#dating in nyc podcast

[phantom-overdose]

((If anyone ever wants to write with a scruffy, kind of (unintentionally) goofy, sweet but still totally animalistic, former prisoner, werewolf-esque, character (complete with wolf tail) who has read a bunch of self-help books and who is super committed once he falls in love, and who also just so happens to be from a post-grand-fairytales fairytale realm full of magic and chaos and all that good stuff... just, ya know, let me know <3))

[licksofvenus]

[amarguerite]

probably in peak me-in-the-2024-presidental-election-season, I'm annoyed at This American Life because their third act in this week's podcast was an interview with a Brooklyn Trump voter having trouble getting dates because of his politics and like...

he said his straight female matches did not go on more than one date with him after learning about his politics and was baffled by it because politics shouldn't completely define your life, and the reporter pointed out that it might be because he is not directly impacted by his politics the way his dates are, but there was, once again, no explicit discussion of reproductive rights

like, even in nyc I feel like the women of America are very aware that a Trump supporter is either fine with or actively working towards laws that could result in your death. why engage in anything that even touches on reproduction with someone who is fine if you die as a result of it???

[wellcomeoneileen]

Why does Randy Harrison deserve compensation? What happened to him? You can DM me if it's not okay to be public

Hey! No it’s totally okay.

⚠️disclaimer - I am a NEW fan and so I am NOT the most informed at all. Other people like @brian-kinney-apologist like really know shit. I initially found things bc watching S4 made me go oh there is bts shit going on for sure and googled, and then when I got on tumblr I saw a bunch of posts talking about it, too.

Lots of older sources are harder to find now bc they didn’t do a digital preservation or the website is expired, but here is what I’ve found, from heated Advocate articles whilst the show aired and then from more measured reflections from podcasts around 2016.

Randy was young and it was his first TV show - when he started he didn’t even have an agent, and really didn’t know what he was getting into. He had done sex scenes on stage and thought that he was pretty prepared for what was to come.

However, he has stated he ended up feeling pretty objectified, such as hearing “we need more shots of Justin’s ass” regularly or expressing a desire to not to go-go dancing type scenes (King of Babylon upset him) and then even more go-go dancing being added (S2 Sap scenes). He was also told to act less gay by casting directors for the show, and to “try to be more butch because Justin isn’t out of the closet”

The show pre-dates intimacy coordinators and there have been allusions, including from the actresses Thea and Michelle, that the sex scenes could be uncomfortable to film.

There was BTS clashing, with producer Tony Jones !!reportedly!!! Saying that Randy was a bitch to work with and “showrunners” “reportedly” saying they would never work with Randy again. There are two interview clips, one from when the show was airing, and one from 2016, when CowLip say they wanted all actors to be comfortable on set, and in BOTH clips , like 15 years apart, Randy kinda like laugh/roll his eyes and Gale looks at him very bemusedly. They had bigger reactions in the ~2003 clip.

He was openly pretty angry as the show went on. He told the Advocate that he would never be friends with or respect Justin if real. He disapproved of the Britin relationship. He said he had to fight to include the scene of Justin topping Brian, which was very important to him. Leading into season 5 he stated he hoped Justin was killed off by getting hit by a truck (obviously being glib, but like he was mad lol)

He has said that lots of scenes needed to be reshot because he struggled to do them so much, like the Cody sexy gun scene that made him so uncomfortable, and then either he or Gale said S5 sex scenes were reshot a lot because they just couldn’t stop laughing at that point anymore.

Peter and Scott recently have said the only time anyone asked for actors’ opinions was right after season 1 ended, and to ME they sounded kinda cheeky about it, all these years later, so perhaps it was a cast sticking point? Unsure, and it wasn’t even Randy who said that. Fat grain of salt.

He has more recently reflected on this time period and expressed regret he went out the way he did, and he understands things better and honors his craft more (heavy paraphrasing!) bc he was mentally checked out by the end and wishes he had finished strong instead.

Also, the cast didn’t realize when signing on how isolated they would be from The Industry. Randy has spoken about this in an unrelated podcast, as have the actors who play Ted and Emmett. NYC or LA are where you want to be for networking, and then signing on to spend the majority of the year in Toronto negatively impacted their careers, they feel. Randy has said he had to start from scratch after the show ended, and Peter and Scott have said Showtime had no idea how to market the show nor their stars, and so they had to just watch as all the initial hype fizzled and nothing was done with them. They were contracted to work too much to seriously be involved elsewhere, while simultaneously not getting good exposure, which I IMAGINE created a dire sort of mood and morale on set. < personal interpretation and fictionalizing history.

Meaning, Randy probably at the very least FELT like he had spent five years on a show that didn’t respect him and it was largely for nothing. He has since stated he appreciates the opportunity and it is the reason he was finically secure, for which he is deeply grateful.

And then finally the fans! He had stalker(s?) and tons of creepy people and was heavily typecast and people would come up to him frequently, which made him uncomfy, and would furthermore act like he was actually Justin, which made him super uncomfy. He was kinda like Chappell Roan!! He was like hey I’m not Justin I’m a person and y’all are freaks. He has publicially declined to speak on the stalking issues, which given his vocal responses to other issues, indicates to ME that it’s pretty personal and upsetting (I mean it’s stalking it’s obviously horrible but you know what I mean). During the show he had a boyfriend that fans like tormented online and even on posters (that bit comes from Tumblr or another forum, so not like verified info on my part at all) because they shipped “Gandy” so hard. I know I’ve read on tumblr about the insane Gandy people but all I remember is they were intense and insane and negatively impacted Randy’s actual real life. Again, that’s info from fans that I haven’t read in article or heard from out of his mouth. Secondary source lol.

This point is PURE speculation, but early interviews with the whole cast were super excited, and they all talked about how excited they were for something ground breaking. By the end, people were angry or giving fluff responses, or in Peter’s case; calmly stating the show was a soap opera and that’s okay. I FEEL like everyone thought they were signing up for something more real/gritty/positive impact to society and then were like oh I’m here to look hot in this show that only moms watch to get them turned on to have sex with their husband. Cool.

Now, do I agree with that - no. But, the show audience was vastly different than expected, and the artistic direction might have been too, both of which might have really disappointed people. Esp Randy and maybe Gale. Randy was a capital T theatre person, and Gale was too and had lots of experimental work and like performance art. Randy has ALSO expressed displeasure with some theater work he did because he didn’t think it was fresh and the audience was only older wealthy white people, so we do know that this sort of thing does matter to his sense of fulfillment at work.

TLDR; had to shoot scenes he didn’t want to, several times, felt objectified on set, disagreed with his character’s direction, maybe felt like he wasn’t being listened to artistically, was cut off from other work opportunities, didn’t appear to get along with leadership, had bad fans, was young and in deep over his head, and at the very least *started* with no career or social support system.

Again!! Am not the most knowledgeable person !!! I do NOT want to spread misinformation so hopefully I’ve tagged where I’m reading into things vs actual quotes but also people who have actually been around pls feel free to say 🙋um actuallllyyyyy

[ofmdrecaps]

08/22-23/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; David Fane; Samba Schutte; Madeleine Sami; Kristian Nairn; Alex Sherman; Bronson Pinchot; Damien Gerard; Vico Ortiz; Reminders to Vote; Adopt Our Crew: GalaxyCon San Jose Videos; Call to Action Aug 30th; Fan Spotlight: Citizen Dame Podcast; Truly Docked Event in Tx Reminder; Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika;

== David Jenkins ==

David has been sharing more beautiful artwork by our crew. This time is the brilliant @thozaarmitage <3, and he's right, just SO GOOD.

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

== Rhys Darby ==

First up, some words of wisdom on how to success in life from Rhys' Tiktok!

Next up: Rhys' (And Minnie's!) movie Uproar won Best Oceania Film 2024 at the Septimius Awards!

Last but not least, it looks like Rhys has a new project coming up-- check out the article here!

Source: Variety Article

== Taika Waititi ==

Some "August b&w Shots" from a friend of Taika

Source: Christabel Rose Instagram

Previews of the season finale of Time Bandits!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Apple TV (@appletv)

And a short video by Rita.

Source: Rita Ora's Tiktok

== David Fane ==

David out with a John Asi!

Source: John Asi's Instagram Stories

== Samba Schutte ==

Samba's sharing more info regarding the upcoming Advanced Chemistry Theatre Screenings! You can buy tickets here!

