Romanistan

Tales from Romanistan: Live from New Orleans

• Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens • Season 5 • Episode 6

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Here's the edited release of Tales from Romanistan: A Night of Romani Storytelling, our first live show, in New Orleans, LA at Cafe Istanbul, 3/28/2025!

Hosted by Paulina Stevens and Jezmina Von Thiele, Produced by Bimbo Yaga, Cast includes Tsarina Hellfire, Moonbear, Milly Raccoon, Bimbo Yaga, and our editor and musician, Viktor! Photos by Arian Aragon. Special thanks to our cast, crew, and everyone who attended! Special shoutout to the sweet couple who flew in from Ohio! And thank you to our sponsors for this event, Weiser Books and Emerald Comics Distro. 

Jezmina's poem "White Caravan" first appeared in Zoeglossia.

Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast.

You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @romanistanpodcast, and on Twitter @romanistanpod. To support us, Join our Patreon for extra content or donate to Ko-fi.com/romanistan, and please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us so much. 

Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic. 

You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcast.com for events, educational resources, merch, and more. Please support our book tour fundraiser if you can. 

Email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries. 

Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens

Conceived of by Paulina Stevens

Edited by Viktor Pachas

With Music by Viktor Pachas

And Artwork by Elijah Vardo

Speaker 1:

hi everyone.

Speaker 2:

You're about to listen to our first ever live podcast recording in new orleans, yay we are going to be jumping in from time to time with our little commentary, kind of like in the old school dvd commentary, if y'all remember that, and we will be in the back of your mind. Some of our transitions don't translate as well into our podcast, but don't worry, we'll be around to fill you in with what's going on yeah, some acts like, for instance, dance numbers, might not translate so well and maybe we don't have the rights to the music, so we will tell you what happens.

Speaker 1:

But we have so much happening Lots of people talking, interviews and things that you can listen to and we are going to input a few recordings of just the pieces raw for you to hear. So don't worry, there's plenty to enjoy. But let's get started.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Romanistan.

Speaker 1:

We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies. I'm Paulina and I'm Jez and yay. Thank you so much for being here. Everyone, we are so happy to have you. This is our very first live podcast recording for our very first festival, so this is part of our Welcome to Romanistan Festival and we are sharing our podcast, which has been created to celebrate, uplift and spotlight Romani people and creators from all backgrounds there will be music, dancing, drag poetry and a little bit of gypsy magic.

Speaker 2:

But why are we actually here?

Speaker 1:

We're here because of the festival and we just wanted to bring this to you as a live experience, so you get to participate in one of our favorite pastimes, which is storytelling, and there are so many ways to tell a story, and for so long, because of diaspora and lack of education resources, we have been an oral tradition, and so this is a really fun example of what we do when we tell stories in our own ways.

Speaker 2:

And what a better way to celebrate Romani culture than a you know, a variety show starring talented queer and trans Romani performers. Also, I wanted to ask you guys do does anybody know who Romani people are? You may have heard of us.

Speaker 1:

Show of hands. How many of you know who Roma are? We expected it from this room.

Speaker 2:

How about Gypsies? Have you guys heard of Gypsies? Yeah?

Speaker 1:

and so you know we like to give a little history.

Speaker 1:

You might already know this, especially if you're here, and we so appreciate that, but basically, roma are a diasporic ethnic group, originally from India, but a long time ago, and so Roma people left India around the 10th century when the Ghaznavid Empire was invading and low-caste Indians and migrants were rounded up to fight the invading army. And so since then, since the war was lost and the army was likely captured and brought west, roma have been enduring really interesting obstacles. We've brought with us our culture and our resilience and our trades and our spiritual practice and our language throughout all these years, and we've also survived 500 years of slavery in present-day Romania, deportations, multiple genocides, all types of persecution, and in that we have created survival trades like performance and fortune-telling, metalworking, horse trading, things that are often passed down through our families, and Paulina and I recently wrote Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling together to share what that is like. We have a beautiful merch table over there with treats from our cast, as well as handmade tarot bags, if you wanted something to store your tarot decks in.

Speaker 1:

Go wander over there.

Speaker 2:

You guys have also. You may have heard of the stereotype of the gypsy fortune teller, and it is a stereotype, but we just so happen to be gypsy fortune tellers.

Speaker 1:

And first, just for a moment, the word gypsy too, because we're throwing that around a lot. But you know again, I think we know that you know, but gypsy is one of those words that came into creation because when Roma were moving from place to place in many, many centuries of persecution, there was a misunderstanding somewhere down the line. Either we created that rumor or somebody else did that. We were from Egypt, and so a lot of documents especially around, like decrees limiting what Roma could do or even deporting Roma, referred to us as Egyptians, and so it's one of those words that it's been used as a slur, especially in America. If you're Roma, use it all you want, or don't use it. If you're not Roma, no need to say it, because it is a complicated word. We both grew up saying it and we're going to use it really casually because it's like you're in our living room, roma have a culture of hospitality and we're inviting you in. But yeah, it just that's a word that can be a little confusing.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and we'll tell you guys a little bit more about ourselves. So I am a Romani gypsy from the Machuaya subgroup and I had an arranged marriage when I was 14. I don't know, I'm sorry. I was engaged at 14. I was married at 17, and I didn't really go to school. Also, the only job I was really allowed to do was fortune-telling, and so that's just kind of what I continue to do. I actually left my closed community and I opened a holistic wellness business, and we also do the Romani podcast, where we lift the voices of Romani people from around the world and other allies and obviously our book.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, yeah, and you might have found Paulina through the podcast by the LA Times Foretold which tells your whole story of, you know, leaving your arranged marriage and fighting for custody and all of that. So if you haven't heard that, you must Forgot about that. Yeah, we fill in each other's bios a lot. It's hard to talk about yourself. So I grew up in New Hampshire. I mixed and assimilated. I grew up in New Hampshire. I am mixed and assimilated.

