Episode 9: "It Me" (w/ Chris Landon!)

*This week, the queers are joined by writer-director extraordinaire Chris Landon (Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) to talk a seminal queer classic: It’s 1976’s CARRIE! In this episode, Nay delights at free tampons, Michael criticizes Chris Hargenson’s road head technique, Mark gets saved at a post office, and everybody shares their stories of when they went to prom (or not). Plus, in Tea Time we sip on MANIAC (the TV show), Sylvia Plath, MANDY, THE GOOD PLACE, and more CHILDREN OF THE CORN!*  [1]

## **Trivia**

Recorded "live" from Chamberlain, Maine's hottest lesbian bar, Dirty Pillows, where they're called breasts and almost every woman has them. Producer Brennan is credited as being the show's slappy/foxy gym teacher this episode.

**Brennan:** I *am* working out the kinks in my curriculum to make sure your boobs jiggle as much as possible.

**Nay:** I'm passing *this* class.

Tonight's guest was kept in the prayer closet until his introduction. Ernie gets his second shout-out. Recorded on National Coming Out Day 2018. Mark *and* Michael get to do Jodie Foster impressions this episode. Mark adds Isabelle Huppert and Sharon Stone to his roster of impressions.

Topics brought up during the show: *Brown Bunny*, Vincent Gallo, Vincent Gallo selling himself for $1 million, Tomi Lahren, Tomi Lahren in white meme, Ben Shapiro, Duncan Sheik writing *American Psycho: The Musical*, Mark says *American Psycho: The Musical* is on YouTube, Benjamin Walker was the titular character in *American Psycho: The Musical*, Samantha Mathis in *American Psycho* the movie, Christine Lakin in *Silence! The Musical,* Chris Landon's Coming Out Day Instagram post

## Tea Time

**Nay:** *The Bell Jar* (audiobook)

**Michael:** (imitates Lady Gaga's singing) *A Star is Born* [2018] (twice); new season of *Law & Order: SVU*, particularly the episode on migrant children (which Brennan's boyfriend made him watch)

**Chris:** A double feature of sorts of *Mandy* and (the first) five episodes of *The Good Place*

**Brennan:** *Return of The Fly*

**Mark:** *Maniac* (Netflix)

## **Shady Summaries**

**Mark:** Before we go on, this is going to be full of spoilers because it's a 45 year old fuckin' movie, so if you're listening and you haven't seen *Carrie* yet, you're not queer.

**Michael:** Or a horror fan

**Mark:** Or a horror fan. So just go press pause and handle your situation, whatever it is, mmmkay? And then come back and join us. Great.

**Michael:** Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Fuck 'em up! Fuck 'em up! Fuck 'em up! The end.

**Nay:** The catalyst that is period blood and the journey through a horrible mother and classmates to sweet Satanic revenge

**Chris:** (who comes up with one on the spot) Brian De Palma loves Sissy Spacek's thighs

**Mark:** I *don't* have a Shady Summary for this movie because I love it so much! I couldn't. Every time I tried to be like sassy about it, I was like, "No, I can't! I love it too much!"

**Michael:** I don't think shady necessarily means it has to be bad, right?

**Mark:** I know…. All right, you wanna know what mine is? It's just a line from the movie. Mine is just, like, "Where shall I put it Miss Collins?" That's my favorite. My favorite. "Now spit out that gum."

## **Brennan's Game**

**Brennan:** As Mark brought up earlier, *Carrie* was made into a notorious Broadway musical flop. Has anyone in this room actually seen it performed?

(No from Nay, Michael and Chris)

**Mark:** Yeah

**Brennan:** Where'd you see it?

**Mark:** So I have seen the bootleg video of the original Broadway cast

**Michael: *What?***

**Brennan:** Who got in there during the three days it was running?

**Mark:** Listen, I've heard stories, but on YouTube, and this was pre-YouTube, I saw like a VHS of the first act and I was fucking mesmerized

**Chris:** But like what is, like is the first song (sings as Carrie) 'Oh my god I'm bleeding!'?

**Mark:** No, the first song is called "In" and all the girls in the gym are sort of wearing sort of tennis whites. They come out and they're doing like high kicks and they're singing about how they all want to fit in, and it's so hard and everything is terrible and different and then Carrie literally shows up and she just bleeds and everyone yells at her

**Michael:** (laughing) Oh my God!

**Mark:** And what was amazing though, was that Darlene Love played, of, what's that Christmas song she's famous for?

**Michael:** "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"

**Mark:** Yeah. So, she's playing, brilliant performer of the Phil Spector era, but she was on Broadway playing Miss Desjardin, the Betty Buckley gym teacher character. But for some reason, they were like, "Okay, Darlene, look at--"like. she was such an old-school star that she was like, "I am for the public, not for the characters." And so she refused to look at any of these performers. She would perform all of her lines to the audience, and eventually apparently they just gave up. They were just like, "Fuck it. Let her do whatever the fuck she wants."

**Michael:** Can you imagine, like staring at the crowd?

**Mark:** It's weird, the musical is fascinating because, at least in the original iteration, the songs that the kids sing are almost to a one, horrendous. But then the songs that Margaret White has with Carrie are kind of incredible. So, "And Eve Was Weak," "Children Will Listen", "When There's No One", like there's just great, great songs

**Brennan:** I remember "How Those Boys Could Dance" was one of them?

**Mark:** Yes

**Michael:** When did this musical run?

**Brennan:** Late eighties, right?

**Mark:** I believe this was '88. I think. It's really fun. I highly, highly recommend going down a YouTube k-hole

**Chris:** I was gonna say, can you find this?

**Mark:** Oh my god, yeah. Right after the pod we're gonna...

**Michael:** Do a screening?

**Chris:** If you see me looking at my crotch it's because I'm actually watching it

**Michael:** On your penis

**Chris:** On my penis, yeah

**Brennan:** And there are a lot of revival theatres doing it now. I saw it at the La Mirada Playhouse and it's a really cool show. Like, some of the songwriting is a little daft, but...

**Michael:** Did they take out some of the kinks thirty years later?

**Mark:** Yeah. They definitely sort of retooled it, and the late, great Marin Mazzie did the most recent New York production at the Lucille Ortel, and it was a good, it was apparently a really good production. And then in L.A. a couple years ago there was one at the Los Angeles Theatre, I think? It was fun, it was really fun. I had a great time.

**Michael:** Was it the same book?

**Mark:** Yeah

**Brennan:** Yeah, *Carrie* by Stephen King?

**Michael:** No, the same stage book

**Brennan:** Just kidding

**Mark:** Not a different adaptation.

**Brennan:** My game is, I'm going to give you the title of a horror film and you have to guess whether or not that film has been made into a musical. And if you're right, I'm going to reward you with a clip from the musical that the movie got made into

**Michael:** If we're wrong, can we have the clip too?

**Brennan:** If you're wrong, I'm going to play you a clip from *Carrie: The Musical*

**Michael:** I'm gonna guess wrong on purpose!

(Mark already knows the answers, that's why he's not answering any of the questions.)

*Alien*: Musical or not?