📍 Arlington Capitol Theater 🗺️ Arlington, MA 🗓️ Date: 9/3 💬 Q&A 📍 Village East 🗺️ NYC 🗓️ Date: 9/4 💬 Q&A 📍 The Screening Room at 1313 🗺️ Wilmington, DE 🗓️ Date: 9/6 🕒 Time: TBD 📍 Lark 🗺️ Larkspur, CA 🗓️ Date: 9/7 💬 Q&A 📍 Harkins 101 via Phoenix Film Festival 🗺️ Scottsdale, AZ 🗓️ Date: 9/9 📍 The Ashland 🗺️ Ashland, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/10 🕒 Time: 4:30 PM 📍 More Info 📍 Laemmle Monica 🗺️ Santa Monica, CA 🗓️ Date: 9/12 🕒 Time: 7:30 PM 📍 Rodeo Cinema 🗺️ Oklahoma, OK 🗓️ Date: 9/18 📍 Gateway Film Center 🗺️ Columbus, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/18 🕒 Time: 7:30 PM 📍 Cinestudio 🗺️ Hartford, CT 🗓️ Date: 9/21 🕒 Time: 7:00 PM 💬 Q&A 📍 Esquire 🗺️ Cincinnati, OH 🗓️ Date: 9/22 🕒 Time: Matinee

Source: Samba Schutte's Instagram Stories / Good Deed Entertainments Instagram

== Madeleine Sami ==

Madeleine's been promoting Season 2 of Double parked! There's some shots of her and her costar as well as a new trailer! Check them out below!

Source: Madeleine Sami's Instagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Madeleine Sami (@madeleinesami)

== Kristian Nairn ==

Kristian is going to be in New York City on September 24th at The 92nd Street Y for an exclusive In Conversation & Signing! You can visit 92 NY.org to get tickets!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

Also~~ Kristian wrote a thank you note for @smudgeandfrank who recently saw him and the rest of the cast at GalaxyCon Raleigh! If you HAVENT seen their work, please check out their instagram!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

== Alex Sherman ==

Alex has been poking his head out lately which we love to see!!

Source: Alex Sherman's Twitter

== Bronson Pinchot ==

More Ned Low Musings from Bronson as well as his other characters! (PS: Sorry Tumblr DOES NOT want to share this video for some reason? 1. You can visit it here on Instagram 2. More Ned Low)

Source: Bronson Pinchot Instagram

== Damien Gerard ==

Damien out at a secret studio in their Green Room! Looking forward to see what you're up to sir!

Source: Damien Gerard's Instagram

== Vico Ortiz ==

Vico's got more OFMD BTS up on Patreon!

Source: Vico's Patreon

== Reminders To Vote ==

Thank you @adoptourcrew for the reminders!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Twitter

== Adopt Our Crew ==

One of the awesome things our friends over at @adoptourcrew have been up to lately is going to cons! They had some fun questions to ask our lovely cast and crew!

=Vico Ortiz=

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adopt Our Crew (@adoptourcrew)

= Kristian Nairn =

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Adopt Our Crew (@adoptourcrew)

= Call To Action =

@adoptourcrew is asking for your help on August 30th to get OFMD trending again!

Source: Adopt Our Crew's Instagram

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Citizen Dame Podcast =

There's another episode of Patreon exclusive OFMD Weekly series up! This week is The Art of Fuckery. It's just as fun as it sounds, if you're a patron feel free to check it out! If not, and you're interested, you can become a patron on their Patreon!

Source: Citizen Dame Patreon

= Truly Docked Sept 21-22, 2024 =

We're just a month away from the Truly Docked event in Galveston TX, and events have been announced! You can still purchase tickets here!

Source: Truly Docked Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies! It's the weekend for a bunch of you! Huzzah! Hopefully this week wasn't too crazy for you and you're getting a chance to take a load off! Tonight I really just wanted to say thank you for all your kindness. Seriously. You all remind me every day that the world isn't a dreary place, but one filled with wonder, light, and good-intentioned people. Whether you're sending @ofmdlovelyletters to crewmates, or sharing artwork/fics, or making beautiful gifs, or sharing stills, sending a quick dm to check in on folks, or a comment with something kind, you are making the world so much more manageable. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day at work, even if I don't have time to interact much, I just come on and scroll through tumblr and see all of the things you all are up to, and I can feel the warmth radiating from all the wonderful things you're doing.

I can feel the love, even when it's not directed at me, that's how much love there is out there. It's like coming home to a warm fire and a soft rug to lay on and a blanket, and a cup of hot tea to warm the soul. You all make so many tiny waves each day, and those waves come back and go on to make other waves, and there's nothing more wonderful than someone being kind when they could have been harsh. You make the world a better place. You make this world worth living in, and fighting for, and full of hope.

So yeah.. I just wanted to say thank you lovelies, you truly have helped so many people through so many things you'll never ever be able to comprehend, and you do it with love. Thank you for being kind, and loving, and you <3 PS: This made me think of you all, thank you for being that reason for me and so many others <3

Source: FullSpiritQuotes Instagram

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

Tonight's theme is disaster! Gifs courtesy of the magnificent @thunderwingdoomslayer and @celluloidbroomcloset!

[cariielise-archive]

i did a podcast with my ex-girlfriend earlier this year and the topic of our first date came up. it was nothing fancy -- just a nice little night out in new york city. the usual for a first date ... until we were walking home and a rat fell on my head. think my soul left my body at that very moment and it was officially labeled the worst date i've ever been on. my ex was great, but that rat? that rat ruined everything. it's like it was waiting in the tree to launch onto my head and give me a lifelong fear of the rodents. if you're going on dates in NYC then i highly suggest wearing a hard helmet, just saying. anyway, what has been your worst first date? i wanna hear all about it. leave no details out. @hfrpstarters

[seeminglyranch87]

Taylor & Travis Timeline

December 2023 - part 1

December 1 - Taylor and Travis attend Christmas Party at a pop-up bar wearing matching Christmas sweaters featuring squirrels - or should we say "squirle"? IYKYK. (x) Kansas City

Twitter April 2011 - Travis

IG Halloween Oct. 2021 - Taylor

December 2 - Travis arrives ahead of Chiefs v Packers Game, Green Bay, WI

December 3 - Chiefs v Packers, Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Defeated 19 - 27

Taylor attends the game bringing Brittany Mahomes & Lyndsay Bell with her on her jet. They return to KC immediately after the game.

December 5 - Taylor seen out for dinner with Jack Antonoff in NYC

December 6 - Taylor Swift is announced as TIME Person of the Year - 2023 (x) This is a brilliant article - go check it out!

Most recently, she’s been dating the NFL star Travis Kelce, as has been well documented when she attends his games. “I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she says. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once.” She is sensitive to the attention that’s put on her when she shows up. “I’m just there to support Travis,” she says. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”

I point out that it’s a net positive for the NFL to have a few Swifties watching. “Football is awesome, it turns out,” Swift says playfully. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.” (A game she attended in October was the most-watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl.)

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she says. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” The larger point, for her, is that there’s nothing to hide. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she says. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Taylor attends the premiere of "Poor Things" in support of friend Emma Stone, Rockefeller Center, NYC. Taylor sat with Laura Dern, Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson

December 8 - Taylor seen out with Selena Gomez, Zöe Kravitz, Cara Delevingne, Anya Taylor-Joy in NYC

Go to December 2023 part 2

Return to the timeline

[technicolorfamiliar]

"If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again."

[Photos: Alick Crosley, Sara Krulwich]

---

On Sunday, January 5, 2025 The McKittrick Hotel, the home of Punchdrunk's wildly successful and groundbreaking immersive theatre production Sleep No More for 14 years, closed its doors for good. As early as 2011, they would tease that the show was going to close in a few months time. It became kind of a running joke. It was generally accepted Sleep No More would run forever, barring some major catastrophe like a meteoroid flattening West 27th Street. Then in late 2023, when a closing announcement was released in major news publications, suddenly it was real -- Sleep No More was going to close in January 2024.

But then there was an extension. Then another. Then another… And the show ran for a whole year until the final, final, FINAL_SERIOUSLY_FORREALTHISTIMEISWEAR.pdf closing date arrived.

When the initial closure was announced in 2023, going back one last time wasn't an option for me. But as the extension extended, I made it my business to get to New York to say goodbye to Sleep No More and The McKittrick Hotel in person.

A note before I continue: I have a long history with Sleep No More. I saw it six times in Boston in 2009 - 2010 and many more times in New York. I was an intern, a run crew/stage management team member, a steward, and briefly a costume artisan in the period between 2011 - 2015. My complex relationship with the show is colored by all these different experiences. But I was first someone who was deeply moved and inspired and excited by Sleep No More. I could talk about it forever, and have to anyone who would listen. When all is said and done, I am a fan above all else.