Speaker 1:

My grandmother comes from a Sinti family, which is just another subgroup of Romani people, and she grew up in Nazi Germany, hiding her ethnicity in plain sight, which was very complicated, and so when she came to the US she really was not planning on sharing her culture. She didn't really share that much with my mom and her siblings until they were grown. But when I was born she was really afraid that her cultural connection, her knowledge you know everything she carried with her from the trades to you know, spiritual practices and everything else would be lost. And so my grandmother started teaching me and everything else would be lost. And so my grandmother started teaching me fortune telling as a trade when I was about four years old, and so I was raised the way that maybe my mother and her siblings would have been had there not been such pressure to assimilate, especially after the war.

Speaker 1:

And now I am a writer. I read tarot, palm and tea leaves for clients individually. I also love to do a party. I love to be at a gala, I perform a lot with Poetry Brothel Boston and I do some spoken word, and I love to teach divination workshops, hold rituals online and in person, and I do a lot of creative coaching as well.

Speaker 1:

So we are so excited to bring you our beautiful cast tonight and we are also doing a lot of performances all throughout the weekend, and so keep an eye on what we're up to. But our performers tonight come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and, because this is still a live podcast recording, we're going to do what we do best. We're going to interview, a tiny little interview with each performer about their fascinating bios, and then we will send them off into their acts, and we are also going to have a little burlesque, a little drag, and so you know consent is key. You are welcome to tell the performers how much you love them by applauding and tipping them generously, but no touching, and if the performer comes around to you and goes to touch you. You're welcome to say no thank you, or you can just enjoy the moment, but please hands to yourself.

Speaker 2:

But you can touch their hearts with your cash. Yes, you can just enjoy the moment, but please hands to yourself.

Speaker 1:

But you can touch their hearts with your cash. Yes, you can. We have a tip bucket right there that goes right to our hearts. And so, let's see, we wanted to introduce our first person who's been performing this whole time for us. This is Victor, our editor and musical producer for Romanesan Podcast. He is our token gajo for tonight and he specializes in flamenco fusion guitar, injecting flamenco musicality and techniques into his performance. Victor is also a singer-songwriter and performs in the New England area. Performs in the New England area.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, victor. So I think we're going to have a great show, and I also want to introduce one of our performers and our show producer for the night, bimbo Yaga for the night. Bimbo Yaga. Bimbo Yaga is the trans MILF of your wet dreams. Here to haunt your nightmares with sensual spells of emotional domination. Bimbo Yaga.

Speaker 4:

Are you going to?

Speaker 2:

cast a spell on us tonight.

Speaker 3:

I certainly am gonna cast a spell on us tonight. I certainly am going to cast a spell on you tonight, more of a cord-cutting ritual, okay.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, Can you cut the cord? Okay, oh, okay. So one thing that we heard heard was we heard something like an exorcism. Like, did you used to dabble in something like that?

Speaker 3:

So yeah, cord cuttings are like a mini exorcism for your soul, for your heart. But it's true, I was a teenage exorcist. I learned the art and trade of exorcism both from my family and also I was apprenticed to a Christian mystic who did hands-on healing in the spiritualist traditions when I was 15.

Speaker 2:

Can you tell us details, please?

Speaker 3:

Do you want to hear about my exploits and how I stumbled into being a teenage exorcist? Yes, yes, how I stumbled into being a teenage exorcist?

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, well, I was studying music with a woman whose name is Liz McDevitt and my mother was a good friend of hers and she had a friend whose name was Jackie McCloskey. She became my teacher. I got a reading from Jackie McCloskey. We traded readings. So I was 15 years old and she'd never met a gypsy before and I had never met a gajo woman who had done tarot card readings before. So I was like this is very interesting. So we traded readings for four hours and at the end of that four hours I said, oh, I want to learn more about what you do. And she says, okay, cool, well, I'll take you out for chicken wings. My favorite meal is chicken wings. And so she was like we'll go for chicken wings and then, yeah, we'll talk about you know what I do, what you do.

Speaker 3:

So we get in the car and we're driving to chicken wings and I see the chicken wing place just driving by and just you know, we're passing the chicken wing place and I said, oh, jackie, um, there goes the chicken wings. And she said, oh, no, I have to stop at a client's house first before we get chicken wings. And I said, oh, what kind of client? And she, oh, just somebody who's going through a hard time. And I said, oh, that's so nice, this lady is nice, a very generous spirit.