Consensus: No, it's not

Correct answer: Not

Brennan plays a clip from *Carrie: The Musical* to tide everyone over, Michael reports that Mark is singing along. Afterward, Mark correctly identifies the singer as Marin Mazzie from the revival then says, "You've gotta hear Betty Buckley do it, too, It's pretty fucking amazing. That is a legitimately great song, that's just when she's shoved Carrie in the prayer closet, and she just spins the fuck out and goes crazy."

*Evil Dead:* Musical or not?

Michael: Yes

Nay: No

Chris: No

Correct answer: Musical

Brennan plays a clip from *Evil Dead: The Musical,* "All The Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed By Candarian Demons"

*Re-Animator*: Musical or not?

Nay: No

Michael: Yes

Chris: Yes?

Correct answer: Musical

Brennan plays a clip from *Re-Animator: The Musical* (with not great audio) (something about "his movements are spastic")

**Chris:** Regional

**Michael:** Is this in someone's basement?

**Chris:** I mean, does it count if only two people saw it?

**Mark:** Poor Dr. West

**Michael:** Chris, you're invited back *anytime*

*The Blair Witch Project*: Musical or not?

Nay: Yes

Michael: No

Chris: No

Correct answer: Not

**Brennan:** Although I *would*  watch one

**Michael:** it should have one, that would be amazing

**Chris:** Another great song, "Sniffle, Sniffle!"

Brennan plays another clip from *Carrie,* "The World According to Chris".

**Brennan:** "It's better to screw than to get screwed, dude."

**Mark:** Like I said, the songs that the kids sing are *rough*

**Michael:** The lyrics, that sounds like a *30 Rock*

**Mark:** Yeah, I know. '"Jenna Maroney in…"

**Michael:** *And* playing a high school student

**Brennan:** if you don't listen you're dot-dot-dot *jerks!*

*The Toxic Avenger*: Musical or not?

Consensus is that yes, it is

Correct answer: Musical

Brennan plays a clip from *The Toxic Avenger: The Musical*, "a song about how terrible New Jersey is".

*The Sixth Sense*: Musical or not?

Consensus is that no, it is not

Correct answer: Not

Brennan plays another clip from *Carrie: The Musical,* "He Asked Me Twice"

**Michael:** I feel like they should hire a Carrie with a really terrible voice.

**Chris:** Just really soft, you can barely hear her

*American Psycho*: Musical or not?

Consensus is that yes, it is

Correct answer: Musical

Brennan plays a clip from a performance on *The Late Show with Stephen Colbert*

**Michael:** Whenever I watch (*American Psycho*) I'm like, "Put me on a plastic tarp, do what you will."

*Pieces*: Musical or not?

Nay: No

Chris: Please, yes

Michael: No

Correct answer: Not

**Brennan:** It should have been made into an opera or something

**Mark:** Oh my God, "Bastard!" is crying out to be made into a musical number. "Bastard, bastard, bastard!"

**Brennan:** This game is just me feeding you clips of the *Carrie* musical

**Michael:** Yeah, I don't want this to end

Brennan plays another clip from *Carrie: The Musical*, "Saturday Night".

**Michael:** Jesus Christ, you're not fucking kidding about the kids' songs being terrible

**Mark:** I will say, that when the actual prom destruction happened in the '88 production is fascinating, because basically, they put, they didn't even have a bucket to drop pigs' blood on Carrie. It was someone who ran up behind her with like,sort of like a gas station cup and, woop!

**Brennan:** Oh, no!

**Mark:** She rises up on a platform, and then lasers. It was '88, so lasers were the thing. So lasers and dry ice. And then everyone on the ground just starts rolling around going like, (whiny teen) "Oh my God!" Like they're freaking out, and then what sort of looks like a giant piece of Saran Wrap, it just fell down on top of them

**Michael:** Is that supposed to be like the hose?

**Mark:** Yeah. And here's the thing, here's the gossip. So this show premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England and then it transferred to Broadway. Now, Barbara Cook originally played Margaret White. At the end of the show...

**Michael:** I love Markapedia

**Nay:** Yes!

**Mark:** At the end of the original RSC production, Carrie blows up the prom. She doesn't move. A giant white staircase. Like the stairway to heaven literally comes down. It's really, I don't know. People when they saw the show they were like, "What the fuck is this?" But when you see it on YouTube it's kind of beautiful in a sort of surreal way. But apparently Barbara Cook, the last performance at the RSC, she was nearly decapitated by the staircase. It nearly, like literally cut her in half. And she was just like, "Fuck this shit, I'm gone!" And Betty Buckley was like, "Me?" And Betty Buckley took over and that's why...

**Michael:** "Always mad for it."

**Mark:** So yeah, it was a very troubled production from jump.

*The Omen*: Musical or not?

Nay: Yes

Michael: No

Chris: No

Correct answer: Not

Brennan plays another clip from *Carrie: The Musical.* The opening song, "In". Mark sings along.

**Musical cast:** All they do is chew my ass!

**Mark:** And that's our show!

**Michael:** it's just a line of ass chewers

*Silence of the Lambs*: Musical or not?

Consensus is yes, Michael and Chris have seen it, it's wonderful.

Brennan plays a clip from the parody musical, *Silence!,* Clarice sings about a head in a jar

Nay gets Mark to do his Jodie Foster impression for Chris after asking if he listened to the episode where Mark originally did it. She can't remember which one that is, but Michael correctly says it's the Don Mancini one. Michael gives a shout-out to BJ Colangelo who was in a production of *Silence!* in Cleveland.

**Michael:** The "I Can Smell Your Cunt" song? Ahh

**Chris:** We play it every year at Christmas

**Michael:** The lullaby you sing to your child

**Chris:** Yep

## **Pride Float**

Does *Carrie* merit a Pride float and if it does, what would it look like?

**Mark:** Obviously, yes

**Michael:** One hundred percent

**Chris:** I'm gonna go make it now

**Nay:** I was thinking of like this ritualistic kind of thing that happens where there's Carrie's house but then all the queers at Pride get to write things on the house that they *want* to disappear and be destroyed. And then something happens

**Mark:** And then Carrie waves?

**Nay:** Yes!

**Mark:** She goes inside and then literally makes it collapse?

**Nay:** Yes

**Brennan:** I'm crying. That's beautiful

(Everyone agrees that Nay's is lovely.)

**Chris:** That's way better than mine

**Brennan and Michael:** What was yours gonna be?

**Chris:** I would just try to recreate the opening scene because you get to throw tampons at the crowd

**Mark:** Oh my God

**Michael:** You get the tampon cannon?

**Mark:** Which is kind of community service, because sanitary napkins are really expensive, you know, so.

**Nay:** There's a "luxury tax" on it, yeah

**Michael:** And the hand coming out has to be part of the float, right?

**Nay:** Yeah, absolutely

**Brennan:** Instead of wheels it's just one hand dragging the entire float

**Nay:** I love that

**Michael:** The hand comes out and hands you a tampon

**Mark:** Happy Pride, everyone

## **Quotes**

**Chris:** Thanks for letting me crawl in here

**Michael:** Yeah**,** glad you're still wearing your collar

**Nay:** Me too

**Chris:** Me too

**Mark:** Red. We might have known it would be red.

**Michael:** So today I read a tweet by Ben Shapiro that said, "and that's the tea," and it made me never want to say the word tea ever again. Why does he have to co-opt that?

