 to Quinlan. I'm Keith Gosland. Tuesday, August 13th. We're here with all things LGBTQ to give you some news, entertainment, interviews, etc. But now let's start with headlines. And that would be me. I think I'm here. Okay. Palm Springs PD, Police Department shoots men with a knife who is yelling anti-gay and racist slurs. And kills them. You have to wait for the rest of the story. Okay. Stray Pride organizer says they are a totally peaceful racist group. Yes! Oh my God. There is truth in advertising. 500 plus Alabama Methodists apologize for churches anti-LGBTQ stance. Illinois mandates LGBTQ inclusion in public school curriculum. I've got that down. Judge says the school district violated trans student Gavin Grimm's rights. We talked about him previously. Virginia student Grimm says that this ruling indicates that it is illegal to discriminate in America. Dracula is first U.S. reality TV competition to have a drag king. Alfonso Davis to lead HRC and boycott Equinox and Soul Cycle. You bet. Says because he is the owner of these clubs and he's a Trump supporter and contributor. And fundraiser. So stay away from anything that has to do with those. And Mike Pence advises anti-gay group to spend more times on their knees. I'm assuming he needs it. I'm not going there. We're a family show. I'm assuming he needs it. In prayer. But anyway. And Chicago lesbian mayor unloads on Ivanka Trump. So and we'll have a few more things and so that's where we are here in the country. So in our backyard. Some events. Price under Vermont their annual Pride Festival Sunday September 8th. Parade starts at 12 30. They've announced their grand marshals and for this year it is. Surprise. The founders of outright Vermont and the outright youth. Which you are of course a founder a founder. And I'm told I get a convertible. So I'm there. Right. Larks and Ravens again. Contrafy dancing. Capital Grange Saturdays 8 p.m. 1st 3rd and if there's the 5th. And then a shout out to out in the open their rural summit. Which is at Green Mountain Camp in Dumberston September 27th to the 29th. There is nothing involving dismembering pigs this year. Oh you just I just so you know. Thank you. So our trivia question before I get on to it. Some of the things I'm going to talk to in greater depth. This is the quote. In our democratic society it is the responsibility of government to safeguard civil liberties and civil rights. Especially the freedom of speech and expression. In a free society we must all be committed to the mutual respect of each other's lifestyles. Who said it and what was the occasion. And then when we talk about stories and want to talk a little bit about Patriot Front and why we should be paying more attention. Let's talk a little bit about the Boy Scout and the Catholic Diocese. If we must. And then I want to talk about education. Okay. And I had about Illinois but it's another state and there's a suit that's happening here in Vermont that we're going to want to watch. Okay. I have many headlines. You're going to take us to far distant places. Well first of all we're going to go to Berlin and visit some penguins. Penguins! Then we're going to go to the Caribbean in which lawsuits in four countries challenged the colonial erosotomy law. Then we're going to go to Indonesia where there's a church welcoming queer members. An ad campaign by Coca-Cola promotes gay acceptance and causes a big backlash in Hungary. In the Polish IM LGBT campaign attracts thousands of Twitter supporters. The Gay Star News closes. And this is a little late. I saved this story from last time. Ramstein Band, a German heavy metal band, presents a gay male kiss on the Moscow stage to protest Russia's anti-LGBT cute It's been a lot of demonstrating there too lately. Mm-hmm. Marshal Layla concert in Lebanon canceled after church pressure. Ecuadorian same-sex marriage activists finally get married after six years of trying to do it. These are the headlines of stories I'm probably not going to get to. A gay couple in Beijing becomes the first to take advantage of new gay legal rights. But what it means is you can adopt your spouse and become your spouse's guardian. So that's the big deal there. There there's an effort to roll back transgender rights in Uruguay but it failed. Uruguay is also distinctive because it issued one of several countries issuing a travel warning about the United States. Uruguay says don't go to the United States. Same-sex union vote failure. Dismay's Montenegro's LGBT community. LGBT activists at St. Petersburg Pride event were detained. There were 11 of them. And another development in St. Petersburg is that the second in the killing of the rights activist Elena Grigoryeva. A second person has been detained. The first person has been dismissed. You know who knows what's going on there. But I'll keep you posted in future episodes. So that's the end of my headlines. Really? Yes. There are quite a few of them. Well let's go back to the United States and we'll go to Palm Springs. Okay. Which we all know is like a LGBTQ haven. That's being golf is what I do it for. I know. Dinosaur classic. Yep. Well the police officer and the suspect were both injured during the altercation in a downtown