Speaker 3:

So we go to her client's house when I lived in Okeechobee, florida. If you're familiar with Florida, okeechobee, florida, is a very po-dunky town in the middle of nowhere, swamp. So we went to the middle of nowhere of the middle of nowhere in Florida. We're driving. All of a sudden the streetlights are gone, all of a sudden the road is gone and we're driving into somebody's swamp home. We get there, we pull up and I'm like, wow, this person, I loved it. I grew up in a swampy rural area too. So I was like this is wild, wild. So we get in there and she opens the door. She's like now, whatever you do, don't panic. And I said what? So we go in and I had never met a fully ascendantly possessed person before.

Speaker 3:

This person was deeply taken by something. Their face was contorted, they were sweating, they were spitting. And Jackie said, oh, I have your medicine. And the person was like fuck you, basically, and I don't want no medicine. And I said, jackie, what's the medicine? And she says, oh, you, you have to figure out how to get this thing out of this person. So I performed an exorcism through laying of hands and with the assistance of my teacher, jackie, and, long story short, it was successful. Yay.

Speaker 3:

So we leave the house. I was not feeling very well and I said, jackie, I don't feel very well. And she said oh, don't worry, it'll be fine, Just give it a mile or two. So we drive a mile or two away from the house and I said, jackie, you have to pull over. And she said oh, good girl. So she pulls over, I open the door, I stumble out, I throw up.

Speaker 3:

This is a very gross story, by the way, I love it. Ok, I throw up all over the swamp and the side of the car and I'm crying. I can't even put to words how absolutely magical it was, though, because there's fireflies and there's the cicadas and there's all the frogs in the swamp and there's me hurling this spirit out of my body and I was exercising. And she picks me up and she's like now, next time, don't suck, it, don't swallow. And I said, said, excuse me. And so we get back in the car and she's like how about those chicken wings? So we went for chicken wings, and that's how I started my apprenticeship as an exorcist when I was 15 years old. But don't worry, tonight I won't be sucking or swallowing.

Speaker 1:

Only cutting, only cutting.

Speaker 3:

All right, so Let me move over to this other microphone. Have you ever been in love? Hmm, yeah, is anybody currently in love? It's spring. It's spring and love is in the air. But in order for love to enter your heart, sometimes you have to make a little room for it. Right, it's a little bit of room, so what?

Speaker 3:

we're gonna do tonight, if you consent, is I'm going to lead us through a cord-cutting spell For anybody who has lingering threads of energetic longing or regret or rage between them and the heart of a former lover or a former place that you lived, or a part of your history, an aspect of your history that you're struggling to move on from. We're going to lovingly wrap it up, tie it up, and we're going to pull it out of our heart so that we can make some room for the new things coming. Does that sound nice? Yeah, a little emotional spring cleaning, right? Y'all want to do something like that? Okay, well, I need a volunteer, and you're all are so far away. I need one volunteer to yeah, yeah, so, jim buckle up, jim.

Speaker 3:

What I need you to do is grab this and slowly take this around to every person and everybody. Just hold on to this thread. Does that make sense? Just weave it through? No down. Just the audience for now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I misinstructed you. You got it. You got it and then pass it around. So grab a little bit there you go and then pass it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. While that's happening, I need everybody to think about the chords that they need cut, okay.

Speaker 3:

Okay to think about the chords that they need cut. Okay, and I am going to read a very ancient, powerful gypsy spell of chord cutting that I have right here in my little book of gay poetry that I wrote when I was 20.

Speaker 4:

Yes, you can applause for that.

Speaker 3:

Has anybody written bad gay love poems or straight love poems? Anybody wrote bad love poems. Raise your hands, okay. So what I want you to do is, as I pour my heart out to you, I want you to think about all the bad love poems you've ever written. And this is a breakup poem. It was a very bad relationship and a horrible breakup. So while you're thinking about, these chords you need to cut, I'm gonna cast this, spell you ready. Everybody got the thread.

Speaker 3:

Lilies of my learning, the sun in its blue and golden generosity wasn't enough. I still remember your cold, pushing back my lips, forcing my teeth against my better judgment, even the crows, two by three, dancing through the ice of your stair. Well, they still sang caw, caw, caw. My tongue lilted and their words were mine for a time, a cacophony of you're so beautiful. I forgot the sourness of your fingers against my lips and the paper cut kiss at the airport. That meant goodbye. Your baggage on the curb burnt, with my silence. I was a little unhinged back then. A truth I boxed silent that maybe I was wrong to promise you forever. But what would you have said had you known that while you packed your bags last night, our last night I busily tilled under our garden that roses no longer grow for you here, just the lilies of my learning. Applause, applause. Now applaud you in those moments of writing terrible breakup poetry. I'm so proud of you. Better out than in, better out than in. So I want you to think about the cords you have to cut and just grab your thread on either side, just wrap your hands around and when you're ready just break

Speaker 3:

it. Just break it and have two separate pieces, or three or seven. Some of you have been sluts, little busy sluts. I see you back there. You have these two separate pieces of this thread.

