 5: TV and Hairspray was on, and it was my first experience.
Speaker 5: And at the beginning of Hairspray, John Waters has a
Speaker 5: cameo which I did not realize at the time he
Speaker 5: was the director of the movie. But he's just like
Speaker 5: he flashes Ricky Lake and he has like this very
Speaker 5: you know, pencil thin mustache, and he like that's I
Speaker 5: think stuck with me. And I just remember I don't
Speaker 5: know if I knew he was like the director of
Speaker 5: these movies, but I just knew him as the sort
Speaker 5: of pop culture character. And it wasn't actually till I
Speaker 5: think later in life that I realized his kind of
Speaker 5: you know, collection of movies he's made and really like
Speaker 5: dove deep into them.
Speaker 2: Have myself on mute.
Speaker 1: I think that John Waters is a unicorn and that
Speaker 1: there's there's no other director that's like him, and specifically
Speaker 1: because he goes from the absolute fringe of the fringe,
Speaker 1: craziest shit that you could possibly imagine, two very mainstream,
Speaker 1: like appearing on The Simpsons, appearing on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: Hairspray is probably the most like famous mainstream movie he
Speaker 1: ever made, and it was also remade where John Travolta
Speaker 1: plays the divine. Wait, it was a Ricky Lakes roller.
Speaker 2: Divine's role is Divine in Hairspray.
Speaker 5: I've never seen it divin Hapray, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I've actually I've never seen Hairspray and Rafall. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they have. I don't know how popular a
Speaker 1: mainstream The Simpsons was when you were growing up in Poland.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know if you had a television,
Speaker 1: I'm you've probably lived in like some sort of ramshackle
Speaker 1: hut in the woods. But did you watch The Simpsons
Speaker 1: growing up with Fall?
Speaker 2: I absolute okay.
Speaker 1: So one of the best Simpsons episodes of all time
Speaker 1: is about Homer coming to grip with being okay with
Speaker 1: home sexuality and he befriends a guy named John who's
Speaker 1: played by John Waters.
Speaker 2: This was my introduction to John Waters.
Speaker 1: So John Waters is like kind of playing himself and
Speaker 1: he befriends Homer Simpson and then Homer realizes he's gay,
Speaker 1: and he's very not okay with this, and then by
Speaker 1: the end of the episode he like comes to grips
Speaker 1: with it and realizes I'm being stupid. But uh, it's
Speaker 1: like definitely probably inappropriate to watch now and people would
Speaker 1: find it defensive, but it is so good.
Speaker 2: So that was my introduction to John Waters.
Speaker 1: And then I saw Cereal Mom when I was very young,
Speaker 1: and that was you know, we.
Speaker 2: Already covered that movie.
Speaker 1: But Rafall, were you familiar with John Waters at all?
Speaker 1: And like, had you seen a lot of his stuff?
Speaker 2: What you know, what's your history with him?
Speaker 6: Actually not until I started watching Group Poles, Drag Race
Speaker 6: and the franchise altogether. So this was actually kind of,
Speaker 6: you know, this introduction through the points of reference like
Speaker 6: that we're kind of popping up in however, many episodes
Speaker 6: of Repulse rag Race, probably in every single one of those,
Speaker 6: and I remember I was actually back then in Canada.
Speaker 6: It was twenty eighteen, and we were probably watching with
Speaker 6: a friend of mine with whom I was actually living
Speaker 6: back then. Yet another episode and I think I just
Speaker 6: random the ask, listen, what is this reference actually about?
Speaker 6: Like what's going on here? And then he's like, wait,
Speaker 6: haven't you seen that? And I was like, well no
Speaker 6: in the first place, first of all, what is it?
Speaker 6: What is that thing that I haven't actually seen? And
Speaker 6: secondly know what happened? So when do we do that?
Speaker 6: And this was the first time we actually kind of
Speaker 6: got to got me to see any John Waller's film,
Speaker 6: which I believe was actually being Flamingos.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about my history of that movie later on
Speaker 1: in the series. But another pivotal this is a movie
Speaker 1: we're not going to be talking about. Another pivotal experience
Speaker 1: in my life was I'm always as if you listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast like and Mark obviously knows more than anyone.
Speaker 1: I love to push the envelope of what is appropriate.
Speaker 1: And when I came of age, when I was over seventeen,
Speaker 1: the first NC seventeen theatrical release after I had turned
Speaker 1: seventeen was A Dirty Shame. So I made Andy go
Speaker 1: see it because he was like, what is this? Who's
Speaker 1: John Waters? And I was like, this is the first
Speaker 1: NC seventeen movie that has been released in theaters in
Speaker 1: like years, so I'm going to see this. Ryan.
Speaker 2: What is your history with John Waters?
Speaker 4: I think somewhere like where you guys say knowing being
Speaker 4: aware of him as like a public figure before the movies.
Speaker 4: I think my first like knowledge of him was Bride
Speaker 4: of Chucky. He plays like a photographer that they horribly kill,
Speaker 4: and like seeing his name in the credits and I
Speaker 4: was like, Oh, this is the guy that they always reference.