parking lot. The suspect ended up barbershopping and started racial and anti-LGBTQ slurs. They called the police. The police came and they chased him out of the barbershop and so and they both survived the incident. They were shot. Huh? What happened? The cop got hurt and the suspect got hurt. And the suspect stabbed the cop? No. The suspect had a knife but the cop had a gun. I think the cop got hurt and then the you know but anyway he was arrested. But the same day as the this Palm Springs incident the FBI arrested him in Las Vegas who they believed to play in Toboma gay bar and a synagogue. So and straight pride organizers. They're totally peaceful racist group apparently. Yes. It's not clear if Grunsman's admission was a slip of the tongue or what but this long time LGBTQ rights foe turned to the crowd at a town meeting. Where? Boston. Uh-huh. Turned to the crowd and said that he belongs he was a member of a group called Whites Against Racism Alliance. What? The straight. The organized the straight pride march? Yes. Yes. It's Whites Against Racism Alliance that he was a member of that. Hmm. But it's a peaceful racist group. Yeah. That's how we defined it. I see. Yeah there we are. The parade is scheduled in Boston for August 31st. I have a picture of a few of the deplorables to show you so you can see them. And identify them. Yes. We can glitter bottom them. And now Dracula is the first U.S. reality TV competition to have a drag king. The Boulay brothers have made LGBTQ history on Amazon Prime. This is the first U.S. reality drag show to air on television and to feature a drag king who is Langdon Cider. And we have a picture of Langdon up on the screen. And company, huh? And company. Alfonso Davis to lead human rights. Previously he was counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Yeah. He is 45 gay black person and the first person of color and the first little rights attorney to lead this organization. So we'll have to see what happens there. There was an attempt to censor a Virginia GOP congressman, Denver Regleman, for because he officiated at a gay wedding. And he maintains that love is love. He's a Republican. But many of his constituents didn't like this and didn't disagree with what he was doing. There was an attempt to censor him. But it didn't go through. And so he's still there. So good for you, even though you're a Republican. Trump insults a gay journalist. But this time it's on Fox News. They do have an outjournalist. Yes, his name is Shepard Smith. He's been there for a while. Yep. And he's an anchor and one of the few Fox personalities willing to be critical of Trump. Trump tweeted that Smith is worse than fake news CNN. And for this last story, for this segment, I'm going, we all know that the lesbian mayor of Chicago is Lightfoot. And after Trump tweeted, after Ivanka Trump tweeted about the violence in Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot responded with a vengeance. When Ivanka used Twitter to comment on the mass shootings, Ivanka again mentioned all the violence in Chicago. Ms. Lightfoot responded by saying, that's the danger with having a platform and audience from someone who doesn't know what she's talking about. Well, so Ivanka Trump commented on the Dayton shooting and the El Paso shooting? Yes. And then she trashed Chicago as a violent city like she did with, well, like Trump did with Baltimore. Oh, I see. So she threw Chicago in. She threw Chicago in just on the side. And Trump often attacks Chicago, too, for whatever reason. And Osama's from there. So yes. Because of their former mayor, yeah, annual. So she didn't like it. And there we go. There we go. So now let's go to local. And speaking of things we don't like, there's been another incident involving the Patriot Front in Burlington, where they went up to a bulletin board traditionally used by Black Lives Matter and put up their Reclaim America posters that the Burlington police- Are they in the Burlington area? Well, this is where we're going. Okay. And why I said, we need to be paying greater attention. Burlington police, when they've been questioned about Patriot Front, said that they really believed it was a person who was engaging in these little things just so they could get the publicity. They believed in the white supremacist racist statements, but also, oh, look, I'm on the news again. Last year, there were five incidents involving Patriot Front. A couple in a synagogue. Followed this through. Okay. This halfway through this year, there have already been 35. Wow. So either this person has become even more active, or he has found people to help him in this process, which is why I'm saying we really need to be attentive to this. And then, again, looking at who they're targeting. Yes, they were looking at the synagogues in Burlington and the LGBTQ organizations, but now they're shifting over to Black Lives Matter, people of color. Did they ever find the person who burned the gay flag? No. So let's talk a little bit about the Boy Scouts and the Vermont Catholic Diocese. Both of these organizations have been going through a process of internal reviews over the past year. Pennsylvania, there's a suit that's been filed by former Scouts