Speaker 3:

Now, right, you can whip yourself, you can whip someone with the other hand if you would like, if they consent. What I want you to do is I want you to gather up these threads and just think that part of your life, think those relationships, think yourself and thank God you've moved on. Stick one in one pocket, excuse me, and one in the other pocket. And when you leave here tonight on your walk home, whenever you feel inspired, take one piece out and give it to the tree, give it to a shrub, and then later take another piece out and give it to another tree, another shrub, another piece of beautiful green. And when you do give the invitation to the spirits that tend to those trees and say make a better home for this than my heart was, will you promise you'll do? Just because you've cut the cord doesn't mean that these pieces don't deserve care and opportunities for future possibility. Right, just not at my table, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Bimbo.

Speaker 4:

Yaga, give it up for Bimbo.

Speaker 1:

Yaga, we are cleansed, we are cured.

Speaker 2:

I do feel cured.

Speaker 3:

That open space of all the love you can manage.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thank you Wonderful. Next we have Millie Raccoon. Where are you, millie? Come on over, come on over. Trained by campfires and tavern jams all over the world, millie Raccoon got her folk music start with traditional Turkish, egyptian and Roma tunes for a belly dance troupe honoring Roma heritage on her father's side. Her current original music is influenced by classic country, early jazz and other antiquated Americana. There is a connecting thread of spirituality, healing and liberation weaving through her work. Let's welcome Millie with a round of applause. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 7:

So our question to you in what way do you feel that music heals you? I think the way it's healed me personally is it's given me a purpose and a community and a path in what was otherwise a kind of isolating, directionless life. I was estranged from my family pretty young, and so having a connection with music and the people I was able to connect to through that filled up a lot of those holes and fed my soul when I first realized what was happening. And it also gives me a sense of being able to help other people in some way, whether it's inspiring or uplifting or even just being relatable through song, because you know, a lot of songwriters process their ridiculous situations through song and it creates something bigger than themselves that other people can take from as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much. Well, we can't wait to hear you perform yeah, whenever you're ready.

Speaker 4:

The way she cried, she lost her eyes. Her lashes left her lids.

Speaker 8:

Her prideful mind. He could not find her loving lips. He did Her face. She pressed into his chest, told him she must go. It's in my mind to find a home and a husband, for to know the end is nigh and that is why I'm not asking you to marry me. The tides will turn and the earth will burn, and the wind and sands will bury me. She wandered for a hundred songs Along the mountainside and in the town she'd look around For the ladies of the night. She'd barter false affections for food and feather bed. She thought of her lost lover. In the final words, he'd said the end is nigh and that is why I'm not asking you to marry me. The tides will turn, the earth will burn and the wind and sands will bury me. She learned of flesh and pleasure her body.

Speaker 6:

You could own.

Speaker 8:

At night she sang so sweetly the other whores to hear.

Speaker 4:

They said go to the city lest fate imprison you here she was given gifts aplenty by men she did not know.

Speaker 8:

But one who'd heard her singing gave her an old banjo Soon she played for payment, her freedom. She had found Not whore nor wife, but mighty bard. She troubled the world around. The end is nigh, and that is why I'm not asking you to marry me. The tides will turn, the earth will burn and the wind and sands will bury me. She rose her song for forests, for trees, to give us bread, for whales and fish in oceans that greed would put to death. And when the earth was whole again, she'd find the love she once knew and say I see the world you saved, and now I'll marry you.

Speaker 2:

I'll marry you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, millie Raccoon, everybody Chill. Thank you so much, Millie. What is the name of that song and how can people find your music?

Speaker 7:

That song is called the Tides Will Turn. I have physical copies of CDs at the merch table, but also my name is Millie, with a Y raccoon with two Cs, and I'm on all the things on the internet Spotify, youtube, everything, whatever they are.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Next we have Moonbear Agulad. Welcome Moonbear. Also known as Butylene O'Kipple, a gender expansive, two-spirit artist and energy worker of Mexican indigenous North African Romani and mixed oh sorry, north American Romani and mixed European heritage. Their 30-plus years as a performer and musician continue to be fueled by curiosity and self-discovery, while exploring the intersections of ancestor veneration, energy work, dance, mediumship and drag.

Speaker 1:

So welcome Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

We would like to know what is the relationship between divinity and drag in your work.

Speaker 5:

Do I not look divine?

Speaker 1:

You do indeed, wearing a lowly scarf which you can purchase over at the merch table, diclo.

Speaker 5:

Collective. In my experience, the two have been very clearly intertwined in my life. I think there's something about skirting masculinity while also averting transmisogyny that has allowed me access to transesters and ancestors that were finally able to see me in my fullness, and so my spirit team greatly expanded once I started expressing myself differently and really just putting myself out there to perform in this way, and it's been a journey of self-discovery. All my performance is rooted in my own life experience, so it's always like a little piece of myself that I'm giving to the audience and also for me it's very much blended with what I call the medicine of the moment and what's going on in the ether, what's going on in the greater culture, and how can I reference that in a way that subverts expectations and brings joy somehow, or catharsis or whatever it is, to my audience. And so it's all been one big, juicy, sticky, lovely mess.

Speaker 1:

That is so gorgeous. I love that, and we can't wait to see what you get up to.

Speaker 2:

I'm very excited personally. Okay, and I believe you're performing an interpretive drag ensemble set to the poem White Caravan, written by Jasmina in honor of their mother after her death.