**Mark:** Well, that's the end of tea

**Michael:** Gotta find a new way to put this in

**Nay:** I listened to a book

**Michael:** Yay! Good job, Nay!

**Nay:** *The Bell Jar*

**Michael:** Have you ever read it before?

**Nay:** No, no.

**Brennan:** Still hasn't. She's heard it

**Nay:** I heard it

**Michael:** She *experienced* it, thank you

**Nay:** Thanks, Michael. Michael's always got me

**Brennan:** I wasn't trying to cut you down. I'm just, I'm very semantical

**Nay:** Then what was that, Brendan?

**Michael:** Did you just call him Brendan?

**Nay:** I know. I'm such a bitch.

**Brennan:** What's the word? I'm so…

**Michael:** I've never seen Brennan look like this

**Brennan:** I'm so, I feel so cut to my core

**Nay:** You know, I wish I'd even done that on purpose, but I didn't, so.

**Brennan:** I remembered what I was gonna say. I was gonna say, "Touchė," but my brain kept giving me, "En garde," and I'm not good at coming up with things on the fly

**Michael:T**his is a safe place, you guys

**Nay:** it's funny when I tell people that I liked (*The Bell Jar*) so much, they're like, "Did it make you really sad?" I was like, "No, I felt really comforted by it because it's about this woman's, like, descent into mental illness," yknow? And I was like, "Oh, this is *validating*." Like, "This makes me feel *amazing*!"

**Mark:** "I feel seen by this book I listened to."

**Nay:** Exactly

**Michael:** Mariska Hargitay is such a queer avatar

**Nay:** Donk-donk!

**Michael:** like her character as Olivia Benson, god bless her, she don't need no man

**Brennan:** I've only seen the one episode. How many times do they say, "This changes everything!" this season?

**Michael:** Oh, every promo

**Mark:** I think my favorite episode of that show of all-time was when Sharon Stone was doing like, an eight-episode arc and then Isabelle Huppert also did an episode. And it ended, the last twenty minutes was just Isabelle Huppert and Sharon Stone in a morgue, and Isabelle Huppert had lost her mind and she had Sharon Stone at gunpoint and was like (as Isabelle Huppert), "Give me back the body of my child! Give him back to me!" And Sharon Stone was like, (as Sharon Stone) "You don't have to do this! You don't have to do this!" And meanwhile, I think it was like, Chris Meloni was in an air vent, he was crawling through. He was like, "I'm gonna get down there!"

**Michael:** So great

**Mark:** And I was like, "If this doesn't win every fucking Emmy," and it won no Emmys.

**Michael:** Should've won every GLAAD Award

**Mark:** You know what, I need, it's no, I was literally like, "Is this for me?"

**Michael:** Is this episode written *for* Mark Fortin?

**Mark:** Do you remember? It was clearly Sharon Stone. She was like, (as Sharon), "I want a *Law & Order* spin-off."

**Michael:** I've seen every episode of that series. (Sharon) actually talked shit about her experience on *SVU* recently, saying it was like, a for the money gig

**Mark:** *Really, Sharon*

**Michael:** (sarcastically) Ya think?

**Mark:** I thought you wanted to stretch

**Michael:** You pulled one over on us, Sharon! We all thought it was for the craft.

**Mark:** It was all for the love of the craft

**Michael:** Chris, do you watch *SVU* at all?

**Chris:** I don't. I've never seen an episode

**Michael:** You are *missing out*

**Chris:** Well now I *know* I am. Sharon Stone!

**Mark:** Sharon Stone *and* Isabelle Huppert

**Michael:** There's only like, 400 episodes, you can catch up real quick

**Chris:** Oh yeah, I'm on it

**Mark:** And you know Isabelle Huppert was like on the set, in her trailer, like calling home to friends and she was like, (as Isabelle) "I don't know why I'm doing this show." She's like, "I know i worked with the best of the best, and I don't know, I felt like 'What the fuck,' I will do it."

**Michael:** They didn't even bother printing her a script, they were just like, "Just do what you want."

**Mark:** She walked on set, (the crew was like) "We're so lucky to have you here."

**Michael:** "Can I do it in a morgue?" "Okay."

**Brennan:** Vincent Price is equally wasted (in *The Return of the Fly*). Not drunk, he just does nothing. He spends like, forty minutes in bed in this movie. He's like, "Oh, I was shot. I need to rest. I need to lay down."

**Chris:** He was the Britney of his time.

**Brennan:** Yeah, basically

**Brennan:** This one is about the son of the original *The Fly*.

**Michael:** They should have called it *The Son of Fly.*

**Brennan:** Totally, yes. I'll send them a, like, a telegram to the past? What do you want me to do

**Michael:** Time machine it. Now.

**Brennan:** (The son) grew up into a *snack.* He is so hot in this movie. I was like, "I don't care that this plot is really dumb." ...lots of people following each other when they go to the parking lot, lots of people staring out of windows

**Michael:** It sounds like *Cruising*

**Michael:** Brennan, where are you on your journey through *Children of the Corn*? Are you done?

**Brennan:** I wish I was. I've finished Five and Six.

**Chris:** Wait. How many are there?

**Brennan:** There are ten

**Michael:** There are a lot. You've been doing this awhile

**Brennan:** I'm finishing up this month. Five...

**Michael:** Five's the one with Eva Mendes, right?

**Brennan:** Yeah, Five's the one with Eva Mendes and her hair is a rambling pile in this movie, and it's gorgeous. And she plays opposite Greg Vaughn, who's, who does a lot of TV work right now. I don't remember the show he's on, but he's *also* very hot. I only watch movies with hot people.

**Chris:** Smart

**Brennan:** No, that's a lie, j/k. Alexis Arquette is in it too, who I love. It's a really mediocre, weirdly straightforward for a post-*Scream* slasher movie.

**Michael:** Wow, it's post-*Scream*?

**Mark:** (sarcastically) Really. A *Children of the Corn* sequel was mediocre. Wow.

**Michael:** What was its subtitle?

**Brennan:** That one is *Fields of Terror*, which is *not* a pun.

**Michael:** It should have been called *Field of Screams* or something.

**Brennan:** Well, that was *2001 Maniacs 2*: *FIeld of Screams**,* although I think that came out later

**Chris:** So there's ten

**Brennan:** There's ten! The tenth one came out this year

**Chris:** Wow, that's impressive. It makes me feel like part nine might be like, Isabelle Huppert and Sharon Stone.

**Brennan:** I know Michael Ironside is in Part Seven, and I am ready.

**Chris:** Oooh, all right.

**Michael:** Chris, imagine where you'll be with *Happy Death Day 13.*

**Chris:** Oh Jesus

**Mark:** For all our sakes', no!

**Brennan:** And *Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return* is unwatchable. So that's fun. It's basically if an orange filter made a movie.

**Michael:** And these are all still in the Dimension Films era of *Children of the Corn*, right?

**Brennan:** Yeah. Although I will say, *Children of the Corn 666* was directed by a woman, which is one of the only times in any long-running slasher franchise that that has happened other than (*Freddy's Dead*). Kari Skogland is the director and she's gone on to do a lot of really great stuff, and I"m not dissing her. It's just that the movie was ripped to shreds before it even got to her, so.

