Pretty Little Episode #45

This is a head gum podcast.

Pretty little episode.

Welcome to our pretty little episode for the Handsome Pod.

It's Fortune Feamster and me, Mae Martin.

I was just like frantically pointing at you like this is you to be like

you start.

Yeah, I got you.

I got you.

Don't you worry.

Thank you.

How's it going?

It's going well.

I'm

feeling good, feeling fresh.

I did a workout.

I did a sauna.

But my air conditioning's broken.

And the way to fix it is to, apparently, is to blast the heat all day.

Yeah, to like melt.

It's like frozen over or something.

So they're

blasting the heat in my house.

And it's so.

It's like a sauna in your house now.

Yeah, it's super intense.

How are you?

You look very

smart, I think.

I do.

Yeah.

I've been reading books.

We know that's not true.

I'm good.

I swam every day this week.

Yes.

I did my treading water.

Although, one of the days I did make cinnamon rolls and I ate those in the pool.

While treading?

And then tread.

Oh, my God.

That's impressive, I think.

Yeah, so I felt like the, you know, I ate some I shouldn't, and then I treaded.

Listen, back to it.

Thank you for it.

Who says shouldn't, you know?

What did you get them?

Like pre-made and then you put them in the oven?

You know, like one of those, I'm sure the unhealthiest of things, the pill turn.

Yes, I fucking, I love it.

They're so good.

I'm not going to buy those again because I shouldn't be eating them.

But they were there

and I just made them.

about like

not having the thing in your house that you want like because i'm trying to quit smoking and i i

i do smoke like i have to admit that i smoke like two or three cigarettes a day yeah i'm trying to so i got rid of all the cigarettes in my house and then last night i smoked a butt of a cigarette from my cigarette butt like a sketchy little rat

Yeah, I mean, I guess it just takes time to snap out of that, right?

Yeah, like to form a new habit or whatever.

Have you quit before?

Yeah, yeah.

I quit for all of my 20s.

Yeah, I just started again in the pandemic, really.

And then I quit again when I was with Parv.

And then I started smoking again in the middle of the day.

Is it an anxiety thing?

You think?

I think it's like a nihilism thing.

It's just like, ah, fuck it.

And I do love it.

It's just the worst thing for you.

But I do.

You're trying.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

Nikki Glazer said she read some book that, like, uh, everyone talks about.

Oh, no, that was the alcohol.

I think that was alcohol.

But that too, yeah.

I'm lucky I've never really liked drinking that much.

Yeah.

Like a stimulant, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

But that there is a book that everyone says you got to read to quit smoking.

Yeah.

I've never smoked.

I mean, you know, aside from like a drag or two in high school, which I probably didn't even

don't even think I in hell.

I was just like this.

I can imagine you smoking in like improv scenes, like mime smoking a lot.

It just says a lot about a character the minute you.

Because I've never smoked, I'm always like trying to

do the ash.

What is this called?

Mime ashing it?

Yeah, mime ashing it.

Yeah.

Like that, that'll be believable.

But yeah, never.

My vice is all food.

I never gotten into

the smoking and alcohol has never been an an issue either.

It's just so funny how they are interchangeable for each other.

Like, it's just like

it's all the same, you know, and everybody's got their thing.

We're just none of us are perfect, you guys.

We're just doing the best we can.

We got to self-soothe somehow, and we're supposed to be living in little villages just hanging out with our families, not living in these big, scary metropolises with information coming at us.

And for you, you take a drag of a butt of a cigarette on the ground, and i eat a cinnamon roll

okay mine sounds worse

let's say my cinnamon roll was also on the ground okay yeah yeah and i picked it up and ate it

yeah well um should we get to some questions

i would love to i would love to Hello, pretty little handsome cowboys.

My name is Margot.

I'm calling from the beautifully gay Hudson Valley in New York.

And I'm wondering if you were putting together a handsome, queer film festival, what would you include?

What are some of your favorite nostalgic, queer, or queer-coated movies?

What are your newer favorites?

Excited to hear what you have to say.

Oh, man.

I hope you know more than I do.

I feel like I'm so bad about, I have not watched enough gay stuff.

Oh, really?

Well, yeah, mine is, I like that.

Margos also said queer-coated because there are things that just

mean though.

Okay, hocus pocus feels feels gay.

What?

That's gay-coated?

Oh, for sure.

It's like very like drag queen-y, like, and

it's sort of horny.

Oh, I see.

Undertones.

A queer undertone.

Yeah, or for me, the witches with Angelica Houston.

That is, I don't know, there's something gay about it.