---

I wound up booking a standard entry ticket for mid-October, around what would have been the 15th anniversary of my first time seeing SNM in Boston. The last time I had seen the show was in early 2019. I had gone with someone who had never seen the show and ended up being not as into it as I had perhaps hoped. I thought about asking someone to come with me this time, but it really is unreasonably expensive, especially for people traveling from out of town, especially for creatives who don't always have a lot of expendable income. So I went solo. Kevin Cafferty recently said in his podcast with original Hecate Careena Melia that SNM is an introvert's paradise, and I tend to agree. When SNM ran in Boston, I always went by myself, so a solitary journey has kind of always been part of the ritual for me.

Since 2019, I noticed there had been some changes. Arrival times were more strictly enforced due to covid-era social distancing protocols. Or so I thought before I arrived at 7:15 to find a line outside the front doors almost to the end of the block. Some of the new changes were appreciated: phones were locked in little cross-body bags, something I first encountered at Punchdrunk's London show The Burnt City in 2022; I wish this was SNM NYC had done in the beginning, it would have be amazing for audiences, crew, and performers. But between my unintentionally late arrival and the bottleneck in the Manderley Bar caused by all the added booths and tables (why??), I only got into the show right as Witches 2 was starting. And despite it still being the first loop, it was way too crowded in the Rep Bar. But I stood in my old run crew spot against the pillar beside the Jello Baby where I used to watch the audience for picture-taking and other bad behavior.

I hadn't entered the building with any real plan or expectations for what I wanted to do or see, but standing in that spot in the Rep Bar brought back all my old muscle memories of the place. I found myself being pulled to the scenes and spaces I inhabited as a crew member over 10 years ago. My pre-set had included the Hotel and so I followed the Porter for most of his loop. I followed the Cunningman, whose 1:1 I once stood inside night after night. The rest of the night was like a Greatest Hits of Sleep No More: the Party, Witches 1, Duncan and Danvers' dance to "Moonlight Becomes You", the Macduffs' bookcase duet. I lingered on the mezzanine as the Vertigo theme blared out over the Ballroom. I ran a hand over parts of the set -- walls, furniture, set dressing -- I once handled every day. Everything felt surprisingly and heart-achingly familiar.

That familiarity has always meant that I'm not really able to enjoy the show purely as a fan anymore. When the muscle memory kicked in, I became overly conscious of where I was standing so I would be out of the way of performers entering and exiting a scene, where to position myself in order to follow certain characters or catch a specific view of a specific scene. I was too aware of the loop structures and tracks to really be completely present. I know some SNM fans love having that knowledge so they can plan their show experience in advance, but what I used to love most about being an audience member was the feeling of discovery and following my gut.

I came out of the show that cold and windy October night with mixed feelings. I was already mildly annoyed by arriving late and I don't know... I got the feeling I wasn't there on a particularly good night. The cast looked amazing but there was a certain chemistry and intimacy missing in a lot of what I saw. The magic for me ended up being in inhabiting the building one last time, and all the sense memories brought up by being there -- the ghosts of every pre-set and post-show, every party and late night hang out in the bar, all the literal blood, sweat, and tears that went into helping make SNM run for a mere fraction of its existence. And of realizing how many other people have walked through The McKittrick Hotel's doors and been affected by their time and experiences there, all the audience members, superfans, staff and crewmembers, performers, everyone who was touched by the show and maybe by the friendships they forged in the Manderley Bar or backstage.

---

Years ago I bought this little box. It's where I keep my immersive theater knickknacks and ephemera. In there is Luba's red string and the Watchman's seed packet from The Burnt City, Tuttle's blood moon and Conrad's ink blot from The Drowned Man, a prescription from Then She Fell's Kingsland Ward, 3D glasses and an imaginary map from The Grand Paradise, six playing cards from Sleep No More Boston, Cawdor Seeds, and tickets for the Annie Darcy Band at Oberon. That box is where I put my final playing card with a Porter ring and Cunningman charm, right next to the engraved Hotel key and DeWinter locket I was given at my last show as a crewmember. But there used to be a lot more of SNM New York in that box, a lot of stuff I threw away or lost over the years, things I wish I had held on to. There was a limited edition run of monochromatic playing cards for the very first Halloween that were very cool. One of the people on the props team gave me a vial necklace at the first Mayfair. One of the cast members gave me a small animal tooth. There were photos from various parties. But all that stuff is gone. And fuck it, it wouldn't have fit in the box, but I wish I had smuggled out my black mask after my last show. I don't know why they made me leave it behind, it was cracked and held together with gaff tape. Now it's probably sitting in a landfill somewhere.

I think a lot of those things got tossed because they reminded me too much of the bad days. Sleep No More had a way of bringing out the worst in some people, myself included. I was miserable to be around. And not to point fingers, but I don’t think I was entirely the sole person at fault for this. I mean, they hired a superfan, what did they think was going to happen? I loved the show itself too much to have ever been able to make it out the other side 100% unscathed.

Don't get me wrong, the first few months I was there were the best. There were red flags during that time, sure, but over all the vibe in the building early on was very inclusive. There was a lot of mutual respect and comradery, it felt like a big family and for the most part I felt fairly welcome. Cast and crew and stewards and staff would all hang out together after shows in Manderley or at Billymark's West (R.I.P.). But all that good feeling eventually began to shift. I was like a frog in a pot of boiling water, by the time it got really bad it was too late. There was a shift in the culture inside the building for whatever reason. It became more exclusive, more image focused, more money focused. I suddenly felt expendable, like I no longer belonged there. It broke my heart to see the show itself become less important. My physical health started to deteriorate and my mental health began to spiral. But instead of leaving while things were still semi-ok for me, I had to hit rock bottom before I finally realized I needed a change. Or at least to go home and have a safe place to recover.

So I left. I moved back home to Maryland. I was in pretty bad shape after nearly two and half years of excessive stress and really fucking bleak depression. But Sleep No More, for all its faults, was my second home that whole time. Some of the people I worked with there, though I may not see or speak to them often if at all, I will always feel bonded to because of that shared experience.

So I left. I moved back home to Maryland. I was in pretty bad shape after nearly two and half years of excessive stress and really bleak depression. But Sleep No More, for all its faults, was my second home that whole time. Some of the people I worked with there, though I may not see or speak to them often if at all, I will always feel bonded to because of that shared experience.

It took me a long time to stop feeling bitter about Sleep No More, longer than I care to admit. The BuzzFeed News article rekindled a lot of my old resentment. For years, I've consistently had nightmares about my old job. Only recently have the dreams let up, or when I have them I don't wake up in bad mood. All the stuff I just said above is like a tiny fraction of all the SNM baggage I've been carrying around since I left. For years, it was always so easy to focus just on the bullshit. It completely eclipsed all the good stuff. But because of all the outpourings of love for the show after its closure, the fonder memories, much to my surprise, have begun to resurface.

My job at SNM was not glamorous, there was a lot of heavy lifting and gross stuff the run crew team had to do on top of running our tracks in the show and dealing with performer/audience safety, being on our feet almost the entire time, up and down the six floors of the building from call time to final notes. But showing up, doing the work, and connecting with people brought all these interesting and amazing opportunities both inside and outside of the building. I had barely been an intern a month and I was asked to help repaint the ballroom floor before the first Halloween parties. Much later, I was invited to come back and paint costumes for the Surrealist Mayfair. I met Pig Pen Theatre Co. because of Sleep No More and wound up being offered a few really fun illustration projects for them. I did a bunch of illustration work for performers and staff members. And through Tori Sparks I was connected to Third Rail Projects to work on the build for their first run of Then She Fell and later The Grand Paradise, one of the best experiences and teams of my professional career. I learned every stage manager and run crew track, and I helped create the original intern tracks back when there were just two of us. We would have movie nights in the empty sixth floor space that would become the restaurant. We had roof parties before they built Gallow Green. We had fun nicknames for when we were on radio. We ate a lot of cake at Cake Fridays. We celebrated people's birthdays and last shows and the 100th, 200th, 300th shows in the building. My first day as an intern I was allowed to just watch the early show as an audience member. Before I was hired, the marketing team hired me to design a postcard for a project that sadly never saw the light of day, but I got that opportunity because of the stupid and ridiculous SNM fan art I had made between the Boston show closing and the New York show opening.

All of that was a dream for me.

There were a lot of people who were really good to me, who made me feel welcome and valued, who had my back. I actually wrote down all the names of those people. It was a longer list than I expected. Through their friendship and support, a kind word or an inside joke, they gave me a reason to stay for as long as I did.