**Nay:** I *have* to watch it now.

**Michael:** I do, too. I can see the box in my head from the video store…

**Brennan:** Oh! Good tie-in. You know who's in *Children of the Corn 666*?

**Michael:** Me

**Brennan:** Nancy Allen

**Everyone else:** Ohhh!

**Mark:** Aww, bless

**Brennan:** Also beautiful hair

**Michael:** (laughing) "Aww, bless"

**Mark:** He said it was unwatchable!

**Michael:** No! I agree with you.

**Chris:** Everybody's got bills. Seriously.

**Michael:** Everyone's gotta do their Sharon Stone *SVU*-march

**Brennan:** And she does get to stare at a child's grave for awhile, so that's pretty fun.

**Nay:** Wow.

**Chris:** That sounds really fun.

**Brennan:** No, she gets to ***ACT***

**Mark:** That's your Fandango movie clips thing on YouTube

**Michael:** The trailer's just her staring at a child's grave

**Mark:** Just Nancy staring at a hole

**Michael:** Like, "A child goes in there."

**Narrator in the trailer for Carrie:** The girl who lives in that creepy house…

**Mark:** I like that even the trailer guy is like...

**Michael:** Is throwing shade

**Mark:** "I hate her"

**Chris:** He's so mean!

**Nay:** No one likes her

**Mark:** Even the trailer guy is like, "Ugh, Carrie!"

**Michael:** "She's guh-ross!"

**Mark:** "Carrie White eats shit!"

**Michael:** it's so true!

**Michael:** That *is* a great trailer

**Mark:** It really is a great trailer

**Chris:** It's actually the whole movie, kind of

**Mark:** It's like, (chipper) "Here's a girl. She's gonna kill everyone. Come and see it!"

**Michael:** "Here's this gross person. She gonna kill you!"

**Mark:** "Look at her. She's disgusting!"

**Michael:** You're just like, *angry* with Carrie

**Mark: *"''***Ugh, look at this house she's in, *Gross!"*

**Michael:** "You know what, this time we go through the trailer V.O. I'm just gonna (sleazy voice) do it really nasty. (normal voice) Gonna go at this cunt…" What was his deal?

**Chris:** This, this was a movie that had a huge impact on me when I first saw it as a kid. The reason I saw it, the reason *why* I saw it, is because my stepmother is an extra in the movie.

**Mark:** Which scene?

**Chris:** She's in a couple scenes. She's in the locker room scene in the beginning.

**Mark:** Heyo.

**Chris:** *Not* one of the naked girls. And then she, you spot her in other places, like in a hallway, Outside the principal's office. And so this was the reason why I was allowed to watch this particular movie when I was, I think, maybe seven?

**Michael:** Oh, wow.

**Chris:** Seven or eight, yeah. Just you know, classic eighties parenting.

**Mark:** Yikes

**Chris:** Like smoking and, "Go ahead and watch whatever!" But I remember when I saw the movie, there was, I connected to this, I was already that kid that was bullied at school. And so, for me, this was the first time that I saw something that sort of depicted that experience in school. And this movie sat with me. And I remember, I think it was when I went to school that week, like, when I was in class and I saw some of my bullies, I kept imagining all the ways I could kill them with my powers, you know? Remember like, the giant paper cutter thing? Like that thing came off and like flew across the room and like cut off five heads.

**Michael:** Love it. Josh Hartnett did that in *The Faculty*.

**Chris:** Oh, cool! We're back to *The Faculty* somehow

**Michael:** I kind of bring that up every which way.

**Mark:** *The Faculty* is so good. But also featuring Piper Laurie in a terrifying role. Nevermind. Please continue.

**Michael:** So you connected with that

**Chris:** Yeah, I connected with it. I really, it was something I related to immediately and so, and it's a movie I have gone back to over and over, for different reasons. But it really is, y'know, still one of the best King adaptations ever.

**Michael:** I agree with that

**Mark:** Well, I guess we're done here.

**Chris:** All right. Goodnight!

**Michael:** Watching (*Carrie*) today, well, not today, but in these times, I dunno. It's, I connected with it on that level still. Because you just put it in and as a young kid you put it towards your bullies and stuff, and we're still being bullied, it's just very systematic. I dunno. I just can't handle when someone calls Carrie a monster, because she's such a hero to me.

**Mark:** Drives me crazy

**Michael:** It drives me fucking insane. And watching it now, as an adult, who is semi-mature, like, it *is* an empowerment tale at the end of the day. So I'm glad you picked it, because it was a movie I didn't realize I needed to watch again.

**Chris:** But that's the thing, too. It's the whole, and again, I couldn't process this at the time, but as an adult I look back on it now and I go okay, for me, the connection is also, like, her power represents being gay, for me. And it's sort of this idea of this thing that *she's* trying to repress, that she's sort of being forced to repress and then ultimately discovers it's actually the source of her power and her strength and her identity. And so that's another layer of it that I think really comes through. And then there's all these other elements, like her mom locking her in the closet to pray. Well that just goes straight to the heart of conversion therapy and all the kinds of crazy things people have gone through and continue to go through. And so I think that this movie speaks to me and to a lot of other gay people, because of those elements.

**Michael:** Yeah, I think the movie speaks for anyone who feels "other", no matter what it is. Because you know, like you just said, the closet represents to me, a box that people wanna put people in and if you don't, outside of that box don't mold to what they want, they wanna throw you back into that box. Which, we've actually discussed this here before, the closet, but for also people like Carrie and like us growing up the closet is actually can be a protective place, too. So there's kind of that going on, as well, I feel like. Carrie in a way, yes her mom is forcing her to go in this closet, but that's like the one place she's actually safe from her mother at the end of the day, too, because her mom won't go in there with her.

**Mark:** And I think for a lot of, certainly queer men, i mean, Carrie is, looms really large for a lot of us in our childhoods because it plays so directly into the hero/self-monster image that we have growing up and that's what makes it so potent. And for me, it was one of the first horror movies to truly, truly frighten me, because the horror was so borne out of the characters, it was not a horror from without. It was just entirely predicated on how people behaved in regular life and it was about that culmination, that intersection of basic daily kind of bullying and religious fervor and sort of general bodily function and sort of things that you could not control about your body that just end up converging into what is an inevitable disaster. But it's interesting re-watching the movie now, versus watching it then and re-approaching it now, especially thanks to current events, from like a very different angle and from a different perspective. Nay, what do you think? I'm just… shut me up.

**Nay:** My fave.

**Mark:** Hit me

**Nay:** Domming

**Mark:** Thank you, mistress

**Nay:** You're welcome

**Michael:** (fey voice) "My turn."

**Nay:** I love a bully revenge tale. It's so cathartic and I did love to place my childhood bullies into the place of those bullies, and imagine killing them.

**Michael:** They fucking deserve it.

**Nay:** Ooof. It feels so good. What is that?

**Michael:** Dreams. It's fantasy

**Mark:** Well, because in the space of what, like 96 minutes, I mean, what I find fascinating about the movie is the use of comedy in the movie, too, to make the level of abuse not palatable, but because it's awful.  mean, the opening is one of the most brutal things I've ever seen. That shower scene is just so, it's so upsetting.

**Michael:** It's terrifying

**Chris:** It's also really, the execution of it when you go back and see it again, it's very odd. There's a lot going on. even before you get to the part where she's being abused by her peers, it's the most strange, like sexualized sequence ever. Like, I was very uncomfortable when I'm sitting there going, "Oh wait! These are supposed to be teenage girls in high school."