Yeah.

And then actually.

I feel bigger smiling, thinking of those movies.

I know.

Like, I was literally buzzing.

Because those are all your formative hard-ons that you get.

Well, you would have a genre at this film festival called Gay Coded and that these would be

children's movies in a way.

Like, or sort of

sounds weird, but you know what I mean.

Like, first crushes kind of.

Okay.

And then

Lady and the Tramp.

Actually queer stuff.

Oh, you think those Siamese cats and Lady and the Tramp are

looking at your gay

cat buds?

Have you seen Foxfire?

No, what's that?

Oh my God.

I think it's 90s, early 90s or late 80s even.

And it's,

no, it must be 90s.

Angelina Jolie, Jenny Shimizu.

And it's about a group of teenage girls who kind of band together to rebel.

There's like a sketchy teacher and they end up living in this house together.

And it's just like a moody, emo kind of lesbianic movie.

I don't think anyone even kisses, but they like tattoo each other.

I think maybe there is one kiss, but but Angelina Jolie's this rebel in her leather boots and she tattoos them all and it's the hottest scene.

They all get naked and she tattoos.

She gives them all friendship tattoos.

Anyway, so that's one.

I've liked the movie she did Gia back in the day.

Gia 100%.

And she's like throwing herself against the fence.

Yes, of course.

Of course.

That awoken some things in me.

I'm sure that I've told this on the pod, but that I

watched that one part of that VHS so much that just that part was like fuzzy when you watched it.

Like it wore itself down.

Also my own brother at Idaho.

Okay.

Gus Vincent, River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.

Really beautiful movie.

Not tons of like explicit gay stuff, but

they play like sex workers and River is in love with Keanu and it's just a beautiful movie.

I gotta watch that again.

I watched it a long time time ago, but I want to go back to that one.

Yeah, it's really great.

And then, oh, have you seen the Pee-Wee Herman documentary?

Oh, no, but I heard it's really good.

Were you a fan?

Like, was he important to you?

Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't like,

I wasn't like obsessed with Pee-Wee's Playhouse, but it was part of my growing up for sure.

Right, right.

Because that, I,

I was so deeply obsessed.

And then I watching the documentary, he's talking about the, um,

he's talking about being closeted and like, but finding ways to sort of represent queer culture

covertly and whatever.

But there's a Christmas special, a Pee Wee Christmas special.

That let me, I want to read you

the guest list of the guests that appeared on that Christmas special.

Okay.

Because it's so gay.

Okay.

Yeah, you got Cher.

You got Katie Lang.

You got Little Richard.

You got Grace Jones.

Okay.

Frankie Avalon.

Oprah Winfrey.

Like, I don't know.

It just, it was, it was so blatantly like a celebration of queer culture with like Grace Jones voguing and stuff.

But

that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I'm a cheerleader.

That would have to be in there.

Huh?

That was early days gay, and that was eye-opening.

Shout out to Jamie Babbitt directing that.

Yes, Jamie Babbitt.

Debs.

Remember that?

That was a.

No, I'm writing that down.

That was

early days back in the day.

A newer one, that Carol movie, that's got to go in there.

Oh, my God.

Carol's got to be on there.

I love Carol.

Oh, and the one with the fog.

There's always fog.

The fun with a lot of fog.

And they were like

the Irish actress.

Yes.

And

Ammonite?

Yes.

And I think SNL parodied it with a lot of

longing glances.

Yeah, a lot of that.

It's a lot of of tension.

Yes.

Anything

Rachel Weiss, too, like the favorite or

that's sort of queer.

Well, we'd have a documentary section.

We'd put Tig's documentary in there, Tig.

Yes.

And come See Me in the Good Light.

I mean, while we're at it, do we just play all our stand-up specials?

All of our stand-up specials for the comedy part.

That would be with, but I'm a cheerleader.

Feel Good, One Mississippi, everything you've ever appeared in.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, I feel like this is a pretty good festival so far.

Yeah, this is pretty, this is a week-long festival.

And then we'll have some gay guys movies too, like the birdcage or something.

The birdcage.

Oh, my God.

Harris is burning.

That will be part of the documentary.

My Policeman,

which was pretty good, I thought, with Harry Styles.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That one.

I like that one.

It's funny.

Isn't it good?

That movie Bottoms.

We got to put that in there.

That was funny.

That would be in there.

That would be in the picture show.

That would be in the comedy section.

But isn't it nice that, like, well, when I was, yeah, right at the important age of puberty and like realizing my feelings and stuff, the only queer content was so traumatic.