Speaker 5:

Yeah, no stress. I cannot wait and I will cry. I probably will too.

Speaker 2:

Let's cry together, we're ready, we're ready, we're about to listen to our very own Jez's poem, white Caravan, where Moon Bear performs a drag tableau with music by Lady Baby Miss.

Speaker 1:

This was such a powerful performance. So first, white Caravan is a death fugue that I wrote after my mother died and I wrote it in her voice. Wrote it in her voice and Moonbearer did this incredible performance where they seem like they're coming home from work after a long day and are very slowly, slowly, undressing as though in front of their vanity and are you know, braiding their hair, their long dark hair, and just acting out this very emotional poem, and then at the end they cut their braids off and I was just so moved I mean I didn't start crying on stage, but it was only by the grace of God. I had never seen anyone perform anything to anything I'd written and it was just so personal. And Moon Bear really did capture my mother's energy, and so I think she really would have loved this.

Speaker 2:

You guys can also check out some pictures of the performance on our Instagram, at Romanistan Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, also so, because we wanted to have a very clear recording. This recording that we're sharing with you is pre-recorded of me reading the poem with Lady Baby Miss's music, so please enjoy. White Caravan a death fugue in my mother's voice. A death fugue in my mother's voice. My white caravan clomps through the desert, color scorched ecstatic. The wagon burns because I'm hot shit. My ancestors are diasporic, skull-polished, hard-knocking.

Speaker 2:

I'll come to them around the fire, my red horse waiting.

Speaker 1:

I had nightmares of molars rolling over floorboards, freed from their skeleton shelves, leaping like lentils in a rattle German gypsy, a handful of teeth I used to a family legacy. Every organ is hardening such a rare disease. Once my daughter spread my mother's playing cards across a table, red and black, winking what I already knew to cover the mirrors very soon, mama do you?

Speaker 1:

have anything to ask the cards, yeah, what the fuck? I never told fortunes like her or my mother, damn it. I was an aerobics instructor, horse trainer, dog groomer. I kept accounts. I was a shop clerk leg sales girl, bodybuilder, perfect score GED when I was 30. I could have kept going. Something stopped me.

Speaker 1:

My skin thickened over my little wagonavan door, blessed above with a horseshoe and bells, I invite the soot of evening to cover, throw pillows and scar tissue to smother me good like a measured father Develep, like a measured father devla, my white father peddled me while my gypsy mother froze like a fawn in the light of a new country, a new language, she leaned into horror, weaned on the Nazi regime, fresh off the boat into the arms of her own private tyrant. Horse-drawn teacups, shudder, all porcelain and wet leaves clattering down my calcified lungs as I breathe and breathe. I used to stand on my red horse's back as she galloped, our hair braided. Now watch the pinchers of the scorpion weave getting closer to me. That's the boxer I would bet on. And who can forget the sting? I'm looking for death. The beautiful woman who will stop my wagon and take me where the dunes open to reveal a compressed gem of endings where sand closes over my head. As I look up at the night's body, the moon is a tendon-rod joint for me to scream at. Once I loved her and only spoke soft words Lachy, lachachi. Goddess of the good, I'm entitled to my anger and my angels. When scorpions crack from their backs, rise between my busted spokes, they are, for three days, delicate. I have always been so delicate and no one has treated me that way. I am transforming, spitting up the black shell. I am playing with my medication. I am bored of this business of sickening.

Speaker 1:

My mother says I was born with one foot on the other side because I could see spirits and predict the deaths of everyone I met. I've been saying I'd like to jump in with both feet. I'll go out with sirens blaring, flooding the desert inside me, blue and red, my daughter and my husband frantic, breathing me with their hands. I'll go out on a new moon in august when the prayer fire burns outside, just after my daughter asks for my healing at the edge of the woods. Beliefs have never healed me and if I were to be buried, I would be buried standing. Instead, I will burn with ungodly clacking. When I am decanted, I will be ash blown back into my daughter's hair as she prays me into her meadow grass and ocean water, with whiskey and flowers, mixed in with the old ash of my red horse, her breath blowing hot, carrying me off, and I will be her ancestor working an old trade, a good job.

Speaker 1:

I feel better guiding her from here. Thank you so much. You know, my mother really loved two things, and that was drag and attention, and I just can't imagine a better way to pay tribute. Thank you so much. Thank you, moon Bear. We are going to take a little intermission. Please feel free to refresh your drink and we will be back in just a few minutes. We can do it before the play. Yeah, yeah, awesome, thanks. So we're playing it right here. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Romanistan.

Speaker 2:

We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies, actually. We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies actually, millie Raccoon. So if you can make your way, we have another question for you, though. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, okay. So you've played everywhere, from taverns to belly dance stages. What's the wildest or most unexpected place your music has taken you?

Speaker 7:

So I can kind of turn this question inside out or my answer, because I think it's kind of ordinary for me to play in wild places and I've played all kinds of really wild places all over the world and some places where people think I'm a little strange and surprising, and so I would say the place that I least fit in, that I ever played was at this country music festival in rural Nebraska for farmers.