**Michael:** That's what's kind of bizarre, right?

**Chris:** Yeah, it's super-- you could never fucking do that now. And it's not in your wildest dreams

**Michael:** It's such an intrusive--

**Mark:** Really? You guys take it as intrusive? I find the tension of that opening slow-mo shot with the Pino Donnagio score so incredible because the music is so funereal. It sounds like music you would hear during a slide show of dead people in a church.

**Chris:** It's hypnotic

**Mark:** As you're watching young women at their most fertile, young, alive, happy and with this music that is so...

**Michael:** It's like a dream state

**Mark:** Yeah, it's riveting. I mean, I remember at twelve being like, "Oh, I have no attention span. Nintendo this that and the other." And (the shower scene) came on, and clearly I was not interested in the nudity, I was more just like, "What the fuck? Holy shit!"

**Michael:** it's unforgettable and it's everything. To me it's intrusive in the sense that it almost feels like it's not a movie, that you're almost like peeping in on these people at that moment. But it's all so powerful and it instantly strikes a fear in me right away, because you're like, *"Fuck*. What is happening?" The filter on the camera, everything looks otherworldly even though it's all daily life at a high school. It's haunting. I think that's the best way to put it.

**Nay:** It's so nice to watch it as an adult though, and think about. I was just like, "I would've bled on all these bitches. *And* picked up all these free tampons and pads they throwing at me."

**Mark:** I know. That shit's expensive, right?

**Nay:** You wanna just throw money down the drain? okay? Pickin' em up and going on...

**Michael:** But I think I get what (Chris) were saying though, too, because it is a little weird to see girls that are supposed to be sixteen naked. You know, like, I always find it interesting when gay Twitter's going nuts for Archie on *Riverdale*, and I get it, the actor's gorgeous and he's got a beautiful body, but it's like, he's playing a fifteen year old. There's something inherently weird about like, sexualizing that even though the actor's not fifteen.

**Mark:** But again, I think that's why De Palma gets away with it, because that music is not, it's distancing you from...

**Michael:** It's not supposed to be sexual, I don't think

**Mark:** It's not from a porny viewpoint I don't think, it's, that music is establishing that this is a tragedy on some level. I don't know. But again, it's, like, this is what's fascinating about the movie. (De Palma) ends up getting away with so much because he uses comedy. The movie opens on a volleyball game and PJ Soles whacks Sissy Spacek on the head and Nancy Allen is like, "You eat shit." And two of one, I have never been to a screening of this movie where people did not laugh out loud at this gratuitous bullying happening right at the top and then he (snaps fingers) clicks in to that music and the locker room scene. And all of a sudden the tonal shift is bam! It's just like there is no; the tonal shifts are, what's the word?

**Chris:** Jarring?

**Mark:** Jarring. They are hairpin

**Michael:** I mean, that's what high school is. It's jarring. At least for me in high school. You could be laughing your butt off in one class and then the next class someone's threatening to kill you and you're a faggot. You know what I mean? The shift in *life* is like that as a teenager, let alone whether or not you're queer, y'know? So like, to be a volleyball game to being hit in the head and being told to 'eat shit' within thirty seconds, it's like, whoa, he hit on American teenagers.

**Mark:** I remember often when I talk about the movie with people they go, (disdainfully) "Oh, it's so dated, you know those scenes where they're shopping for tuxedos and that like, (imitates score from the scene) when music comes on," and I'm like, "No, you need that. That's so important." That's what makes the movie, for me anyway, scarier. Because the movie ends up; what other iterations, whether the musical or on film or whatever have not gotten right about Carrie have sort of weirdly not gotten right is they avoid the fact that these kids are not *bad*. They're not necessarily monsters. They're just dicks. They're just *teenagers.* We're all fucking dicks when we're teenagers. To a degree, to somebody.

**Nay:** Absolutely

**Mark:** I love that the movie acknowledges, "No, these are just kids, too. They're no better, no worse." And I don't know, I just love these asides they do, with like the sped-up...

**Chris:** Yeah, there's some kooky, there are a lot of interesting choices throughout the movie that I am sometimes baffled by but also so impressed with, as well. To your point there is that, you know, when they're trying on their tuxedos and then like, suddenly in just one random moment it speeds up. Nowhere else is that used in the entire film at all. And this little thing happens, the fight, or the sort of crazy scene between John Travolta and Nancy Allen where they keep smacking each other in the face. It's so great

**Mark:** They play it for comedy

**Michael:** His blowjob is played for comedy. It's amazing.

**Mark:**You know what's fascinating? The sexual manipulation and domestic violence is played for comedy

**Michael:** I just love that she's talking while she's got a dick in her mouth

**Nay and Mark:** Talent

**Michael:** Like, clearly

**Chris:** Totally

**Michael:** Or it says Travolta doesn't got a lot to work with.

**Mark:** You know she didn't actually blow him in the scene, right?

**Michael:** (fey voice) Okay….

**Mark:** (as Michael) "What? *What?*"

**Chris:** Otherwise it would have been (pretends to talk with his mouth full) "I hate Carrie White."

**Mark:** (pretends to have his mouth full) "Oh Billy, I hate Carrie White."

**Mark:** (Vincent Gallo) is the guy that jizzes on canvases, right?

**Michael:** Yeah.

**Mark:** Mmmkay

**Nay:** And sells that?

**Michael:** Yep

**Nay:** As an artist, I just wanna say, I am inspired now

**Mark:** I mean...

**Michael:** You'll get your LaCroix squirter ready

**Nay:** Yeah

**Mark:** What's fascinating is that the movie plays these villains for laughs, right? And part of why I think the movie ends up sticking with a lot of people who watch it, is because it makes you complicit with the characters because you laugh with them? You end up enjoying them. You don't watch them going like, "Ugh, this bitch." You watch going, "Oh great, they're back," because they're so funny. And you end up being complicit with whatever they end up doing on some level; but in the book, Chris Hargensen is in an abusive relationship, literally in an abusive relationship and her portrayal in the book is a lot more nuanced than what Nancy Allen had to work with. And it's so interesting to see how, you know, either out of embarrassment, towards really leaning into what, talking about domestic violence and how this girl  I guess clearly no one to turn to, no one to listen to her… I know I'm digging myself into a word hole. But it's so interesting to read the book and then see this particular adaptation and see how it takes very very serious subjects and makes them funny. I mean, Piper Laurie herself ended up calling this movie a black comedy. She still does.

**Michael:** Well, I think in the movie it's very necessary 'cause you need those bits of like, relief and people just want to breathe for a few minutes. Because the scenes with her, Carrie and her mom are just so fucking intense. I mean, there is a camp factor to it because of Piper's performance, which is just so great.

**Chris:** By the way, anyone who's ever lived with or has been close to a zealot, (Piper Laurie's) performance isn't far from the truth, so that's what's really interesting about it, is that we can look at it and go, "Oh my God, it's so funny and campy,'' but I...