It was, I know, I know.

Boys don't cry.

Boys Don't Cry.

That's got to be in there.

But that was

a monster.

Like,

it was heavy.

It was like, oh, God.

Because so many stories were, so there was so much going on that was heavy, you know, that was happening.

It was, um,

there's a lot of darkness

before the light, you know, and still, and still, no.

I might put that movie Monica in there with Trace Lissette.

Oh, yeah, I haven't seen it, but really beautiful.

That was a good festival.

I know, I know.

I could go on forever.

I feel like we're all the non-queer people listening to this are like, all right, we get it.

Well, but some might check out some of these movies and they should.

They should.

Like, I love uh straight movies, they're all my favorite movies.

Straight movies are great.

So maybe you'll love a queer movie.

Should we hear Margo's answer?

Yeah, let's do.

My favorites, I love watching queer films with my partner.

Shout out to you, babe.

And a few of our favorites are A League of Their Own, Fiery Tornadoes, Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, Desert Hearts, Mutt, and portrait of a lady on fire.

That's what I've got.

How do I forget Leave it their own and fried green tomatoes?

Two of my favorite movies.

I've never seen fried green phantoms.

Fry Green Tomatoes is more gay-coated

than gay.

The book, I think, had more,

more,

it was more on the nose than the movie.

But man, the 10.

I loved a movie back then about two ladies who you could tell

really love each other.

Yeah.

But they're like fighting it.

Yeah, I love it.

I want to see all.

I've never heard of Mutt either.

I'm going to watch that.

Thanks, Marga.

Should we hear another question?

Let's do it.

Hello, handsome Tig, Handsome Fortune, and Handsome May.

My name is Dominique from Columbus, Ohio.

A city I think you should really heavily consider for your next live show.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

Would be a good place for you.

Here's my question.

If you were to create a children's television show, what would your show show be about?

Oh, May, I feel like this is your wheelhouse.

Dude, both of these questions,

have you seen me light up?

Mo, you're beaming over there.

Yeah, because I actually, the past few days, every day, I've said out loud to a different person, I want to make a kid's TV show.

I think you should.

I think I should.

Yeah, like with all magical animals.

And like, so my idea, Fortune, and like, I'm worried by talking about it, I'm going to suck the energy out of it.

But it's like, well, don't give all of it away.

Just

broad strokes.

Okay, broad strokes.

And because I don't know the story yet, but instead of working towards my next stand-up special, I'm thinking about a live kids special that is filmed.

Oh, like how John Mulaney did the sack lunch kit bunch, sack, bunch, lunch, kids, or whatever.

Oh, that was kind of like a Sesame Street type.

It was like,

you should watch it just to kind of see.

I remember that.

So this is more.

Because it was a good format.

Yeah.

So this would be filmed live in a theater and it would be me telling one story, one epic story, but it has songs in it, like with a full band on stage.

And it's got puppets.

Oh, yeah.

Puppets acted out.

And I interact with the puppets and with the kids.

And I'm like telling the story.

And I think it's, I want to base it.

on this children's book that my dad wrote about like the stuffed animals I had growing up.

Like, oh, yeah.

These wicked characters.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

Your imagination lends itself to that kind of fanciful world.

I feel like, yeah, I'm like silly.

Uh, that's where my inner child comes through, but I don't have the um

you know, I'm not, I'm not creating these worlds in my head that's that you do.

I think it's a it's like a British whimsical thing that my dad imparted on me with like a lot of like narnia and that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that's what kids love are these like worlds that are

made up.

My friend Chris Colfer wrote this whole series of books like

that.

He just created this world

of these kids' books that people love.

And I just can't imagine coming up with these kind of things.

I want to read those and I want to one day meet Chris Colfer because

I'm a huge fan.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I'll have to get him to ask a question.

He's the loveliest of people.

And also, I will happily introduce you.

And what?

He's recently got ripped.

Not to objectify him, but I want to ask him about his arm regime.

All right.

Yeah.

Maybe we could all have dinner or something.

Yeah.

I really, yeah, I feel.

He would love it.

He's one of the nicest people ever.

He seems like it.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think we go with your idea.

My idea would.

I've tried to create an animated show.

I actually had an animated idea that got bought that we were paid to write the pilot for.

I wrote it with this

really fantastic writer, and they had an animator do all the characters.

And I was like so pumped about it.

I thought it was some of my best work.

Yes.

But, you know, it came at a time where the people, the company that bought it,

their whole department folded, the whole channel folded.

And then, you know, to try to take an idea that's already been bought and resell it is not the easiest.