---

In the days leading up to the last show on January 5, I didn’t think I would write about Sleep No More. I thought maybe I would eventually write something way down the road, long after the final closing performance, after the dust had settled. But I just ended up feeling like this meme and had to get it out of my system now.

I was hired as a SNM intern in the fall of 2011. That winter I was offered a full time run crew position. I ran the track we called Nightmare on High Street from then until I gave my notice in January 2014. I had the pleasure and honor of not only working on a show that inspires me as an artist to this day but also the privilege of working with people who were genuinely really fucking amazing. And that's what really matters in the end, that's the stuff I think about now that it's finally true: we can never go back to Manderley again, and that's all there is.

[mariacallous]

NEW YORK — An unindicted co-conspirator, an accused sexual harasser and a high-ranking cop alleged to have beaten a female subordinate were among Mayor Eric Adams’ most questionable appointees, until this week.

The forced resignation of New York City’s police commissioner, following a federal raid of his home, has intensified concerns about the mayor’s staffing decisions.

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban’s departure — the first high-profile one since the feds seized phones from members of Adams’ inner circle last week — is the latest chapter in a saga that dates back even before January 2022 when Adams, freshly off his election victory, began filling his administration with people whose checkered pasts were almost certain to invite scrutiny.

When assembling his administration, Adams named Phil Banks deputy mayor of public safety, even though the former NYPD chief was caught a decade ago accepting gifts from people ultimately convicted of bribery.

Adams placed his old police boss and personal friend Tim Pearson in a powerful, nebulous adviser role and gave him control over a small new municipal office with unchecked power. Pearson is now facing four sexual harassment lawsuits, and one of his accusers alleged in court papers his behavior had been common knowledge for years.

The city “knew about” Pearson’s “long history of sexual misconduct … but ignored his history and hired him anyway,” one of the complaints reads. Pearson’s lawyer has denied all the allegations.

Now both Banks and Pearson have also had their phones seized by federal agents, alongside Caban.

The probes have raised new questions about the mayor’s judgment, and whether his loyalty to troubled aides has become an insurmountable political liability. Nearly every Democrat challenging him in his reelection primary next year is zeroing in on his perceived ethical lapses.

“Far be it for me to tell Eric Adams who to hire and fire. But it’s clear to me that he didn’t understand the most important part of being mayor,” Scott Stringer, the former city comptroller who is expected to run against Adams next year, said in an interview with POLITICO. “He made poor choices, and it’s come back to hurt him.”

The list goes on.

Jeffrey Maddrey, whom the mayor named chief of the NYPD, was accused of punching a fellow cop he’d coerced into a sexual relationship. A judge threw out the case, but he was docked 45 vacation days in an internal trial.

Adams’ former chief of staff is entangled in litigation over past business interests and his ex-buildings commissioner resigned amid an investigation that led to an indictment on bribery charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

In his personal life, Adams is close friends with twin brothers who pleaded guilty a decade ago to financial crimes. A pastor who has described Adams as a mentor was recently sentenced to nine years in jail for stealing a parishoner’s mother’s retirement savings.

Adams appointed an anti-gay Bronx clergyman as a faith adviser, over protests from LGBTQ+ groups. And one of his community liaisons is under federal investigation involving a visit to China she made with Adams.

Many of Adams’ picks to help lead the city’s sprawling government have been unimpeachable. But the list of Adams associates enmeshed in scandal continues to grow.

“It just raises questions to me as to why our mayor feels so incredibly comfortable surrounding himself with a myriad of unsavory characters,” said Christina Greer, a close watcher of city politics as a Fordham University political science professor and co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast.

“You’ve got people accused of punching people in the face, of sexual inappropriateness,” she added. “The list of grievances is long and getting longer, so why would you invite that into your inner circle?”

Adams prides himself on giving people second chances, and says his door is open to anybody. That comes from his own nontraditional political rise — from a dyslexic Black kid from Queens who got arrested and beaten by cops, to a police officer who courted controversy, to an elected official who would eventually mayor.

“Yes, I’m going to talk with people who have stumbled and fell,” Adams said in 2022. “Because I’m perfectly imperfect, and this is a city made up of perfectly imperfect people.”

The people Adams surrounds himself with — both personally and professionally — have earned him criticism going back three decades, to the dawn of his political career.

Adams’ first run for office, a 1994 challenge to a congressional incumbent, was doomed in part by his alliance with Louis Farrakhan, the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader. Soon after, Adams was investigated as a cop for working security for boxer Mike Tyson, who was fresh out of prison after a rape conviction.

After winning a seat in the state Senate, Adams became a friend and the top defender of the so-called four amigos, Democrats who caused chaos in the chamber by defecting from their party. Three of the amigos have since served prison time, for unrelated crimes. The fourth, Rubén Díaz Sr., has become a fierce ally of former President Donald Trump.

Later, Adams got involved in the bidding process for a slot machine contract with fellow state Sens. John Sampson and Malcolm Smith. The arrangement fell apart, and Adams got dinged for “exceedingly poor judgment” in an ethics report. Sampson and Smith both later went to prison for unrelated crimes.

As mayor, Adams’ plan to appoint his own brother Bernard to a well-paid NYPD gig leading his security team raised eyebrows. Adams only asked for ethics guidance after the fact, an internal watchdog reduced his title, and dropped Bernard’s salary to $1. He left after a year.

Adams also tapped nonprofit executive Sheena Wright to be a deputy mayor, a decade after she’d been arrested twice in a day over a domestic dispute. Her friend David Banks called his brother, NYPD bigwig Phil Banks to intervene, and Wright was let out and the charges were dropped.

Wright and David Banks, Adams’ schools chancellor, now live together. They were both among the top appointees who had their phones seized by federal investigators last week — maybe the latest example of Adams’ appointment decisions coming back to bite him.

Adams’ loyalty does have its limits. He cut ties with the pastor he mentored, kept his distance as one of the four amigo state senators, Hiram Monserrate, has attempted political comebacks, and now, pushed out Caban.

“There comes a time when we have to look and see: Is our loyalty to the detriment of the people of New York? And if that point is reached, then you need to make hard judgment calls,” said state Sen. James Sanders, a southeast Queens Democrat who endorsed Adams for mayor in 2021.

“I think that when the mayor comes out of this situation,” Sanders added on the latest raids, “he will have learned many valuable lessons.”

[jules-has-notes]

2020 VoicePlay winter activities — prelude to uncertainty

After they'd wound down the previous year in style, VoicePlay eased into the new year gently, taking their time to plan out a good balance of travel for live shows, music video productions, individual projects, and personal time. But the old adage about the best laid plans was waiting in the wings, ready to upend those plans and test their creativity in new ways.

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Make some noise

The guys spent the first week of the year relaxing, spending time with family, and working on smaller projects. Geoff recorded a two-part bass singing Q&A that stemmed from his original tutorial video.

J.None met up with other members of the Joyful Noise Choir for a corporate event at a local hotel.

Continuing his quest for social media domination, J also set up a TikTok account. His first post is a bit of silly fun, playing around with a voice modulator and expressing his devotion to Taco Bell.

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Northward bound

Although they didn't document it on social media as overtly as they had in previous years, the guys do seem to have started their travels together in January with a trip to New York City for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals annual conference. The best evidence is two photos on Instagram.

Layne teased J.None with a carrot-tastic screenshot from a restaurant's menu a few days before the conference, and noted in a comment reply that it was in NYC.

J then struck a pose in his show duds, with the location tagged as Times Square. He didn't post it until mid-February, but a conversation in the comments clarified that it was taken "last month", which also lines up with the timing of APAP.

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Do you love me?

After the boys got home from NYC, Layne headed to the PattyCake studio to finish up their next project, exploring the possibilities of the men of Disney animated movies using dating apps, set to a playful cover of "10,000 Hours" by Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber.

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Out and about

When the weekend rolled around, J.None popped over to the Gulf Coast and continued his streak of road races with another 5K at Howard Park in Tarpon Springs.

post-race satisfaction // Paradigm Party Band at the Hard Rock (Notice anyone else you know?)

Then in the middle of the week, J met up with his Paradigm Party Band buddies for another corporate gig at Hard Rock Live.

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Away we go

The next day, VoicePlay headed north again for their first concert of the year in Maryland, where local a cappella group The Trills opened for them, and some longtime fans had a chance to meet in person.

VoicePlay and The Trills backstage // Leon and Danette in the audience

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Over the weekend, J.None took part in yet another 5K at nearby Lake Louisa State Park, and achieved a new personal best time.

The next week, he flew home to Virginia for a visit with family and friends, and to perform at a local bar.