saying that the Scout Council did not protect them, that they had uncovered this secret watch list of leaders who you might want to keep an eye on. And when they looked at what the Scouting Organization released to law enforcement in much the same manner that the Catholic Diocese is supposed to be doing, this group said there were over 350 named abusers on the watch list that weren't included on the list that had been voluntarily given to law enforcement, which leads us into the Catholic Diocese here in Vermont, where the bishop a year ago brought together this seven-person panel, one of whom is an identified survivor and one member was someone not affiliated with the Catholic faith to go through and look at what they had for information, personnel files, whatever, to turn over to the Office of Attorney General priests who were suspected of abuse. Well, SNAP, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, There's an organization. Oh yeah, they've been around for years. They were the ones who in Boston lifted the veil over. Do you know what's going on here? They're going, what was his name? Counting a law, he was such a jerk. Well, SNAP has said, okay, you've had a year. We understand being thoughtful in this decision, but you haven't shared anything with anybody. When do you think something might be forthcoming? And there's also an investigation, a sort of parallel investigation that was supposed to be conducted by the Office of Attorney General, which is also not released any findings. And it may be because they haven't gotten the information they really need from the diocese to do the work they do. Is there any word about whether it will be forthcoming or? No. No, okay. There, the Catholic Church. Yeah. They don't have to be spot. In Catholic Madigan's standup routine, she said that the Pope had, at that point in time, just gone to Russia to apologize for an action they took in the year 1174. So I think it's going to be a while before they catch up to us. Well, as Andy Hub says. So what do you, yeah. Religions know damn good. So what you got, hun? Oh, we got penguins. I love penguins. Observe before you a picture of Skipper and Ping, who are penguins from Berlin. They arrived in Berlin in April from the Hamburg Zoo. They're 10 years old. They show signs immediately of wanting to have an egg. They were trying to hatch fish and stones, the zookeeper said. After having seen this, the zoo staff entrusted them with an egg from the only female of the group that had failed in recent years to hatch her own. This is a little murky. As soon as they received the egg, they went to work. We are not certain that the egg has been fertilized, however. I hope they're not headed for disappointment. Skipper and Ping. Trying to hatch rocks. I know it. When it was reading me this, I said, they're not very pretty. I know. They're penguins. Dismissive of them. I think they're very caring. But if it has been fertilized, it should hatch in about 55 days. And so if that occurs, I'll report back. As we know, this is not the only recorded case of homosexual couples among penguins, both in captivity and in the wild. Homosexual couples exist in their natural habitat, the zookeeper said, adding that it was not so rare. We've seen many of them on the show. Other zoos have already been successful after having given an egg for adoption to a homosexual couple, which we've recorded in many instances. But this would be a first in Berlin. So I hope they're not headed for disappointment. They're very cute. We'll be here for them. Yeah, well, we'll send condolences if necessary. I hope it doesn't come to that, though. Now I have a picture before you of Sean McLeese, who filed a lawsuit against the colonial era sodomy law in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. LGBTQ people in Fork, Caribbean countries over the last year, have filed lawsuits against these colonial era sodomy laws. Javan Johnson and Sean McLeese, and you've just seen his picture. On July 26th, they filed a lawsuit against two laws in St. Vincent and the Grenadines that criminalized consensual same-sexual relations. Darrell Phillip, founder of Minority Rights Domenica and Maurice Thompson, a senior policy analyst, announced that a gay man who remains anonymous filed a suit against Domenica's sodomy law. Alexa Hoffman, a transgender activist in Barbados, along with a gay man and lesbian woman, filed a lawsuit against their country's sodomy law with the same commission. Tomlinson, who was born in Jamaica in 2015, challenged his country's sodomy law in the Jamaican Supreme Court. McLeese told the Washington Blade during a telephone interview from Chicago, where he has lived for more than 30 years with his partner, that his case is very personal to me because of my experiences being gay in St. Vincent, with all of the homophobia and discrimination that I experienced there. Domenica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados and Jamaica are among the handful of English-speaking Caribbean countries in which consensual same-sex relations remain criminalized, so lawsuits have been filed. Now I have a happy, well, a church story. I don't usually report on them because I find a lot of organized