Speaker 7:

And the connection of why I was there in the first place is because I play country music and so I was like that'll be cool. But I was about to do this song for them called the Saturn Return of the Country Witches and it's about farmers who are witches and I wasn't thinking that hard about it. They're kind of very like conservative Christian people and all I said was, oh, I'm gonna do this song about these two farmers that I know and it's really neat to be playing for this festival of all farmers because I'm from the city and I don't really know that many farmers and it was just like completely silent and they just like did not like me once I said that it was very clear that I was. They weren't my target audience necessarily.

Speaker 2:

But I still did the song that does sound pretty wild, so so. You can perform.

Speaker 1:

Amazing segue, Paulina, but that does sound pretty pretty wild. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's tough when you're with a tough audience. I bet you nailed it, though.

Speaker 8:

Thank, you Addicted to the sadness I feed it till it grows Larger than my destiny. A fork in every road, a fork in every road. I'm a slave to my freedom. Every road, a fork in every road I'm a slave to my freedom can never be tied down. I run around in circles, away from where I'm bound, away from where I'm bound, my mother and my sister's about to die of thirst. To be a better human, or try to save the earth. Try to save the earth. I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing. Everywhere I go, they put me in the madhouse if they knew what I know, knew what I know Thank, you Got all these superpowers.

Speaker 8:

Only myself to save. I rescue all the villains to prove that I am brave. To prove that I am brave, I choose the meanest teachers, the fastest way to learn. The body of a mother, wisdom of a crow, wisdom of a crow. They pretend they don't know better, like they don't know the rules. I'm building a secret lair Deep below their souls, deep below their souls. I'm waiting in the darkness, praying the sun won't rise. One day I'll rise up, singing. I'm taking root to fly, taking root to fly, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Amazing Millie. Thank you so much. Ten out of ten Ten out of ten. You can, of course, tip our performers Welcome back from our intermission. Thank you so much for everyone coming back. We are so excited to bring Moon Bear back to the stage. Woo, woo, woo. Applause for Moon Bear. Welcome back. Woo, woo, woo, woo. And we are so excited to ask you another question, because this is still a Romanistan podcast, even though we have a much more exciting format. We'll have to do this again.

Speaker 5:

So much to talk about.

Speaker 1:

So much to talk about. So we would like to know, in all of your years of walking between worlds as a medium, what is the most dramatic or bizarre way a spirit has revealed itself to you?

Speaker 5:

Oh, that's a fun one, I would say. I think it was in my third year actually studying with Bimbo Yaga, who's also my witch mom we this was, I think, maybe 2000. So, like stuff had already shut down and we weren't doing like in person visits, you know. But that was like that would have been the time that we would have started doing like, the time that we would have started doing like you know, in-person visits, and um, we did so. So we were doing remote visits, um, for a, an apartment building on Capitol Hill in Seattle which I'm familiar with. I had done work in the building before um, and so for many reasons I was insecure. You know about like a doing like a distance, uh, reading like that, you know, or it's like halfway across the city, uh, and you're like, well, is this gonna work?

Speaker 5:

you know, um, and imposter syndrome and what have you of course, of course relatable and so, um, we were assigned little teams in our circle and I was assigned, uh, the basement to investigate and just see what comes up, you know. And so we're doing our journeys. You know, we're like we each kind of like splintered off and we were investigating in our own ways and I was like mm-hmm, and Beyonce started like playing in my head. I was like, I was like, oh my, my gosh, I'm totally doing this wrong. You know, I'm completely distracted. I just want to, you know, listen to beyonce, apparently, and and and, but. But then we come back and, uh, you know, everybody's giving their like amazing insights and you know, uh, it was like oh

Speaker 5:

yeah, this lines up with what the client said, and blah, blah, blah. And then I, finally, I was just like, okay, so spirit was singing Beyonce. It was like, and specifically to the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left. And um, oh right, and we were on a video call with the client you know the manager of this building and her face just kind of dropped and and and she was like, uh, to the left of the basement there had been a tenant that passed away in his apartment above that and no one found him. So he disintegrated and the floor came through and all of his stuff had still been fallen through the floor, just to the left of the entrance of the to the basement, and it was an old bag so he was literally like uh, could you get my stuff out of the basement?

Speaker 5:

finally, and I would love to move on, so and he told you through songs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, through.

Speaker 5:

Beyonce songs through what a character yeah, yeah that's incredible and also horrifying and upsetting, and like oh, truly, truly.

Speaker 1:

But I love the sense of humor honestly right, yeah, I know, yeah and know.

Speaker 5:

If who can't gaslight you but a spirit, yeah, wow.

Speaker 1:

That was incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that. So, you are about to do another performance for us. I think that is so nice of you.

Speaker 5:

So this is like, uh, this is like the breath of like kind of what I do as a drag queen, Like I take what I do seriously but not myself seriously in any kind of way.

Speaker 1:

You can't take yourself too seriously, right?