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Talk to me

VoicePlay eased into February with the latest installment of their not-so-secret patron podcast, in which Geoff and J hung out and answered questions.

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While he was speaking into a microphone, Geoff also recorded himself reading another short story, "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. The narration is surreal and unsettling, set in Alabama during the U.S. Civil War, told from the perspective of a dying wealthy Confederate, and was originally published during Reconstruction.

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For the love

On the day before Valentine's Day, VoicePlay slipped into some comfy, cuddle-worthy outfits and headed to a local venue to film their first music video of the year. The way they crooned their supremely harmonious rendition of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling In Love" is like an audible hug.

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J spent the rest of the weekend with the Paradigm gang. First they rocked out at an open-air show in Lake Nona, then they celebrated enduring love at a lavish wedding reception.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J.None 🧈🎶 🎙📝🎬🎹🎸📽🤣 (@itsjnone)

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All together now

A couple days later, Geoff, Eli, and J.None headed to their old friend Michael Andrew's studio to record some vocals together, presumably for their upcoming "Warriors" music video.

.

The weekend brought more Paradigm fun for J, as the band trundled over to Tampa for a pirate group's annual Coronation Ball.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Paradigm Party Band (@paradigmpartyband)

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Meanwhile, Layne was working away in the studio, putting the finishing touches on the penultimate episode of The Villains Lair's first season, complete with a certain vindictive lion.

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Camaraderie and care

That evening, J.None scooted out to Longwood for another showcase show at Jaica Creative Studios. It was hosted by Amanda Jay, who he'd collaborated with the previous summer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J.None 🧈🎶 🎙📝🎬🎹🎸📽🤣 (@itsjnone)

J.None performing his song "Forbearance" at Jaica Studios

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Back on the home front, Layne was on dad duty. His littlest girl Doris took a spill off her scooter that left her with scrapes and bruises on her face the day before school pictures. So once the boo-boos were tended to and tears were dried, he put his years of accumulated special effects makeup skills to use and marked up his own face to match in solidarity.

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Ups and downs

On the first Friday in March, VoicePlay started their next round of travel and live performances. Their first stop was just outside Indianapolis, where they had a rousingly good time.

Then they had one day at home before they hopped on their first — and, as it turned out, last — voyage of the year.

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The cruise that wouldn't end

VoicePlay has performed on many cruise ships over the years. Other than a 6-month contract in their early 4:2:Five days, most of their stints have ranged from a few days to a week. When they boarded the Disney Wonder in early March of 2020, they expected to disembark just two days later and fly back home as usual.

Unfortunately for them, they were at sea when the Western Hemisphere started to take the pandemic seriously and went into lockdown. Ports closed before them in Colombia and Mexico, preventing any passengers from leaving the ship. What was supposed to be a four-day trip ended up taking twelve. They were finally able to disembark at the end of the full journey in San Diego. And, boy howdy, were they relieved.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Geoff Castellucci (@geophr3y)

Layne — maintaining his aversion to oceanic travel — had been comparatively safe at home, working on a new video project with Thomas Sanders and the PattyCake gang. He was happy to welcome his bandmates home at long last.

Layne also finished up VoicePlay's "Warriors" music video, which they'd filmed before the others had set sail, and released it the day after they finally arrived back in the Sunshine State.

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The new abnormal

Like the rest of the world, VoicePlay and their extended network of collaborators had to make some big adjustments to their work and home lives during the early days of the pandemic. All of the concerts they had scheduled for the coming months were cancelled. Music videos already in the planning stages were completely reimagined or postponed indefinitely, and new content was formulated to take their place.

The parents among them needed to work around their kids' agendas even more than usual. As so many people do when faced with significant life changes beyond their control, Earl gave in to the urge to change his hair. (He also started a TikTok account, though he hasn't posted much since.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by EArl Elkins (@earlzshore)

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This is how we do it

Knowing that many of their fans are young and might more readily take advice from their favorite baddie, PattyCake worked with their resident Evil Queen to issue a proclamation regarding safety measures folks should take during the pandemic.

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Since his bass singing Q&A videos had gone well, and commenters had additional questions about other aspects of music production, Geoff put together a fun overview of his a cappella arrangement methods with some cameos from Kathy, Eli, and his kitty friend.

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The end, for now

PattyCake finished the month by releasing the season finale of The Villains Lair. Due to the challenges of coordinating the schedules of such a large cast, they had actually started filming it the previous summer.

Knowing how the first part of the story was going to end so far in advance meant that Layne and Tony already had plans for the second season in progress, but they cautioned that the reality of safety restrictions made their future filming schedule a bit unknowable for the time being.

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The ensuing months and years would continue to bring big changes for VoicePlay and those in their circles. Some have been sad, some have been joyous, and others have provided new opportunities for growth, both personally and professionally. But all of that will be chronicled in its own time.

[licksofvenus]

[textingaboutprometheus]

I’m sorry, has everyone lost their minds? We’re taking tha song as bible now? We’re discussing L having undiagnosed autism because of the lyrics of the somg? L, who once gatecrashed Keep It to defend R? Who ranted about R’a detractors on his own pod and PSA? Who we’ve all heard CRY on multiple occasions on the pod because he is a very emotional person??? Who used to go to war with WA apologists regularly on Twitter, and who pulled out of the New Yorker festival after the magazine featured WA?

They were ENGAGED and R said twice, on two different podcasts that he didn’t want to live together, that he preferred being long-distance. He went back to NY after a year of living together and L spiralled and put in a lot of weight and ended up going to therapy. They bought a dream house and R ran off to NYC again. If L didn’t cry when he ended it it’s because he was absolutely done. He cried all his tears DURING that relationship. Also the man listened to the same song for months to help him through that breakup. He almost had a breakdown watching Fleischman is in Trouble, because it was about a 40-year-old Jewish guy from NY going through a divorce. He didn’t start a dating profile until he was on Ambien, some 8 months after the breakup. We all know he cared, we went through it with him!

Meanwhile R’a own sister described him as ‘not super sentimental’ and as has been discussed here, he never really bonded with his own dog. And L said that after 10 years of being in a relationship, he still couldn’t read R and wouldn’t have been surprised to find out their whole relationship was an experiment.

Also, just for that Reddit guy - L has speculated that he has undiagnosed ADHD. Not autism. Sorry for the rant!

Love this rant! Thank you. I saw the notification come in while I was sleeping.

You're right. L did cry. During the relationship. They're better off apart.

[anamelessfool]

Talk Shop Tuesday Q: What are the main source(s) of inspiration for your vintage AU? The breadth of references you cover is honestly incredible, and I'm always curious what initially kickstarted big AUs like that one!

I used to wonder why a medievalist like myself suddenly became very interested in the 1970s. And it has to do with I believe my primary hobby is Reasearch. I am always researching everything. I like figuring out what people do, and the objects they interact with and the places they go. I like spending time in a place in time or amongst a subculture.

The main inspiration of my current fic set in the late 70s.... Honestly? It was Copia’s car.

I was like, huh, I wonder if that’s Primo’s car. A guy that chill has some serious secrets. Like wouldn’t it be funny if Primo was a hitman for the ministry. Yes, Hitman for the Ministry started as a JOKE. It’s not a joke anymore.

I then made a timeline with general milestone dates. I used 2018’s Terzo’s kidnapping as a starting point. Then I added to the timeline and I started to see interesting parallels. Terzo runs away? Oh, Papa Camino dies in 1984 and they go to this funeral in NYC, that’s a good time for Terzo to run away. Oh, Secondo/Marian/Sandra polycule serendipitously fizzles out the same year Secondo’s son by Sandra is born. Hmmm…and on and on I went. It helps to have a basic timeline in your brain. I personally love legacy films aka plots with lots of family drama and honor. (I guess it ties into my interest in medieval stuff like chivalry) Like The Godfather series or Road to Perdition or Gangs of New York. Generations striving.

It helps to have a basic location too, even if you don't express it explicitly. You can describe things better. People behave in certain ways based on their location or time period. Plots come from that behavior.

I had just finished an amazing podcast about Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground by No Dogs in Space and I loved Nico. I felt Nico would be such a good Papa Emeritus figure. And so I started watching everything about Nico and Lou Reed that I could. And I listened to more and more music that influenced them or was inspired by them.

I watch a LOT of footage on YouTube. Lots of home video, live concert footage, tutorials, everything. If I want to write a noir I watch noir movies. I loved Boogie Nights and I put that in there too. V & G is Boogie Nights meets Goodfellas meets The Omen I guess haha. Pinterest is great for photos but be careful about accurate sources if you're doing actual research. It's better for figuring out a "vibe" if anything. Watching this footage or listening to this music helps me get a feel for a place. I sometimes watch it all over and over and it's how I "prime" myself to get back into a WIP.