religion to be homophobic. As do many of these parishioners in Indonesia. However now, the first church to welcome queer members has arisen. It's become an inspiration for many of its congregation, but it's also been threatened by hardliners, not surprisingly. Every Friday night in a house in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, a church group meets to discuss issues surrounding gender and sexuality. There are usually 12 to 15 people who come regularly. The GKA, the Grace Community Church, is what it called in English, was established as a Baptist church in 2013, but it's the first to openly welcome LGBT members. The pastor who is pictured before you now, Suarbaya Rahadin, views this as an opportunity to reach out to Christians who'd never been to church or had stopped attending. His goal was to reignite their faith. He created this discussion group to talk about various issues that prompt people to abandon their religion. During an early group discussion, it became apparent that one of the main reasons many people stopped going to church was that they regarded the institution as homophobic. I can't imagine why. It was then that he decided to encourage his congregation to embrace the LGBT community, to encourage inclusiveness and love. He released a public statement expressing the church's support for Jakarta's LGBT community. It was a bold step to take, but one the pastor felt was essential. Unfortunately, not everyone in the church agreed. Some members left the church, the reformed Baptist church, then severed all its ties with the congregation over this stance and expelled it from the Association of Protestant Churches. Now it has no money. Everybody's volunteering. It's also been threatened, victim of fake news, but it spurred an online activist group, the Indonesian Rainbow Christian Fellowship. One of his parishioners started that. It's got 480 followers on Instagram Indonesia as a reputation as a moderate Muslim country. I don't think so, but this is what this story says. Because in recent years, Sharia law has ruled in the Aceh province. Lesbians have been killed. No, I'm sorry, tamed. Anyway, they faced growing hostility, including physical attacks, but this church is trying to provide a refuge. Good job. Well, yeah. Good job for them. Good for them, yeah. Yeah, moderate by who's standards. Yeah, moderate by who's standards. Yeah, really? So what you got, hon? Well, I don't have a lot more, but I do have gays against guns have taken to the street after El Paso and Dayton shootings. Now this is exciting. There's a Billie Jean King action figure coming out. Really? Yes, and it's coming with a racket. Moving on. To smash stereotypes. I see. You know, I got it. I got it. I know. I know. All right. Henry Belello, co-founder of the Village People, dies at 82. No. Yeah. Yeah. Lesbian judge was actually nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate. Mary Rowland of Illinois is the president's first out judge that he's appointed since he's taken office. How this happened, I have no idea. Do we know any of her previous rulings and where she might stand? No, we do not. You know, maybe she's a conservative lesbian, I don't know. I'm thinking of the Log Cabin Republicans. Yes. Yeah. All right. We'll have to do more research into that. And this was an interesting story because this Ohio Republican blames mass shootings on Drain Queen advocates, Colin, Kirkpatrick and Obama. The state leader of her own party, Jane Timkin, said that Ms. Keller's Facebook post was utterly and totally shocking and unjustifiable. Where are they from? These two? Ohio. Is it Ohio? Ohio sounds right. I think it is Ohio. And she refused to take down the post. Yeah. And she won't take down the post. And this was only a few days after the shootings in Dayton. And she refuses to resign. So what they're going to actually do to get her out, I don't know, but it was pretty ugly, pretty ugly. And so we'll see. So that's my stories for today. So uplifting. So let's talk about education for a bit. On the last show, I had said I had started reading an article as we were taping and I would get back on it. And it was the federal Department of Education. And there is an organization called Center for American Progress. And they went in and reviewed all of the Department of Education's own statistics. And the backdrop to this is the secretary over a year ago pulled back all the Obama guidelines for transgender students. They are currently nine times less likely to investigate a complaint this filed. Seventy-six percent of the cases that the complaints that are filed allege sexual or gender harassment with transgender being overly represented. This is Vermont. No, no, no. This is the federal. This is the federal Department of Education. And the Department of Ed came back with their own, oh, but we're processing them more quickly than the Obama. Ninety-two percent of the complaints are dismissed without findings or finding of no wrongdoing. They're not even really investigating. During the Obama era, 23 percent of the cases that were investigated resulted in a change in policy or practice. True change came about. Guess the current rate? 60. Zero. Two percent. Two