**Michael:** It's quite scary, too

**Chris:** I know those people, y'know.

**Nay:** Same

**Chris:** That is, that is kind of how they are.

**Michael:** Chris, where'd you grow up?

**Chris:** I grew up in L.A., but part of my family is very religious and my mom; I'll try and make this brief. So my mom was not a religious person and then my parents divorced and my mom went through what I called her Debbie Harry phase. So, like, she wouldn't come home and like, had really young boyfriends and did a lot of blow and i was like, "Ookay, that's my mom." Oh my God, I'm gonna get killed for this. No, she just went through a wild phase, which was all about, "I'm gonna prove to my ex that I'm living my best life." But then it took its toll, and I remember as a kid, one day she didn't come home for dinner and she was supposed to and hours and hours went by and then she finally came home and she… was a born-again Christian. Like she walks through the door a completely different person, and I cannot describe the transformation and how instantaneous and how at the time, crazy it was. And what had happened was she went to get her nails done, and her manicurist was like, "You need Jesus, come with me." And that was it. And that was it for the rest of my life. And my mom became an extremist in that way, and so it was the bible and she went through my room and she took out any thing she thought was evil and she made me read Proverbs every night at bed, and so there was this, again another reason why I connected to this particular movie, is that I felt a version of this. Now, my mom was not abusive, and not crazy, and didn't stab me in the back and so forth, but I understood that a little bit better.

**Michael:** Yeah. Hearing it in that context, you realize like, *oof*, that's some serious shit. I'm sorry you had to go through that.

**Chris:** I'm not

**Michael:** Thank you for sharing

**Nay:** I think my mom was your mom's nail lady. She loved to evangelize

**Mark:** I got saved at a post office once. I literally went in...

**Chris:** Is that what they're calling it?

**Mark:** I bought stamps and this woman started asking me questions and I was just like, y'know I'd just moved to L.A. and I was just was like, "I'm just gonna 'Yes and…' the hell out of this." Like, "I'm just not going to shut this down." And it, this conversation began with, "How are you today?" And ended with her coming out from behind the counter, outside the post office

**Michael:** Oh, she was an employee

**Mark:** Yeah. Saving me.

**Nay:** All these people need to be fired. Nail lady...

**Mark:** No, I was like, it was such a blatant violation of workplace ethics that I was just, it's *so* brazen, I'm just gonna go with it. I'm going with it, just for the story

**Nay:** Were there people in line behind you?

**Mark:** Yes!

**Nay:** Oh my god, I hate the post office!

**Mark:** Yes, she put a sign. She was just like...

**Michael:** 'Back in fifteen minutes, doing a conversion.'

**Mark:** She was like, "Baby come with me."

**Michael:** "Girl, I'm on break!"

**Mark:** And I was like, "Okay," and I like turned around to the three people behind me and I did like a shrug emoji basically and was like, "I dunno, but I think I'm gonna go get saved now!"

**Michael:** Cross of ashes on your forehead

**Chris:** But now you realize that Margaret Whites are out there. They're everywhere

**Michael:** Now they just take to Twitter

**Chris:** Or run our country

**Nay:** If they know how to use Twitter. My mom would never. She'd be like, "A tweet? What kind of bird? What kind of bird did Jesus maim for all of us to enjoy?"

**Mark:** I feel like today's modern Margaret White is...

**Nay:** Ann Coulter

**Mark:** That god-warrior lady from *Wife Swap*. Remember her?

**Nay:** Oh my god. (as the god-warrior) "Dark sided!"

**Mark:** (as the god-warrior) "She's not a *Christian?!*"

**Chris:** (as the god-warrior) "Gargoyles!" She's the best

**Mark:** I was like, "Oh, it's Margaret White, I'm glad she, look, she landed well, she did all right."

**Mark:** I came to *Carrie* the same way (Chris) did, which is as this closeted person, who is just like, (as a child), "It me!" You know? Like, (as a child),"I am her!"

**Michael:** (as a young Mark) "Poppa, I was a baby."

**Mark:** And yeah, it was just earthshaking, the experience of seeing this movie for the first time, at twelve. But now, when I approach it, especially with the news lately when it comes to sort of, the rise of the religious right. Once again, like Freddy back for fucking more. Never enough. Sexual assault, basically the constant messaging that women are receiving on q daily basis that no matter what happens to your bodies, we don't care. It's interesting when coupling book and film, how much of  *Carrie*, so much of *Carrie*, not to take away any of our experience coming to *Carrie* as queer people, you know, sort of seeing ourselves metaphorically in her, but, I mean, the women, all the women in *Carrie* to a one are sort of plagued with what it means to live as a woman in America. Whether it be because of toxic religious messaging; Sue Snell in the novel is pregnant and she has no idea what to do, no resources. Chris Harginson is in an abusive relationship, no one to turn to, and Carrie, of course, is fucking telekinetic and there's not a ton of resources in 1976.

**Michael:** When I always looked at Desjardin, is it Desjardin in the book?

**Mark:** Yes

**Michael:** And what's her name in the movie, Miss Gardner? I always read her as an undercover lesbian, too, in a lot of ways, you know, so there was like another person who was like, quietly, like, not, living...

**Chris:** i bet

**Michael:** You know what I mean?

**Chris:** You know she is. She's so slap happy, that's what I love about her

**Michael:** She's hooking up with the Catholic school gym teacher down the street

**Mark:** She hits Carrie, she hits Chris Harginson

**Chris:** She hits everybody

**Mark:** Betty Buckley is just slapping bitches left and right. But you know, apparently legend has it that in the Broadway musical, Linzi Hateley who played Carrie in the musical, and Betty Buckley ended up playing Margaret White in the musical, because she has an amazing singing voice. (Betty) would slap the shit out of her every night...

**Chris:** It's in her contract

**Mark:** And Linzi was like, (as Linzi) "Betty could you please just like...?" And Betty was like, "I don't know, I don't."

**Michael:** (as Linzi) "My ear's bleeding"

**Mark:** (as Linzi) "I can't feel my face." I don't know if anyone has a response to that, but it's twenty-, it's twenty, nearly thirty years

**Michael:** Carrie is just an avatar for so many things. It sucks that she's an avatar for so many things. Today, then, and probably for a really long time to come.

**Nay:** Unfortunately, yeah

**Michael:** Yeah. The pranks, though, you were talking about how they're just kind of bad. Some of the pranks are pretty fucked up

**Mark:** No, listen. There is, it is heinous, what these kids do

**Michael:** They kill animals to do their prank, which means they're a little sociopathic, right?

**Mark:** Well, certainly Chris and um, Billy Nolan have sociopathic traits, they have a  streak. The rest of the girls, at least in the shower scene, are operating under a sort of pack mentality situation. It's impulsive, it's not pre-meditated.

**Michael:** A lot of it's out of fear. Fear of not fitting in, and yeah.

**Mark:** And also you see this graphic representation of something your own body does. I don't know, I don't have a leg to stand on to talk about this. If anyone else does, but this is like, this is what I've gleaned from it personally.

**Michael:** Well, I know as a queer kid, I would blend in with the crowd in those situations. So I would take part in the bullying myself, so you're not the focus of the bullying

**Chris:** Well the safest way to disappear was to join

**Michael:** "Oh, they're targeting that guy? I'm good if I join in."

**Nay:** Just like, "Oh thank God they're not looking at me this time."

**Michael:** Yeah, the religious aspect always gets me, because I think we talked about this before, how I would pray every night before school, like, "Dear God, make tomorrow a good day." Motherfucker never followed through.