Thanks for the ask! Feel free to ask me anything, anyone!

[austinslounge]

Kaia was photographed on Tuesday, if the photo of Austin in the club is not from yesterday it doesn't matter, because Kaia was in NY and maybe Austin didn't take her to party with his friends, he doesn't go to family weddings and family vacations either, stop to be so clowns and open your eyes.

👏👏

Speaking of vacations lol, has anyone ever seen Austin and Kaia take "romantic" vacations outside of Cabo and family vacays lol?? 🤔😅

With Vanessa, it seemed like Austin and Vanessa were always traveling together. They would be spotted going and coming to and from the airport together all the time. They had pictures on boats, overseas, on adventures, at parks, etc. They went tons of places together. Austin even referred to a trip to Italy that he and Vanessa once took together in his podcast interview with Ruthie. Those are memories he will probably never forget. With Kaia though, it seems we hardly ever see them traveling unless it's for work, or another family vacation in Cabo. You never hear of them just taking a vacation just because. I see other couples doing it, I just wonder why it seems like in the 2 years they've been dating, they don't really seem to vacation too often or too many places. I don't really count NYC as a "vacation" either lol.

[magxit]

I really believe that his ex thought that Taylor is just a fling or it is just pr. Her friends who had podcast was saying it was all pr to cover her involvement with Matty then the album came out. Lol. I also read that one of her close friends was posting on insta how crazy Taylor is for buying a house in KC within 2 months of dating and quickly deleted it after tmz reported that Travis bought it for Taylor’s privacy. Lmao. The ex really thought she could wiggle herself back in Travis life so she was still going to KC to hangout with Brit but Travis was in NYC with Taylor. Lol

I wanted to feel bad for KN because Taylor went through the same thing with Joe but KN just keeps reeking of desperation.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ben Appel

Published: Jan 20, 2025

In March 2024, the Community Education Council for District 2—the largest school district in Manhattan—passed a resolution to review the NYC Department of Education’s 2019 Gender Guidelines, which had replaced the category of sex with “gender identity” in all areas, including school restrooms, locker rooms, and athletics.

“Resolution #248” authorized a review committee to “propose amendments, changes and additions” to the guidelines once “an inclusive, evidence-based process” had determined their impact on female athletes. The resolution specified that the review committee must include those who were excluded from the process in 2019, such as female athletes, parents, coaches, relevant medical professionals, and evolutionary biology experts.

On the day of the vote, eight voted in favor of the resolution and three voted against it. One member was absent.

After the resolution passed, backlash was swift. Trans activists and their allies began showing up in droves at school board meetings to protest. They shouted down council members, screamed obscenities, and, if anyone dared to speak favorably about the resolution, stood up, turned their backs to the council, and hummed loudly in unison. In May, eighteen New York Democrats, including Rep. Jerry Nadler, called on the council to rescind the “hateful, discriminatory, and actively harmful” resolution, alleging in their public letter that it could lead to an increase in suicide attempts among transgender youth.

And all of this because a school committee council had voted to merely conduct a review of the existing guidelines.

Maud Maron, one of the four council members who sponsored the legislation (and who is now challenging Alvin Bragg in the 2025 Manhattan District Attorney race), contacted me in December, inviting me to speak on a panel about this topic at an official council meeting. The other panelists would be my friends (and Informed Dissent cohosts), Cori Cohn (who also cohosts the Heterodorx podcast) and the journalist Lisa Selin Davis. We set the date for Monday, January 13.

In the days leading up to the event, Maud texted the three of us with details. She said that the audience might be hostile, adding that some parents had emailed the superintendent, demanding that the meeting be shut down for promoting “hate speech.”

Maud also alerted us to a list of instructions trans activists had posted online for fellow protesters. The list, titled “This Week’s Jazzy Tactics,” advised comrades to enter the room “with pizzazz,” “wear white and/or keffiyeh,” and, “during transphobic testimony,” “take care of ourselves and one another” with things like “headphones, fidgets, coloring books, bubbles, snacks, treats.”

Oh, and “Macarena.”

The meeting, live streamed on YouTube, was held in a school auditorium on the Lower East Side. In the end, only about 20 people showed up. I assume this is because the activists knew they’d be confronted with logic and reason, and, as we all know, even the slightest bit of scrutiny causes their entire house of cards to tumble down. Thus, I only got a small taste of the hostility that Maud, her fellow council members, and other people who care about women and girls and the wellbeing of gender-nonconforming kids have had to endure over the last year.

When Maud opened the meeting around 6:45, she asked each of the panelists to share a little bit about ourselves and why we agreed to come here.

Cori suggested that, before we begin, we should probably clarify what we mean by “gender ideology,” since it’s become such a loaded term. He proposed a definition. “I would say that gender ideology is the idea that we can self-identify our sex based on our internal insights instead of relying on material indicators of sex, like what gametes your body produces or what your genital configuration is. So, it’s the idea that you can substitute gender identity for sex.”

No one objected, so Cori continued with his story.

In the eighties, as a young kid, Cori was relentlessly bullied for being different. He prayed to be a girl, thinking that would solve a lot of his troubles. When he was 15, his parents took him to a psychologist, who suggested he was transexual. At 18, Cori socially transitioned and started cross-sex hormones, and at 19, he underwent vaginoplasty. The surgery left him sexually dysfunctional.

Around 2010, the radical trans movement really began to kick off. Whereas previously, a male had to medicalize with cross-sex hormones and undergo castration surgery to enter female spaces, now activists were demanding that any male, no matter his medical history or appearance, be able to claim a female identity. Even worse, policymakers and legislators were obliging them. This, Cori noticed, was seriously compromising women’s rights and privileges.

After a lot of reflection, Cori eventually concluded that, if we think there’s a need for sex-segregated spaces—and Cori believes there are many reasons why we need them, particularly for women and girls—then that separation must be based solely on sex. Further, by demanding that one take hormones, have surgery, and become infertile in order to access a space, the state is creating a mandate for people to surgically and medically modify themselves.

“That’s not fair,” he said. “So, the conclusion is that, one, these spaces have to be sex-segregated, and two, they have to be safe for all users. Boys who want to present in a feminine way, have long hair, take a feminine name—they have to be safe in male spaces. There cannot be any tolerance at all for any abuse of somebody based on their gender presentation. That has to be protected. But you cannot substitute gender identity for sex and at the same time have safe, single-sex spaces.”

Cori then passed the mic to Lisa.

Lisa’s kids attend District 2 schools. One of those kids is a masculine daughter. When her daughter was little, Lisa noticed people responding very oddly to her daughter’s gender-nonconformity. They would ask what her pronouns were, and if she was a “trans boy.” Lisa was mystified. Since when did it become unacceptable for girls to be tomboys? Why were people (liberal people) suggesting her daughter needed to identify as male in order to be herself?

In 2017, Lisa wrote an op-ed about this issue for The New York Times. Soon came the vitriol. People threatened to kidnap her daughter for not “affirming” her as trans. Before long, most of the news outlets to which Lisa had contributed for years deplatformed her.

Since then, not much has changed about Lisa’s perspective, other than that she’s collected a heck of a lot more information (she’s currently working on a book about what she’s learned). For her, the desistance literature was particularly enlightening. This consists of a series of studies on gender dysphoric young children, which all came to the same conclusion: if not socially transitioned, the bulk of the children desisted in their distress and grew up to be gay.

Lisa accepts that some people have a belief system she doesn’t share, and she recognizes their right to live according to that belief system. But she objects to the idea that we all must accept the idea of gender identity as fact, and she worries about the imposition of this idea on gender-nonconforming children.

“Education can’t be, ‘There is one way to think about this and if you don’t think this way, you’re a bad person,’” said Lisa. “It has to be, ‘There are a lot of ways to think about this, and let’s try to create an environment in which multiple viewpoints and understandings can be heard.”

In a normal world, a statement like that might draw at least a smattering of applause from an audience of supposedly liberal New Yorkers. But no one made a sound.

Then the mic came to me.

I started by speaking about my own gender-nonconformity in childhood—the lessons I was taught by my religious teachers about homosexuality, and being relentlessly bullied by my peers. I told the audience about how I coped, which was to “defeminize” myself in order to become what a boy is “supposed to be.” I spoke about my battles with anxiety, depression, drugs and alcohol, my eventual recovery, and my foray into activism.