Speaker 4: And then like he does a lot of like talk
Speaker 4: show appearances and stuff like that because he's like a
Speaker 4: really big, like again persona. And then I think the
Speaker 4: first one I actually saw was A Dirty Shame, and
Speaker 4: it was this big like, Oh, he's kind of going
Speaker 4: back and doing what he was kind of famous for.
Speaker 4: And then Hairspray used to be on Comedy Central a lot.
Speaker 4: I think it was one of the few of his
Speaker 4: movies that like they probably could play without a lot
Speaker 4: of censorship. So he's just I've seen that one a
Speaker 4: few times on TV and then yeah, then I told
Speaker 4: you this a few days ago. But I think he
Speaker 4: was one of the last directors where like when I
Speaker 4: was buying like DVDs constantly, I was like, buy everything
Speaker 4: he's made, watch all of it, and then like listen
Speaker 4: to his commentaries because he's just a fascinating speaker to
Speaker 4: listen to to. He's such a great personality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, going back to
Speaker 1: me saying he was he's a unicorn. I truly don't
Speaker 1: understand how how he is so mainstream. I'm glad he is,
Speaker 1: but I and I don't know how to describe John Waters. Really,
Speaker 1: it's really really difficult. But he says in Ryan let
Speaker 1: me borrow his DVD of Pink Flamingos, and after in
Speaker 1: the actual runtime of the movie, at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie, because it was I think the twentieth anniversary,
Speaker 1: there's like a little monologue he gives and he was
Speaker 1: he basically said that, you know, hippies were trying to
Speaker 1: freak out the squares, and we were trying to freak.
Speaker 2: Out the hippies.
Speaker 1: So like, if you think your counterculture.
Speaker 2: You have not watched these films.
Speaker 1: You don't know what counterculture is. And obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of that is rooted in LGBTQ themes and how non
Speaker 1: mainstream they were, especially back when he started making movies.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about that. It's also just about
Speaker 1: like pushing the envelope and like, you know, being absurd
Speaker 1: for the sake of being absurd, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: He also even being a gay man I've discussed before,
Speaker 1: he's obsessed with breasts, which I appreciate and I've always
Speaker 1: heard that that like that, you know, oh gay men
Speaker 1: still appreciate boob. So John Waters is living proof. And
Speaker 1: I met John Waters. I lived in Baltimore for I've
Speaker 1: told this story on the pod before, but for those
Speaker 1: that don't remember, I lived in Baltimore for years and
Speaker 1: I had never seen him. I didn't even know if
Speaker 1: he still lived there, and he, uh, there was a
Speaker 1: skateboard theme bar, because again Baltimore is weird and the
Speaker 1: best way, and I was at the skateboard theme bar.
Speaker 1: It was called Johnny Rad's and I was there one
Speaker 1: week night. One week night, it was not crowded. John
Speaker 1: Waters walked in and I turned and saw him and said,
Speaker 1: very loudly, holy shit, that's John Waters, because he's.
Speaker 2: Like a hero of mine.
Speaker 1: And then he very abruptly turned and walked out when
Speaker 1: he heard.
Speaker 2: Me say that.
Speaker 1: So that was my encounter with John Waters in real life.
Speaker 1: But rafall I also wanted to ask you you were
Speaker 1: introduced one of the ugliest accents in the entire world,
Speaker 1: which is the Baltimore accent. I can't imagine you were
Speaker 1: familiar with it, but to describe it, it's like a
Speaker 1: hard o's Like instead of saying like the Orioles they
Speaker 1: call the o's, they say the a's, like I'm going him,
Speaker 1: and instead of water they say water. So have you
Speaker 1: have you experienced that mid Atlantic Baltimore accent at all
Speaker 1: our fall.
Speaker 6: To be quite honest, not much. I think I'm actually
Speaker 6: kind of stuck on the Paris saltanfe Cali at the moment.
Speaker 6: Once in a while, I'll listen to Mark speak to
Speaker 6: his parents, which obviously after ten seconds of conversations, which
Speaker 6: is to the very deep Boston and otherwise I think
Speaker 6: with true Bloods, it's been Louisiana blood.
Speaker 2: We can walk me through that love that that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, It is truly not. It is an ugly,
Speaker 1: ugly accent. But yeah, they say Orioles are the O's
Speaker 1: and then the Baltimore beer is called Natty Bow. So
Speaker 1: to go to an Orioles game, you go to the
Speaker 1: O's and drink bows. So they say, like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing this weekend? Bos and aves? It's it's an
Speaker 1: awful disaster of an accent. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: we should just talk about so we didn't cover We're
Speaker 1: not covering Hairspray. I still have never seen Hairspray. It's
Speaker 1: a little too normal for me. But we're going to
Speaker 1: talk first about his most normal movie of all time
Speaker 1: other than Hairspray, which is cry Baby's starring Johnny Depp.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of folks, if they haven't
Speaker 1: seen cry Baby, they're just they know it existed. If
Speaker 1: they grew up in the nineties, they remember coming out,
Speaker 1: they saw the poster with Johnny deppbeat like as a greaser.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna just pause it right here
Speaker 1: for a moment. And then the next thing you will
Speaker 1: hear will be us covering crybaby, directed by John Waters,