percent. Two percent of the complaints result in some degree of change within the educational system. Thank you so much. It says it all, doesn't it? In here in Vermont, there is a suit that we are going to continue to follow. And it's two students from Rice High School in Burlington, which is a parochial school. It's a suit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Oh, dear. Wait, don't we love them? They found us. They're everywhere. But the state has filed a motion, and it's in the federal court, to dismiss it. Because the suit alleges that these two students are not allowed to participate in the dual enrollment program. Your senior year in high school can be your freshman year in college because they attend a religious school. Well, the state says close but no cigar. What the policy said is that if you are a private, if you are a student at a private school that does not use taxpayer-funded voucher to pay your tuition, you are ineligible. It never mentions a faith-based or religious school as being exempted. It all hinges on where your funding comes from. But don't some schools get vouchers like Catholic schools and stuff like that? Not in Vermont. Not in Vermont. Good. But in Vermont, private schools such as St. John'sbury Academy, the local towns do not have their own schools. They tuition all of their students to St. John'sbury Academy, so they would qualify for this. Here's the sort of, oops, 1999, the Vermont Supreme Court made a ruling that said that public funds cannot be used to support religious education. I know they've been fighting in New York to try to get that, and it hasn't gone through yet. We're going to be watching this closely to see what happens. You had mentioned about Illinois and their new curriculum. Both Illinois and New Jersey have passed legislation that says that public schools have to include the contributions of those groups that are defined in the Human Rights Act, so that's all of the underrepresented communities, women, LGBTQ, communities of color, indigenous people, First Nation. So New Jersey and Illinois are already, and California already has it, is saying you need to teach this in our schools, you need to teach it now. Here in Vermont, we have a group that is coming together to work with the department, our agency of education, to come up with standards by which to review curriculum. It's not mandating curriculum specific yet. I have to say, I looked at the California curriculum. You didn't like it? LGBT people aren't mentioned. I don't know what category we're supposed to fall under, ethnic studies or something. We're not under ethnic, we're usually under the social component. I didn't see a social component in California. That may be the problem. But Illinois and New Jersey both specifically mentioned LGBTQ in their enacting legislation. So you're going to bring it home before we go to the circulating interview. I know I have to rush through a lot of exciting news now. I'd like to show you a Coca-Cola ad that they've been, they have three ads that they have released on billboards in Hungary. And I'd like to show you one of the pictures. There's been a lot of hoo-ha, particularly objections from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's far-right Fidesz party. They're very upset about this. The Archbishop of Krakow compared the LGBTQ movement to communism and said the red plague is no longer on our land, but it does not mean that there is not a new one that threatens to rule our souls, hearts and minds. It is not Marxist or Bolshevik, but it has been born of the same neo-Marxist spirit. It's not red, but rainbow. We didn't think they'd notice. Coca-Cola hasn't taken on the ads, so we'll see what happens there. A lot of turmoil in Poland that I've reported on at great length. Now an IMLGBT campaign has occurred on Twitter, and it has thousands of followers. Are Poland and Hungary part of the EU? No, no. They aren't? No. Oh, okay. I thought Poland was, no? No. Okay. No, and they can't be with all this stuff going on. Yeah, I know. That's what I mean. I was thinking if they were part, they could, you know, people could do something, but okay. Now I have another picture before you of the two founders of Gay Star News that has recently closed. Their names are Tris, Reed Smith and Scott Nunn, and they had to close because of financial difficulties. And what they characterized is a rainbow wash, which is all these, you know, basically right-wing corporations buying ads and co-opting all the business from the LGBTQ news. It was going for eight years from the UK. They had to close. Great loss. Now I'd like to show you a clip of the Ramstein band members kissing in the Moscow, on the Moscow stage to protest Russia's policies. That's good. Well this group, it's a heavy metal band. It's shared a kiss on stage. Guitarists Paul Landers and Richard Koopsey kissed each other. The image was put up on the band Instagram and they said, Russia, we love you. You know what? It really takes a lot of courage for those people to do that in a place like Russia. Although they're German, they can leave. Yeah, but yeah. They've got to get out of the country. Yes. There are two gay members of this band, and there's