“This was very grandiose of me,” I said, “but I wanted to create a world where there’s more space for gender-nonconforming boys and girls. Where little boys and little girls who are really different—yes, they might not be the norm, and the majority of young kids might act like your typical boys and girls—but there are going to be gender-nonconforming kids that are inherently that way. And rather than saying, ‘There’s something wrong with you,’ we protect them from the bullies. We safeguard them. We tell them, “Yes, you are different, and that’s perfectly OK.”

That vision, I found, was not very popular in the world of “LGBTQ” activism. Gender-nonconforming kids were not natural variations of their own sex. Instead, they were “trans” and therefore “born in the wrong bodies.” Thus, in order for feminine boys to behave the way they wanted—in order for them to openly like pink and wear dresses and grow their hair long—they needed to identify out of their sex category, and then medically and surgically modify their bodies to fit properly into society.

Soon, like Lisa, I became really hungry for knowledge about this issue. After I learned that youth transition began not so long ago, with the medicalization of a small cohort of young people, nearly all of whom were homosexual, I became really concerned. And then I started meeting gay people who had been harmed by these treatment protocols.

Maud asked me if, at age 12, I may have thought transition was an option if I had been exposed to the idea that I was perhaps born in the wrong body and actually a girl.

I said, “If the adults I trusted—the guidance counselors, teachers, whoever—had intervened and stopped the bullying and then told me, ‘This is not a spiritual malady. This is not something evil about you. This is a medical defect that can be fixed.’ My god, would I have thought, ‘Hallelujah, I’m saved. Sign me up.’ I would have finally fit in. I would have been allowed to express myself in the way that I wanted to—to be gender-nonconforming, so long as I identified as a girl. But that would mean that there would also be folks saying, ‘There’s a medical protocol that you follow.’”

So, there you have it. There’s our “hate speech.” Our “transphobic” screeds.

Pretty reasonable, right?

Apparently not. After that, things got spicy. Maud asked each of us to speculate about how we had gotten to a place where the only way to “protect kids”—something we all want—is to silence whoever disagrees with you.

Lisa took this one. She explained how our understanding of the concepts of “harm” and “safety” have changed over time. When anti-bullying measures were first developed in the 90s, they were a response to the extreme violence that gender-nonconforming kids endured. “How did we get from that to, ‘If you don’t use the pronoun I want, I’m in danger of suicide’?” Lisa said.

Which was a great segue into a very important point.

“The bottom line is,” continued Lisa, “as Chase Strangio admitted to the Supreme Court, the suicide statistics you’re hearing are not true. There are not increased suicides among unaffirmed trans youth. There is nothing in the history of this research that suggests that we need to only treat people in a specific way or they are in imminent risk of harm.”

A woman sitting near the back of the audience interjected. “Why would you not treat someone the way they want to be treated?!” she yelled. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Well, we can talk about compelled speech,” said Lisa. “We did try to explain that there is a belief system around gender identity that we do not share. And I respect your right to believe in it, but I don’t. The curriculum requires us to bow to a belief system we don’t share, and it includes lessons that we have concerns about, as former gender-nonconforming children and as a parent of a gender-nonconforming child.”

“What curriculum are you referring to?” yelled an audience member.

“We’re gonna take questions,” Maud reminded the audience. In the meantime, she asked them not to shout out questions.

A woman in the audience became irate. “This was publicized as a parent-led discussion, and this is not….!”

Maud put her foot down, saying she would close the meeting down if people don’t follow the rules.

The woman continued yelling. “This was falsely advertised!”

“I’ve raised four kids and I know how to shut down temper tantrums,” said Maud. “You guys have five more seconds to stop interrupting me and then the meetings over.”

“Heads down! Heads down!” a man in the audience shouted. He put his head in his arms and leaned against the chair in front of him. This, apparently, is one of the “jazzy tactics” the activists use to signal their collective disapproval of whatever is being said. This time, though, none of the other audience members put their heads down.

By now, my heart was about to pound out of my chest. I just don’t fare all that well when adults are yelling at each other. Not to mention that Cori, Lisa, and I had just shared some really vulnerable stuff with a bunch of strangers, so to quickly be met with hostility was disorienting, to say the least.

“There are people in the audience who have been really respectful, and I want to acknowledge you,” said Maud. “Also, I’ve had 10 months of rude protesters at our general calendar meetings, so my fuse is a little shorter than it usually is.”

Two audience members yelled something I didn’t make out.

Soon after that, the question-and-answer portion officially began. The first person to speak was named August. She appeared to be a female who had masculinized with testosterone. August introduced herself as a trans person, a Trevor Project representative, a crisis counselor, and “someone whose life was saved by my community.” She said she was saddened that we would come there and “smear” kids “who were so vulnerable and so sad.” She accused Lisa of misquoting Chase Strangio (Lisa did not misquote Strangio), then said, “There are so many people who are dead. Who are dead!”

Finally, August got to her question. She asked Cori to define what a woman is.

“Can we talk about female, or do you want woman?” Cori said.

“You were like, ‘There needs to be women’s spaces,’” said August.

“I think I said ‘sex-segregated,’” Cori responded. “What do I mean by sex-segregated? It’s your biological plan. So, if your body was developed to produce eggs, you’re female.”

August proceeded to interject with an activist talking point so clichéd, any of us could have predicted it.

“So, it’s just if you have eggs,” August gibed. “So, people who are infertile…”

“No,” Cori said. Clearly, he too was expecting this exact response. “If your body’s development plan is to produce eggs, you’re female. If your body’s development plan is to produce sperm, you’re male.”

August called this “hypothetical.”

“It’s not hypothetical,” said Cori. “It’s observable. If you believe in science, then you know that there’s instruments that can be used to determine which body plan…” He paused, frustrated that he needed to explain the birds and the bees to an adult. Or maybe I was just projecting. “Even in the extremely odd case where the chromosomes are XY, that female development pattern is still female. So, we have these really weird corner cases…”

“Those people are intersex, they’re not really weird,” sniped August.

“I'm gonna ignore you for a minute,” said Cori, “because that's really rude to twist…”

“Well, you said ‘really weird.’”

“I didn't say individuals were weird.”

“Can you have a seat?” Maud asked August.

“I thought this was a dialogue,” August said.

So, Cori dialogued. “It's sort of dirty to say that a difference of sexual development is unusual or weird, and then for somebody to say you're saying the people are weird. No, it's an unusual condition. So, you are a woman if you are an adult and your body follows the female development, and you're a man, like I am, like some other people in the audience are. Some people are male but look more feminine, some people are female but look more masculine. But you're a man if you're an adult human male and you're a woman if you're an adult human female. There's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing shameful about that. And if you're like me, and you've done something unusual with your body so that you've modified your sex traits, your sex characteristics, you may have some of the outward appearances of the opposite sex, but that doesn't make me not a man and it wouldn't make somebody like Buck Angel not a woman.”

August returned to his seat.

Maud asked Lisa if she wanted to add anything to that. “Sure,” she said, adding how distracting it is to have to argue that a woman is an adult human female. She then spoke briefly about two very rare intersex conditions, which, when it came to sex-segregated spaces, would probably be the edge cases we need to consider.

“How does this show up in the curriculum?” came a question from the audience.

Lisa said, “On the first day of fourth grade, my daughter was asked to create an identity web and put whether she was cisgender, transgender, or nonbinary on it. So, there are lessons about gender identity, and they are, again, taught as fact. You can look up the New York City DoE regulations, they say exactly what you have to do. There’s a lot of compelled speech. I don’t know how that works with the First Amendment…”

“It doesn’t,” said Maud.

A man sitting in the front row spoke up. He introduced himself as a D2 parent and a father of two daughters, “one trans and one not.” He asked how he could keep his trans kid safe from experiencing gender dysphoria if everything is sex-segregated.

Cori thanked the man for coming and for sharing his story with us. He said he can imagine that, over the years, a lot of “good-hearted people” have given him “the worst possible advice at the worst possible time.” He told the father that a lot of doctors and therapists are not telling parents the real risks of these treatments. The surgeries aren’t great, and if his child was on puberty blockers, there’s a good chance he won’t be able to have a normal sex life. Earlier, Cori recounted for the audience an op-ed he had written for The Washington Post in 2022, in which he admitted that, as a result of his vaginoplasty at 19, he has never been able to orgasm with a partner.

“That’s crushing, actually,” said Cori. “Because in order to partner with people, a healthy sex life is really important.”

“I have made post-op girls cum, just for the record,” August shouted. “It’s not…”

“We’re gonna let them answer, please,” said Maud.

Cori continued. He advised the father to think about his child in the future, and that he will have to live for many years with the decisions that his parents made for him.