**Mark:** Awww, baby!Michael

**Nay:** Today's a good day

**Michael:** Today's a *great* day. I've got my friends here, I've got a new friend in Chris. Hey, Ernie. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Chris, I never thought of it that way before, going back to Mrs. White's performance. I need to watch it again now, to look at the seriousness of her performance and how *not* far off the mark she is at all. Is that, like, do you have anything else to say about that? Because I find it so interesting, I was just curious to know if you...

**Mark:** Before you actually launch into a serious discussion of a performance, we actually have a clip of one of the more famous monologues

**Mrs White:** I should have killed myself when he put it in me. After the first time...

**Mark:** If I had a dime for every time I've said that

**Mrs. White:** Ralph promised never again, he promised. And I believed him. The sin never dies. The sin never dies. At first he was all right. We lived sinlessly. We slept in the same bed, but we never did it. And then, that night, I saw him lookin' down at me that way.

**Michael:** (whispers during a pause in the monologue) This is the quietest I have ever been

**Mrs. White:** When God told me to pray for strength, I could smell the whiskey on his breath. And then he took me, he took me. The stink of the filthy rut-house whiskey on his breath. I liked it.

**Brennan:** Mark and Chris are like, doing karaoke to this

**Nay:** Yeah, they are

**Mark and Mrs White:** I liked it!

**Michael:** They're both sides of me, it's amazing

**Mark and Mrs. White:** All of that dirty touchin' with his hands on me all over.

**Mrs. White:** I should've given you to God when you were born.

**Mark and Mrs. White:** But I was weak and backsliding

**Mark:** Goddammit, what a great fucking performance

**Nay:** I do love some whiskey breath

**Mrs. White:** And now the devil has come home

**Mark:** Okay. it's true. I don't like drinking it, but I know the feeling

**Michael:** The sad part about that monologue to is that she's *so* craving a dick again. She's, like, so close to like, fucking juicing out

**Chris:** Her death, her death, it's all about penetration

**Mark:** Even Carrie when Margaret dies, even Carrie is like, "Jesus."

**Nay:** (as Carrie) "Jesus, Mom. Get some dick!"

***Chris**:* But literally the way she gets penetrated with about forty different kitchen utensils, and her death goes on and on and the entire thing is moaning. It's just, "*Ohhhh, ohhhh!*" And you're like***, "Oh, girl!"***

**Michael:** Bring it, Chris!

**Mark:** My favorite is when Piper does the, "Aaaahhh," like she, she makes it so uncomfortable

**Chris:** It's true. You're just waiting for someone to reveal a vibrator, like, "Yeah".

**Michael:** Under her… pillows

**Mark:** Robbed. Robbed of an Oscar. I don't know who won that year, but good lord.

**Michael:** Chris, can you do that again?

**Mark:** (moans orgasmically)

**Nay:** Putting it in the spank banks for later

**Michael:** "Brian, let me tell you what happened at the show today…"

**Brennan:** As young queer people, in or out of the closet, usually in, I was wondering what the (prom) situation was for y'all

**Nay:** Well, we were not allowed to have a prom because dancing was a sin.

**Brennan:** Oh, so you lived in *Footloose* town?

**Nay:** Yes. And my zealot mom definitely needed some dick. Like, she, for real, I feel like my life would have been so much better if my mom had been getting laid at any point in that time

**Michael:** Like Jon Hamm level dick?

**Nay:** Yes! What did you say? "Forty different things penetrating for a long time"? Like, whatever it takes, just please go get it, 'coz like, I need you to get the fuck off my back. I need you to go have some fun somewhere

**Michael:** The power of a good fuck, man

**Nay:** You know? Like, I wish that for everybody, and, you know… Mark!

**Mark:** I love that this is all coming under like, "Prom stories"

**Michael:** Any time Nay can tell a story, I don't care if it's connected to the question

**Mark:** No, it's always a good idea. It's literally always a good idea to be like...

**Michael:** Just talk to Nay?

**Mark:** "Nay, what do you think of…?" and just let her talk and it's...

**Michael:** "Nay, it's Thursday." (as Nay) "What of it?"

**Mark:** Michael, did you have a prom story?

**Michael:** Not really. I don't really remember my prom. I remember most, so I went with a girl who lived down the street from me and my best friend at the time liked her. So when I was closeted but seventeen, I was just like, "I just wanna get to the smoking and the alcohol after prom." So I was like, "Sure, I'll take her. Yeah, she'd be cool, she's hot." And like, so she went with me and like, all I remember from prom is we were in like, a cool place on the river in Cleveland. (sarcastically) "It sounds gorgeous." And smoking in the bathroom, thinking I was a bad bitch. And then going to an after party getting drunk while my friend hooked up with my date.

**Brennan:** The dream

**Chris:** Same

**Michael:** Right?

**Brennan:** Chris, what's your story. do you have one?

**Chris:** I mean, that was literally it.

**Brennan:** Did you feel relieved by that?

**Chris:** I… remember feeling relieved and embarrassed. Because it was one of those moments where I, because I was still very much, I wouldn't say I was in the closet. I was so deep in my denial...

**Michael:** That's a good way to put it. I probably was the same way

**Chris:** That it was one of those moments where I kind of, I remember, I got, somebody gave me a joint. And my date was off with some other guy and I just sat there and smoked it and I was thinking to myself...

**Michael:** (softly) "This is the best way to do prom"

**Chris:** Yeah. But it was that moment where I was like, "Yeah, something's not right." You know? Because I am supposed to be doing this other thing.

**Mark:** Were you beating yourself up?

**Chris:** Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely

**Mark:** Yeah it's this weird toxic male conditioning. Like, "I don't want to hook up with my date, but she's off with some other guy and this is why I'm fucked up."

**Chris:** Yeah, it was all of it

**Mark:** It's like this weird ouroboros of shit

**Chris:** I was that whole like, "Everyone's probably looking at--" *Carrie.*

**Michael:** Yeah, everyone's looking at you

**Chris:** "Everyone's looking at me." And that was, that was kind of my prom. And then i got *sooo* fucked up that I ended up in a, I went into a liquor store and I fell into a card rack and took the whole thing down with me. It was just like, I became that guy, you know? Where like, people had to carry me to the car.

**Michael:** I used to like, those dates too, would try to get like, it's so sad thinking about it, but I would try to get like, fucked up to the point of where I couldn't *do anything*, you know what I mean? In case there was going to be some sort of potential...

**Chris:** That was like, a nice built-in (pretends to scream)

**Michael:** (straight voice) "My dick doesn't work right now."

**Mark:** (as a pre-recorded voice) "We're sorry, the dick you're calling is not in service. Please hang up and try again."

**Michael:** My dick had caller ID, it knew when a chick was around

**Brennan:** So, Mark, where you come from I assume they call it "Le Prom"

**Michael:** In Georgia?

**Brennan:** Do you have one?

**Mark:** There was a prom. I was living in the United States.

**Brennan:** Yeah, no, that's what they call it here

**Mark:** By the time I graduated

**Brennan:** No, as a Canadian you might not know this, but that's what we call it here

**Mark:** (French accent) "Le Prom?"

**Michael:** In southern Georgia?

**Mark:** I did not go to my prom

**Brennan:** Good move. Smart move

**Chris:** Smart move

**Mark:** I did not go to my prom, I just didn't.

**Chris:** Is there any regret to that at all? Do you feel you missed out on a sort of, uh, seminal moment?

**Mark:** (as the voice in Carrie's head) "They're all gonna laugh at you!" (Normal voice) Is there regret? No, not really. I don't really speak to anyone from high school. I don't hold a lot of ill will, but at the same time l never really romanticized, I moved so many times a kid I never had like, any kind of super-close relationships. I didn't actually start to form actual friendships until college, really, so, y'know, there's a few people that I was friendly with in high school, but it wasn't, I always felt outside of it. I think that the closet as well as, I was only here for the last two years of this graduating class, so. I dunno. I just felt on the outside of things. And I was just like, "Why do I wanna put on a tuxedo and feel outside of things?"