one gay member of the band, Mishru Leila, which had a concert in Lebanon canceled. By the Maronite Catholic Aparchy of Bilboz, they said that the song violates religious values. Didn't you report on LGBTQ woman who was captured and murdered in Russia? Oh, the St. Petersburg murder. I mentioned that last time. Yeah. And the original suspect has, in case he's been released, but they arrested somebody else. And there's all this garbled conversation about she was drinking with one of them, and so it's still on itself. They disappear like that in Russia. Yeah, although she was pretty famous, and there have been a lot of protests. I'd like to show you a picture now of Pamela Troy and Gabriela Correa. They're from Ecuador. They finally got married after six years of fighting for it and bringing suit and so forth. So now, I would like to introduce a wonderful interview that Josie Levitt shared with me. Please enjoy it. Hi, I'm here with Josie Levitt, comic and storyteller of great renown. She has won the comedy award by Daisy's, presented by Seven Days, and 2014, 2016, and 2017. And 2011. And 2011, oh, I overlooked that. That's okay. So we're very honored to have you here. I'm thrilled to be here. Well, I'd like to talk a little bit about you, if I may. You moved to Vermont in 1996. Yes. You grew up in New York? I did. And you started doing comedy on the West Side? Yes. I went to Columbia University. Did you? Oh, you did? I went to Barnard. Oh, yeah. I was the first Cohen class at Columbia College. Uh-huh. And then I went to graduate school. I went to Teachers College. And then I lived right down the street from Teachers College. It's great. I love it up there. Excuse me. And then my ex-wife, we had just started dating. And she had said to me, I don't care where you do it. It was our first New Year's together. And she said, promise me you'd do stand up once this year. I don't care. It can be someone's living room. You can take a class. It can be anything. Just do it. And I had never thought about doing stand up before. And I lived on 78th Street. And I was literally- I lived on 78th Street, too. Oh, my God. I know. My goodness. Wow. We probably run into each other shopping. And I wound up doing stand up once. I had taken a class and I loved it. And it felt like this life-changing adventure. And I finished my set and I got off stage. And it was so powerful. I literally, I remember, I slumped against the wall. And I'm not a religious person, but it felt almost like the hand of God pushed me back, sat me down. And it was as if the universe was saying, pay attention to this because your life has just changed. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And then I lived a block and a half from stand up New York. So I became the irritating, like, can I get five minutes? I'll host. I'll do this. So I sort of worked my way up at that club in New York. And they had a couple contests that I won. Not a big deal. I mean, funniest Upper West Side, or who cares? My mother. And it was just, and I really liked doing it. So and that's how I got started. I see. And but then you moved to Vermont. Yes. Well, you gave it up for a while and did something else. No, we moved to Vermont. And then I gave it up. And then you owned the bookstore. We started the bookstore. Elizabeth Blumlee and I started the bookstore. We moved up from New York and we started the bookstore. And there was no comedy here, really. There was that one show on the weekends at what used to be, I remember, like the Hilton or the Hyatt right on Battery Street. And they would have two nights of comedy. And they'd bring people in. And higher ground occasionally would have people, but nothing to speak of at that time. And this was probably 98. And I had sent in a tape to the people who booked for that hotel. And they had just said to me, yes. We would actually like to book you to open. And then literally a month before that was supposed to happen, I had a grand mal seizure. Oh, no. And I wrote them. I called the guy up and I said, listen, I can't. I don't my health is a little precarious. And then they stopped. They that that they closed that it folded. And I was like, oh. And then I didn't get started doing stand up again here until I started teaching in 2005. I taught something at the Women's Economic Conference. Which was great. And that led to then teaching stand up at the Flynn. So 2005 stand up and sit down and laugh. That was your show? That was my show. Arnie Molina and I, he was the former artistic director. We cooked that up because 200 people came to the class performance. And he said, if we can get 200 people to come to a class performance, we can fill a gap for comedy. So he said, have at it. I'll give you three or four shows a year. Your teaching students bring those students up. So it was an immediate, it was like a feeder right into the performance. And it was wonderful. And then through that, all these comics and different kinds of people just took off with it and ran with it. And Nathan Hartzwick was one of my students. And now he and his wife run and own the comedy club. And you couldn't ask for better people in the Vermont comedy scene than those two. And they were just as nurturing. And