But

it was such a cool,

it was based on my life, but not like, but very broad, also my co-writer's life as well.

And

I was really proud of it.

And it was such a, and seeing the animated versions of it.

Oh, did you got that far to actually like.

Yeah, we wrote the pilot and they animate.

drew we had a really talented um

animator draw all the the main characters and made like this lookbook that was really cool.

That's amazing.

So I think that would have been a cool thing.

And you never know, maybe it will pop back around someday.

Yeah, all those things, they never go anywhere.

Yeah.

Let's hear Dominique's answer.

For me, I would want it to be about pop art and music, specifically from the 80s, 90s era.

But I would want it to be in a pee-wee's playhouse style of way where the kids would not only see the pictures and hear the music, but actually get to be a part of it.

So they could jump into the music and ride the notes to see the notes that make up the song, be a part of the music videos, bringing in images from Takashi Murakami and Andy Warhol

so that they could see the brush strokes and see every little part of the picture and really get to be a part of the art.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Sounds very creative, huh?

Very.

I'm trying to visualize it.

So it's like a

video of art being created and there's

it.

There's music and the kids can kind of

ride the notes.

Ride the notes.

Is it animated?

It feels like it.

I don't want to pin Dominique down or make her.

Like, yeah, it sounds wildly creative and good.

It feels like maybe...

I need to act fast because it feels like everyone's being inspired by this Pee Wee documentary.

Oh, right.

Everyone's going to pitch their own Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and I got to move quick.

Well, because

some people just have that

gift of just creating such unique, whimsical things.

And he certainly did.

So, you know, other people were like, wait, why am I not doing that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mine, mine's more reality-based,

but mine was set in the 90s, though.

I do agree with her of that time period because I like the nostalgia of that time period and the less tech and more imagination.

A hundred percent.

It's hard.

So storytelling with all the tech that we have now,

it feels cold or it's easier to tell a story where people don't know where you are all the time.

And there's

the days of leaving your house and not coming back till nighttime and

playing and being ridiculous and silly.

Those are the simpler days.

I was back home recently and was driving around my little hometown and it just made me think about me as a kid and walking home from school and just like what an innocent time it felt like.

Yeah, we've got to cultivate those times, but it takes real discipline.

Like all I do is fantasize about going for a week somewhere, leaving my phone at home with a friend.

Like, you know,

it's like, I think it, it...

you'd need like a real detox and there'd be like real um withdrawal at first.

I see you doing that in like a Joshua Tree situation.

That would be great, but I am severely addicted.

Like I need someone there holding me accountable, like taking my phone away from me.

Yeah.

Well, this is a pleasure.

Yeah.

Fun times.

I love these questions.

Me too.

They're exactly what I want to talk about, actually.

Yeah.

What do you have coming up, Fortune?

Aside from your birthday.

My birthday is around the corner on July 1st.

That's exciting.

I don't have any plans, and that's all good with me.

Everyone's like, why do you not have any plans?

I'm like, not even worried about it.

Yeah.

I'm headed to Lincoln, California, actually, this evening.

That's my Sacramento stop, the casino at Thunder Valley.

And then July's pretty late for me.

I'm just doing Edmonton in Canada with Mateo Lane.

And then nothing till Spokane, Washington.

July and August, I'm kind of taking it easy, and I'm pretty stoked about that.

Me too.

Oh, and I'm going to do Pride in Iceland.

No.

Yeah.

I'm so stoked for that in August, early August.

What?

That's incredible.

I cannot wait.

Have you been?

Never been.

Okay, we'll talk about it another time.

All right.

Yeah, it's the best place.

Okay.

Whoa.

And I'm also, it's, yeah, the summer's really light for me.

So just check out MaymartinMusic.com.

I've got

two new songs out right now.

And,

you know, music dates pop up.

But other than that, yeah, just check out Feel Good on Netflix or anything like that.

Oh, yeah.

My season two of Foobar is out on Netflix, too.

Yes.

Yeah, finish that.

I'm an action star, baby.

Yes, you are.

And also

keep sending your questions to speakpipe.com/slash handsome pod.

Please, we love them.

Do it.

You guys are the best.

Thank you for sending your questions.

And all that remains is to keep it pretty handsome.

Handsome is hosted by me, Fortune Feemster, Tig Notaro, and Mae Martin.

The show is produced, recorded, and edited by Thomas Woulette.

Email us at handsomepod at gmail.com and follow us on social media at HandsomePod.

What a podcast!

What a podcast!

What a podcast!

That was a head gum podcast.