**Michael:** Yeah, in a lot of ways it's almost like kind of comforting too, right? Like...

**Mark:** Kind of

**Michael:** There's a lot of stuff. Like, I had a group of friends I ran around with, but it was a lot of what you were just talking about, Chris, like a lot of bullshit, trying to condition myself to act "normal". And (straight guy voice) "Oh, that chick's hot, oh let's do--" (normal voice) And y'know, looking back on it, I wish I had never gone. Y'know, I wish seventeen year old me knew what thirty-eight year old, oh my God I just sounded(?) myself, thirty-eight year old me just knew about life and stuff, because prom's stupid. It's so heteronormative and dumb. Like, why do we do that?

**Mark:** Well, it's weird, right?

**Michael:** It's super-weird

**Mark:** It's all of that, and yet at the same time it is sort of an undeniable rite of passage for a ton, I mean for years, our heterosexual overlords, but more and more for LGBTQ…I...A kids

**Michael:** Plus

**Mark:** Plus. (mutters) shit. I always fuck that up.

**Nay:** You got it!

**Mark:** All right, I did it?

**Nay:** Yeah!

**Mark:** I did it! So more and more, and now it seems to have opened up a lot more. but you know, back in the (mutters) nineties (normal voice) when I, you know, it was not...

**Michael:** Well god bless the, Nay always says queer youth are such a treasure because they're the ones forging a path right now, which a lot of people aren't doing. And, you know, it sucks that just being queer *is* a political statement, and you know, and these kids just, these young folks just fucking doing it. Like, the balls and the fucking courage at sixteen to just be like...

**Mark:** Inconceivable

**Michael:** "I'm doing my shit. Leave me the fuck alone." Like, it's powerful

**Mark:** (hushed voice) I would like to take this opportunity to tell you guys something.

**Chris:** Wow, it's coming

**Michael:** Mark's Piper Laurie

**Chris:** we're shocked

**Mark:** (whiny teen voice) "I feel like, you guys, I feel like I haven't been honest with you, but..."

**Michael:** You're Nancy Allen?

**Mark:** I'm Nancy Allen? If only I had a revelation that good

**Brennan:** I actually, I *did* go to prom with a male date

**Everyone else:** (cheers)

**Michael:** Like two years ago, right?

**Mark:** I hate you for being so young

**Chris:** And then he went to jail!

**Brennan:** It was… how long ago was it? This was my junior prom, because he was a year older than me

**Michael:** Good for you!

**Brennan:** *Thank you*. He wore a white tux, so I should have known he was trouble.

**Mark:** Coke dealer

**Chris:** It blends

**Brennan:** My senior prom, when I went with a platonic female friend 'cause my boyfriend and I had broken up by then, that was at the Disneyland Hotel, which was gorgeous and beautiful and the best thing ever. Because I grew up in Anaheim, which is, y'know, we're right there. They're just basically, "Our playground is Disneyland." But my junior prom, which is the one I went to with my boyfriend, it was at just some club in Anaheim. Like an adults dance club and they started setting up for the night in the middle of our prom. They were like putting out those little couches that are like, white vinyl

**Michael:** What time was your prom at?

**Brennan:** I feel like it was from something like eight to ten

**Mark:** Was it like a lunch prom?

**Michael:** (teen voice) "This prom theme is brunch!"

**Brennan:** And our last song was "A Moment Like This" by Mariah Carey. It was a weird choice

**Michael:** Wait, by Mariah Carey?

**Brennan:** Did I do that wrong? It was someone

**Michael:** "Some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this"?

**Brennan:** It was Kelly Clarkson or someone. aren't there like a million covers of that song?

**Nay:** There are

**Brennan:** It was one of them. I don't remember

**Mark:** *Did Mariah cover that song?!*

**Brennan:** Did she not? I can't remember if she did

**Michael:** I would love it if she did

**Chris:** So your experience, though. Was everyone pretty cool, or…?

**Brennan:** Just to back up a little bit--

**Michael:** You were kind of, around, you were in Orange County.

**Brennan:** Not the best. I've talked about this before. I wasn't bullied particularly, but there were certain people, people I didn't know. And I would hold hands with my boyfriend and people would be like (moronic voice) "Hey!" And just useless from far away and that never really bothered me as much because I was like, "They're dumb." But yeah, I don't know, I think in high school, i was, at least in my drama program, I was the first one to come out. I'm a pioneer

**Nay:** (sarcastically) In the drama program. Shocking.

**Michael:** And then eighty-nine more came out

**Brennan:** Of course. And like, one of them was my boyfriend, so you're welcome. To me. I don't know that I was scared of other people because I did feel in such a safe place. I was sequestered in the drama program and literally the way my school was structured, the drama room was almost completely in a separate building. Like miles away from the quad, where everybody else was. So I felt safe in this world that was built around me

**Chris:** I guess the question, it's more, did you go to prom because you always wanted to go to prom or did you go to prom because you felt like this was a statement? Or was it both?

**Brennan:** Um, it was kind of both. I mean, I read *Confessions of a Rock Lobster* by Aaron Fricke, who was the guy who like, who sued, the first guy; well he sued his school successfully to take a male date to prom. And I was very inspired by his story, and I was very shocked by how many people he hooked up with at such a young age.i was like, "How did you do that?"

**Mark:** (as Brennan) "I could do that!"

**Brennan:** Yeah, no, I mean, obviously as we mentioned earlier, being publicly and visibly queer *is* a political statement. We can't escape that. And I think we were the only same-sex couple at that prom. There might have been like, a female couple, but that's usually, there's more of a grey area in the way that people look at it and it's slightly different because they're, you know, "party girls!" And people are like, "Oh they're just going through a phase, it's not a thing." It is. They're together.

**Michael:** And there's also that fantasy for high school dudes

**Chris:** Yeah, for guys.

**Michael:** (dumb jock voice) "They're gonna kiss in front of us!"

**Brennan:** So that's a weird thing, and I'm not diminishing their story, because they were great people. They're super cool. I don't know. So, yeah. The answer is both. I made a conscious choice not to worry about it and to just not think about it and no one bothered us and it was fine. Yeah, that's not much of a story, I guess, but it's happening more and more

**Mark:** It's nice to know you had that experience, that you went.

**Brennan:** Yeah and look, just for any aspiring queer youths out there, prom isn't that great. You don't have to go. But it's also super cool that if you live in a space where you *can* do that and if people are not open arms with it, we'll just be like, "Eh, they're over there who cares."

**Mark:** Just stay home and watch *Heather*s

## **Previous Episode**

Episode 8: "Varratapedia" (w/ Michael Varrati!)