so between the two of us, the three of us now really, we've all sort of built the comedy scene up. And now there's so many, you can't, every single night of the week in Vermont in Burlington, you can see a comedy show. I've seen that. You're a pioneer. I just wanted to perform and I wanted to give women originally. And then I started the Vermont comedy divas shortly after that because I got tired of higher ground and other clubs saying, you can open for out of town men. There were very few women comics coming in. And I just wanted to give female comics stage time. So that was 2006. Yes. And it's a five female troupe. It's a rotating troupe. You know, it started off as always all women, although we've had some guest divas and we call them divas. And we've sort of gone on hiatus a little bit. Mostly because I got cancer last year. Someone had a baby. So we're trying to figure out what we want to be diva-wise. But everyone's having a very successful career at the moment without the divas. So we'll see what happens with that. I want to ask you, how would you define or what differentiates queer comedy from straight comedy? Do you think there's a clear line of demarcation? I think just how they, that's a really interesting question. Because in one of your tapes, you said hello queer audience or something like that. I think probably that was probably LGBTQ LOL, one of the shows that Kendall Farrell started. I don't think it's a difference between, I think it's a difference in the audience. Because I think the queer audience is so grateful to be represented and to see themselves on stage. And there isn't a ton of that. And not every queer comic feels comfortable being out depending on what shows they're doing or where they're performing. And I think a lot of people now are just like, I'm queer, get over it. But every once in a while, though, I've heard from friends that learn the Midwest and it doesn't always go as well as it could. And I think just to see yourself represented on stage in a comedic way, it's just lovely as a queer person. And I wished I had had that growing up. And there was no way that was going to happen. No, not happening. So it was great to be part of that. And to just be an outcomic. Because I've always been an outcomic. And when I first started, I would do the beginning of my material very benign, I hate to say, but at the time generic jokes. And then I'd come out. So I got them to like me and then I would come out. And at that time, this was 92, you know, there was some backlash. The age crisis was running rampant in New York and not everyone liked queer people. And I had people come up to me after the show. I'm like, I had no idea you were gay. Thank you. Like that was really great. Or you're the first gay person I've ever seen do this. So that was something. It was just nice to be able to do that. And now to be a queer comic in Vermont. I mean, nobody cares in Vermont. I mean, pretty much I feel like all the comics are queer. Well, I mean, whatever. Probably not, but I feel like a lot of them are. So. Well, I was watching one of your tapes and you were talking about cancer in Atlanta or for the Atlantic? For the Atlantic. For the Atlantic. And it was just so smooth. You came out midway, talked about your wife. And you know. Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Let's not get carried away. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Girlfriend. Yes, partner, but not wife. Yeah, we're not, I'm not going to tie the knot again probably. No, we haven't. You know, yeah. It's an individual decision. You can commit to someone without the piece of paper. Isn't that the truth? I agree entirely. I know. I've decided, you know, and this is something I did at the bookstore. I never switched pronouns. I, every once in a while I'd be judicious about who I would share things with. But if I'm performing and I'm talking about, you know, a cancer, my cancer journey, I'm not going to pretend I didn't go through it with a female partner because she was instrumental in making it fun and bearable in a lot of ways. So I'm not going to pretend I had a husband through that. Right. Well, it was very smooth, I thought. Well, thank you. I have another question. Yes. Can you explain the difference between comedy and storytelling? Because I see you describe yourself as both. I've seen you. I think we need to differentiate, I think you need to say stand-up comedy. And storytelling because you can have comedic storytelling, which are just, you know, funny stories with an arc. Storytelling, you have an arc. There's drama. It's tighter. It's usually you're talking about the same theme. At least for my storytelling, it's better written. And it definitely has a much tighter arc. Or that's what I try for. And with stand-up, you can riff a little more. I'm more relaxed. And it's more sort of spontaneous almost for me. It's almost like improv or storytelling. I never bullshit my way through a story where I can bullshit my way through a comedy routine. Because I've done it for so long that I can talk to the audience during stand-up. And you can't talk to the audience doing storytelling. And one thing for me, the biggest difference is when I do stand-up