Speaker 5:

I always fuck it up when I do and uh, and so sometimes, like whenever possible, I'll do something like really deep and gut-wrenching, you know, such as like uh, beautiful poetry written about a very intimate time an ode to my dead mom in front of me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 5:

And sometimes what we all need is just a gay anthem, just like that song in the club that you know all the words to and you just need to scream it in your underwear with your friends or whatever. So this is a little example of the latter. It's not too serious, it's just kind of silly, but if you know the words you should sing along we can't wait moon bear gave an amazing performance, lip singing to robin's, dancing on my own in a slightly ruined prom dress.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, we can't play the whole song due to copyright issues, but you can just imagine how the rest goes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Oh, my god, give it up for Moon Bear. Oh, amazing. Well, we have a very special act for you, who we are not going to introduce because she does not need an introduction introduce, because she does not need an introduction. Next we have Serena Hellfire, the Mae West of the French Quarter, and she gave an incredible burlesque performance in a red and black ensemble, dripping in jewels, wearing a crown very vampire-esque energy, and she was just incredible. Unfortunately, we cannot share all the magical things she did with fans and her gestures and glances, but she does give such a fun interview and you'll just have to catch her in New Orleans yourself, or really? She travels all over the world, so you could probably find her anywhere. You just have to time it in New Orleans yourself, or really? She travels all over the world, so you could probably find her anywhere. You just have to time it right with the gods. Oh, my goodness, thank you so much for being here. Fuck that wig. Fuck that wig.

Speaker 2:

Everyone just witnessed the May West of the French Quarter. Witness the Mae West of the French Quarter. Serena Magdalena Hellfire has been on behind and in front of the stage professionally since 2002. She is a queer, sinti, gitano, kale, roma, gypsy witch and performance artist. She less vampire cabaret, swing night at always lounge cabaret and many other productions in the beautiful city of new orleans. She is also one of the main crew members of the international endless night festival, baby, the inner vampire court since 2011,. And Madam Hellfire has sung with the slick, skillet serenaders. So, serena, your name alone conjures fire and death priestess lineage. How do you channel your witchcraft and vampiric energy into your performances and are you casting spells on us right now on stage?

Speaker 6:

Well, I mean, the wig did come off and I always roll around with a head covering. So probably, yes, maybe of course.

Speaker 6:

I'm so excited to see both of you and be in this beautiful space with all of you sexy witches. Yeah, oh, my God, goodness, where to begin? Let's see, I started really singing and dancing when I was this big. Sorry, this big Fans are in the way.

Speaker 6:

How I channel everything? I have a very regimented morning ritual. I do cards with the cats and Elva knows it's like, hey, guess what I'm doing. And the cats actually sit on the cards that I'm supposed to pay attention to. I have four altars.

Speaker 6:

I do a lot of death and ancestor work. That is my lineage here in New Orleans. It's kind of we're a portal anyway, so it's we're either partying or celebrating someone's death or just having a good time. So it's just been kind of natural for me and my family. That's what we have always done. How do I channel it? Like this, we do all kinds of like creating this festival. Like creating this festival. We have, like I personally do, so many shows where I talk about death or I'm always some kind of intermissary.

Speaker 6:

Being from the realms, I'm a devotee of Hakate and Lilith and Sarakali, and that's. I feel like that's just what we do, especially in these times. Like so how I channel all the fire and rage and that stuff. It's hard. It's hard being a Romani queer witch and not one to blow things up, is that allowed? But also these two over here we've been doing some really fun things called, you know, queer witch cabaret, and we've been really just kind of embodying like the four, you know the quarterly, like four seasons, and just kind of recreating those old myths, because the world has forgotten and they need to remember. Get this microwave for me, or I'm just going to take over the show. I'm so excited to finally see your faces. I know, it's like I just took my wig off.

Speaker 6:

my titties are out it's like I just kind of wanted to do some floor work, but I know if I get down on the floor she's not coming up oh gosh, we have one more question for you.

Speaker 1:

What role does glamour magic play in your work on the stage, your time off the stage?

Speaker 6:

I'm kind of good at that. I don't know if you've noticed, I really do like blurring the lines between reality and fantasy and I've been doing that since I was a kid. I am heavily versed in the realm of the theater and it really kind of anytime. So the reason why I'm really kind of weird about like get ready at the venue and I'm like I cannot because I literally have a whole space in my house where I literally channel that character and I channeled it my ancestor, altar, is literally right next to my boudoir and Magdalena helps me put on this face. So that's, that is how I do this. It's all glamour. It's all glamour and hellfire. Is that a show? Tops are talking right, glamour and hellfire.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing your magic and your gifts with us. We're so happy to see you. No, it needed to Everyone. Please a round of applause for the infamous Zarina Hellfire. Thank you. Paulina and I are going to be crossing the lines from hosts to performers for just a brief, brief, little interlude. I hope you will indulge us. Paulina will be beginning with two short poems.

Speaker 2:

I've actually never read poetry out loud.

Speaker 1:

Let's do a little round of applause for Paulina, because we've gotta celebrate your first time.

Speaker 2:

So the first one is for anyone who's ever smoked a blunt the warm, thick, brown between my fingertips, ashes falling on my hips, fire burning on my lips at the tip, overstuffed just enough. Not my lover or my friend, I'll still crave you till the end. One more short one, okay. He said I miss the old you. I said I thought I told you Old me was the broke me, old me was lonely, old me was below me, old me don't even know me, but old me still got a hold on me.