“I promise you they will come for answers,” said Cori. “They’ll say, ‘What was I really like? Was there anything else that I could have done, were there any other treatments?’ And you’ll be able to say, ‘No, the doctors didn’t give me any other options,’ because institutionally talk therapies and [cognitive-behavioral therapy] have been recategorized as conversion therapy.”

At some point, as Cori spoke, August stood up from his seat and walked to the front row. He had the father stand up so that he could give him a hug in front of everyone.

Next, it was a mother of a nonbinary child who has chronic health conditions. The mother is a volunteer facilitator for PFLAG. She called Cori arrogant for projecting his own experience onto everyone else’s. She said we’re facing “a tsunami of anti-LGBTQ policy coming our way.” She asked him if he supports Trump’s proposal of eliminating X gender makers for adults who identify as nonbinary.

“You’re so articulate, I appreciate the question,” Cori said. “PFLAG no longer stands for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, right?”

The woman said no, it’s just the acronym.

Cori proceeded to answer her question. “If there’s a marker that’s supposed to list your sex, it should be male or female, and there’s no need at all for your gender marker to reflect your gender identity.”

Next came a question for me. A woman sitting in the back asked why I think there’s not a space for gender-nonconforming kids right now. She said she’s not understanding the debate.

I reiterated that I object to the reductive way that gender expression is talked about in schools, which I fear will lead gender-nonconforming children to think they might’ve been born in the wrong body simply because they behave more like the opposite sex. If, as a child, I had been asked which sex I “feel” like, I certainly would have said I “felt” like a girl. While I can acknowledge there are some people whose gender dysphoria will persist into adulthood, and that those adults might make decisions to modify their bodies in order to appear more like the opposite sex, I believe that every kid has a right to grow up with their bodies intact and healthy.

Lisa spoke next. She thanked the woman for her question and said she had one of her own. “Why are so many people here so hostile to incorporating our ideas?” She added that most of the questions have assumed that gender identity is a fact, while we see it as a kind of religious belief. She doesn’t believe that everyone has a separate gendered soul that can be “excavated and revealed.”

“It’s fine if you believe that,” she said. “What we are asking for people to consider is that some people don’t, and it doesn’t make them bigots.”

Lisa then mentioned a book often seen in schools, I Am Jazz, in which the protagonist says he has a girl’s brain in a boy’s body because he likes pink and mermaids, and that makes him transgender.

“Therefore, what many children learn, if they’re a boy who likes pink and mermaids, is that they’re in the wrong body,” said Lisa. “And it needs to be OK for us to raise our concerns about that.”

After that came a question from a woman wearing a mask, who identified herself as a “cis queer woman” with some kind of LGBTQ certificate from NYU. She said she’s gender-nonconforming because she has short hair and sometimes wears pants. She told Lisa that, actually yes, Lisa does have a gender identity.

When it appeared she was just going to keep rambling, Maud asked if she had a question.

“MAUD!” shouted the irate woman. “Can you actually show some respect for the people asking questions?!”

Maud gave the masked woman a few more chances. She continued to ramble, but never got to a question. Finally, she passed the mic to a very tall man wearing a blue cardigan. It was the same man who had ordered everyone to put their heads down.

The man stood up. Along with the blue cardigan, he wore a dress. His question was for Cori. “I’m a trans mom, I’m a transwoman,” he said. “I’ve got two kids, and I’m at the airport, and I’ve got ‘F’ on my passport. And I think, in the universe that you’re creating, that would not fly—excuse the pun. Then what happens? Like, what would happen to me and my family?”

“Well, depending on how you were presenting yourself…” Cori began to answer.

“I’m in a dress. I’m wearing a fucking dress.”

Maud asked him not to curse, since it was a school committee meeting.

“Oh, I can’t say ‘fuck?’ Fucking fuck fuck fuck,” he said.

Cori went on. “I use men’s spaces, and it’s OK. It’s a little uncomfortable. But you know what? Men just wanna pee.”

“What does that mean?” the man said.

“It means, if you use the men’s room, they’re not interested in what you’re doing, they’re just there to pee.”

“Are you calling her a man?” said August.

“I’m saying that, if you use the facility that accords to your sex, you don’t have to worry about the men that are in there mistreating you, because they’re just there to pee.”

“I think you are suggesting that I have to go to the men’s room,” the man said.

Cori replied, “You should use the sex space that’s accorded for your sex.”

Shortly thereafter, the man in the blue cardigan gathered his things and stomped out of the room. The mother of the nonbinary child with chronic health conditions followed him.

Finally, we made it to the last question. A person in the audience asked what kinds of policies we would propose to replace the existing ones.

Cori answered, “Sex should be treated as sex, and what we consider ‘gender’ should be protected as gender expression. Boys should be able to wear female-coded clothes, females should be able to wear masculine clothes, they should be able to adopt nicknames, they should be safe in school always and not targeted for violence or bullying because of their gender expression. If all of the energy that went into gender identity instead went into just how we express ourselves, I think that would be the best way to help these kids.”

I concurred. I said that there are males and females and rare intersex cases, and that people can express themselves however they want. I said that the way gender is currently being talked about in schools might actually be priming gender-nonconforming children to become gender dysphoric as they grow up. If a young boy says he “feels like a girl,” and all of the adults in his life affirm him as one, then, as his body matures, reality will betray what everyone has been telling him. He’ll become dysphoric, and medicalizing will seem like the most viable option.

After me, Lisa made a plug for viewpoint diversity when it comes to creating policy. She said we need to hear people who have been helped by existing policies, but we also need to hear from people who have been harmed.

“We cannot make good policy if we do not acknowledge the cost,” she said.

And with that, the meeting was adjourned.

Later that night, Maud realized she left behind some of the recording equipment. She emailed the school principal about it, and also thanked him for allowing us to use the space for our meeting. He responded by saying that his mother, who once represented the KKK when she worked for the ACLU, taught him that “suppressing hate speech is counterproductive, making martyrs of bigots.” He hadn’t watched the program, but he thinks he would have vehemently disagreed with a lot of it.

Maud responded, “You would likely learn a lot from, be impressed by, and find yourself agreeing with the panelists last night. Defending the 1st A and viewpoint diversity, as your mom did, is at its most robust when you do more than just begrudgingly allow speech but when you actually listen to other points of views. And here those points of view included multiple D2 parents.”

She pasted a link to the live stream and thanked him again.

To the principle’s credit, he followed up with Maud after he watched the video. He thanked her for suggesting he watch it and was glad he did. He said he still disagreed with a lot of what was said, particularly the underlying assumption that schools are pushing a particular ideology. He wondered whether the “fear mongering and scapegoating of trans people during the election made people pay attention and think there is a crisis.”

Isn’t that always the way?

These people are bigots.

OK, they’re not necessarily bigots, but they’re overreacting. This stuff isn’t happening. Besides, it’s probably all because of Trump.

Eventually, down the road:

OK, this stuff is happening.

And finally:

It’s good that it’s happening…. Bigot!

As of now, Resolution #248 is dead in its tracks. The former schools chancellor, David Banks, who retired in December after having his house raided as part of the federal corruption investigation into Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, said last year, “We will not be entertaining changes to that [2019 gender] guidance.” To my knowledge, the new chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, has not commented on the resolution.

Regardless, it’s now very clear how deeply gender identity ideology has embedded itself within our schools and communities. As a result, we no longer speak the same language. Maud, Lisa, Cori, and I acknowledge the material reality of sex. We’re run-of-the-mill liberals who believe in things like free speech and viewpoint diversity. But not these folks.

In his final email to Maud, the principal did mention that he doesn’t see a lot of this occurring in his school. And that very well might be true, since his school has a lot of low-income and immigrant students, which are not the primary demographics in which gender ideology metastasizes. I only hope it stays true.

But what we all must realize is that this is occurring in schools. Widely occurring. Right now, in the most advanced nation in the world, kids are being taught that sex isn’t real. They’re being taught that they can choose their sex, and that that choice rests upon the most regressive ideas of what it means to be a boy and what it means to be a girl. Girls are being taught to simply accept the presence of boys in their sports and private spaces. They’re being told that it’s their problem and that they might be in trouble if they object to a boy who claims to be a girl coming into their locker room.

Right now, in America.

Perhaps that’s okay for some people. But I’m worried about the consequences of an entire generation being taught a pseudoscience. And I don’t think it’s wise for kids to be told to disregard their personal boundaries.

And I know I’m not alone. A New York Times poll has revealed that the majority of Americans disapprove of trans-identified males in women’s sports and do not believe that gender-distressed minors should have access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

The majority of Republicans and Democrats.

We must end it now.

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Full video:

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As always...