my energy goes outward to the audience. And I'm moving around more and, you know, I'm a Jew. You know, I'm talking my hands. And I'm moving more. And with storytelling, the energy is all inward. And it's just a focus on the words and the story. And why am I telling this story? Why does this story matter? And with stand-up, I don't have that quite as much. But for me, it is very much, as I'm not going to say rigid, but it's how I stand. I don't give it away with the story as much as I do with stand-up. I'm much more composed and I'm more careful and I'm more thoughtful with my words. Whereas with stand-up, it's almost, stand-up's just fun for me. And storytelling is still really hard for me. So I like doing it because it pushes me. It pushes me as a writer. It pushes me as a performer. Because if I can't use my body the way I'm used to, how does the writing then have to make those points for me? Whereas in stand-up, my body would be making those points. Is it the same sense of exhilaration or? No. You know, I mean, my heart is always going to be in stand-up. I can have the worst day in the world and I'm like, oh, go fuck this show, I don't want to go. And then I do it 15 minutes and I'm like, oh my God, that was amazing. Whereas with storytelling, it's just always a little more fraught for me. I mean, I'm growing to enjoy it more and I like it more like when I had my show last year at the Flynn. That was definitely, it was an hour and 17 minutes show and there were moments of hilarity and there were moments where people were just flat out sobbing. And I like the challenge of that. And I like the, I like a longer time for storytelling than just seven minutes. Sometimes because I like to weave a bigger story, but also being able to do a seven-minute story, if you do it well, it's gorgeous. It's a lovely thing. Well, I have to say, I heard you at an extempo thing and I filled up with tears at the end of your story. Thank you. Very moving. Thank you. But that was the second story I had ever done. And I find my storytelling is really dark and my stand-up is not. And my storytelling is much more reflective and emotive and my stand-up is sort of how have I hurt myself today trying to fix things at my house or, you know, I have lots of stories now about trying to kayak and, you know, living on the water and slipping on rocks and hurting myself. And my storytelling is a little more, certainly, has a little more oomph to it. And it's a little more focus. Yeah. And it's got a little more solidity to it. And so now that I have this as an outlet, I'm looking at things differently. And it's helpful. It helps you get through life. Tell me, what are you up to now? We have only a minute and a half. So what are your current projects? Current projects? Well, one of the things that happened since having cancer is I've now become sort of a cancer speaker and advocate. So I'll be, I'll run it down because my memory sucks. I'm on the hospital patient advisory board and I'm doing grand rounds. Which hospital? University Hospital. Okay. I've been to Burlington. So I'm doing grand rounds, which is my cancer show for anyone who wants to listen. And it's free and it's at noon and it's at the main auditorium in the hospital. And what date? September 9th. And then September 23rd, I'm telling a story at Ex Tempo at Positive Pi. And then for folks who are in Rutland, on October 2nd, I'm doing one of the first Wednesdays. And it's going to be an abbreviated version of my show. So this happened, A Comic Confronted Cancer. And I also, on the first November, the first Wednesday of November, I'm doing that same show in Newport. So you're getting all around the state? The Humanities Council is just like, can you do two instead? I'd love to do two. And then every month, starting in October, I have the Stand Up, Sit Down and Laugh series starts up again at the Flint Space. And that's flat out comedy and I've been booking it. And there are lots of people. Lots of great comics already booked, so I'm very excited for that. That's wonderful. Well, this is gone by too fast. I know it has, hasn't it? Thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you for coming in. This is lovely. You'll have to come back. I would love to. Good show. She was great. Yeah, she was really good. We need to find out when the Laugh Out Loud is going to resume again. It's LGBTQ comedy, Laugh Out Loud? Yeah. And then there's. She mentioned in the interview. And then the Stand Up. The storytelling too. Yeah. We're going to have a busy winter. Good. So, in our democratic society, it is the responsibility of government to safeguard civil liberties and civil rights, especially the freedom of speech and expression. In a free society, we must all be committed to the mutual respect of each other's lifestyles and was so close to getting it. Wendy, I said this may have been spoken in 1983, which just happened to be the year of the first Pride Parade in Burlington. Water won't run straight and neither will we. And this language may have been included in the mayor's proclamation for Pride Day and the mayor being Bernie Sanders. So with that. Yeah, Bernie. Go, Bernie! We're going to say, as we usually do, please resist.