Speaker 1:

New me said screw me. Even new me outgrew me. Thank you so much, paulina. What a wonderful experience, oh my goodness.

Speaker 2:

So now Paulina is going to introduce me, because I'm going to read some poems too. Everyone give a round of applause for Jess Jasmina Bontila. Hello.

Speaker 1:

I am gathering my poems. Can you hear me, okay? Amazing. So my first poem is called the Hermit and it is inspired by the tarot card.

Speaker 1:

Babe, I'm in the woods. You keep calling them your woods, your woods, and the fond-nose. Possession is not affection. Let me hold up my lantern to your bullshit. I've been living in the margins, illuminating a manuscript of human folly and hope, of dragons chasing rabbits and rabbits wielding hatchets. My whimsy is not for human consumption. I think I'm human by mistake. I think I'm gender by default. I think I've been erased. I keep seeing fascists when I leave the woods. Keep seeing why my grandmother told me to never tell anyone we're gypsies and I told everyone we're gypsies.

Speaker 1:

When so much of your family dies and so much of your country is just killing you, you might be grateful that your survivors have not survived to see this. You might live among the deer and step out on humankind. Hold my lantern while I'm reclaimed by pines. Let me draw you thigh deep into the wetlands with the promise of light. Let me turn into a crane and break a rapist's arms. Let me enact forest law. I want to be left alone. My body is moss and mushrooms the only system I want to be a part of. Let me use my staff for defensive magic or studying my gait. The woods age you, but in a timeless way. Silver birch bark curling up like snakes. Society ravages you. Gray hair doubled by a winter of billionaires throwing Nazi salutes on autoplay. A crow ate my phone and I am here to lead you to madness. Because you should not follow me. Follow the weird, earnest lantern glowing in your chest into the woods, intoxicatingly dark, lit by bleeding heart flower stalks. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

My next poem is called Lady Macbeth. Through my Gender Reveal Party she did. When I was 12, my English class read Macbeth aloud from our seats, rotating the parts until the lines sounded never smooth, but not quite as bad as the first time we stumbled through. Soon I got to play Lady Macbeth. I had already read it and I knew what I was in for. I trembled like I was falling in love. I loved this terrible woman.

Speaker 1:

It's not unusual for the baby queers to love a villain or for the multi-ethnic kids to identify with the outcast. It was also that my mother convinced me for weeks before the play that the world was going to end. She made me recite all my regrets in the bathtub the night. It was to happen that I have never been kissed, never been in love, and all my sins against her. I stayed awake till sunrise, curled on the carpet beside her bed, waiting for the comet to obliterate us and let heaven eat my shame. In the morning my mother was unrepentant and acted as though nothing had happened, and I suppose in a way it hadn't.

Speaker 1:

Years later, when I was 19, my mother would fill the house with gas and very casually try to kill us, and no one was surprised. We didn't even call the police, we just put her back to bed. I was taught to love terrible and complicated women early. But it wasn't even that. It was actually the line when Lady Macbeth strode into the forest because her husband was such a fucking pussy and she yelled unsex me here to the dark spirits of the wood so they could take her womaness and free her to do what she must in an English class at 1 30 pm, after we were all too sleepy from chicken nuggets at lunch, I stood up when it was time, when no one asked me to, and screamed UNSEX.

Speaker 8:

ME HERE.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't just that I was navigating abuse or that I thought taking my girl skin off might save me from my cousins the cannibals, it wasn't that. Unsex ME HERE. I wanted to say it over and over again like a chant, so happy the trees had lifted Lady Macbeth's femininity from her shoulders like a cloak that dragged dead leaves behind her so she could go and do her murder. I didn't want to murder, but I wanted the forest to take me so I could be the forest, formless and powerful, an agent of multiplicity, freedom and chaos. Un-sex-me-here.

Speaker 1:

Lady Macbeth threw me that gender reveal party before I even knew what it was. That gender reveal party before I even knew what it was. My English teacher let me keep reading that part a couple of more times until everyone in the seventh grade knew I was going through something. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here. Give yourselves a round of applause for coming out to support a really weird gypsy queer trans podcast and variety show from people you've never heard of, who aren't in any way famous, and yet we keep writing books and making weird stuff and selling it in corners of bars. Give yourself a hand for being just as weird and awesome as everything out here.

Speaker 2:

And if you all look under your chairs, you will find we cast a dispel on you. No, just kidding, you're cursed.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the family. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you and thank you so much to our incredible cast. Please support them, find them online, tip them, buy their stuff, go to their shows and thank you to Victor for scoring the whole thing. He's gonna edit this later. It's going to be, great.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, victor. Good night everyone. Thank you so much for sharing our first live show with us. We are so grateful to our cast, to bimbo yaga for producing. I mean, every performer was just so incredible and also thank you to everyone who came out. Some a really lovely couple flew in all the way from ohio and we were just so moved and excited. So thank you so much extra.

Speaker 2:

Thank you guys yeah, we are totally like stunned and so happy and and we appreciate you guys as much as we can Like. We have maximum appreciation. We are mad.

Speaker 1:

We love you so much, you, the max. Yeah, it was such a blast, what a wonderful time, and we hope to do it again someday.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we hope you guys liked the show and we love you to our listeners we do. We love you very much.