People at the Core
From The Greenpoint Palace bar in Brooklyn, New York writers and bartenders, Rita and Marisa, have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar.
People at the Core
Panache, Persistence and Truth: Writer and Photographer Elyssa Maxx Goodman (a.k.a. Miss Manhattan) on Her Love of Drag, Unheard Stories, and NYC Culture
Ever wondered how someone builds a life around what they love? Elyssa Maxx Goodman offers a masterclass in turning passion into purpose. Born to New York natives transplanted to Florida, Goodman always felt the magnetic pull of the city where "the weirdos" gathered. By sixteen, she was already saving for her inevitable migration.
The path wasn't always smooth. After losing an office job just months after moving to New York at twenty-one, Goodman faced a pivotal moment. Rather than retreat, she began cold-emailing editors and professionals she admired. "I wanted my life to be my work," she explains, a philosophy that guided her through fifteen years of successful freelance writing for publications including Vogue, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair.
Throughout our conversation, Goodman reveals how her approach to journalism—particularly when covering subcultures from drag performers to sex toy testers—stems from a deep belief that knowledge dispels fear. This perspective shaped her bestselling book "Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City," which chronicles 160 years of drag history with both scholarly precision and personal passion.
What makes this episode particularly illuminating is Goodman's historical perspective on today's anti-LGBTQ+ backlash. Rather than seeing current challenges as unprecedented, she identifies them as part of a recurring cycle throughout history—one that, despite its difficulties, has seen the community gain more allies with each iteration.
Whether discussing her long-running Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series, her own performance work, or the writers who've influenced her, Goodman offers wisdom about creating authentic work and community. As she beautifully puts it, we're all "collages" who find tools in others' work but make them distinctly our own—"You go and get a hammer, but then you put rhinestones on it."
Listen now for an inspiring conversation about persistence, storytelling as bridge-building, and finding your own rhinestone-covered tools.
Elyssa Maxx Goodman:
Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City by Elyssa Maxx Goodman
The Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series
Mentions:
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain
Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress: Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless by Susan Jane Gilman
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life passions paranoia and perspective. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators, private investigators or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, we're ready to go. We're ready to go. You did your bathroom break before I did.
Speaker 3:I think, okay, we'll keep it. I'm old, though, so I just have to go all the time. Unfortunately, it's not incontinence.
Speaker 2:It's just drinking too much too fast before we start recording.
Speaker 3:and then yeah, but this is the only thing I've had. Okay, all right, are we recording right now? Oh my goodness, okay, snake hi everyone.
Speaker 2:You should have done, that's okay um, yeah, cool, it's a flipping gorgeous day. Um, I know you're not feeling super awesome, but no, I'm having some back issues.
Speaker 3:I'm having some back issues and I'm going to be really honest, I'm also having some like uh, people in town staying in my apartment for a really long time issues where this is one left this morning at four in the morning because our flight was at six and then my brother's in town, but he leaves in an hour, I think, or at two.
Speaker 2:I ran into him on the corner.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I just need some alone time, that's that's fair enough.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling that you know that feeling of when you can't like everyone comes to visit at once relax.
Speaker 3:They don't understand that it's New York and you live in small apartments and you need space because you own a bar and there's people everywhere all the time and it's my tire and you don't even have like the privacy of a bathroom alone and yeah, exactly shit and shower in peace. Yeah I have a really great one bedroom apartment for me and my dog not for me and my dog in a marine but, I love him, I love you, neil, anyway, okay, let's get, let's get cracking.
Speaker 2:okay, all so I'm super excited. Our guest today is Alyssa Max Goodman. I'm going to read some of her bio that's out on the interwebs. She's a writer and photographer, specializing in arts and culture. Her work has been published in Vogue, new York Times, style Mag, vanity Fair, among others, online and in print. She's also written about LGBTQ plus history and culture for Condé Nast's them, where she was the site's drag, her story and the women's history columnist. She's been a freelance writer for 19 years and fell in love with drag for 20, been in love with drag for 27 years, since the age of seven. She's the author of Glitter and Concrete a cultural history of drag in New York City. She's the author of Glitter and Concrete a cultural history of drag in New York City. She's also the founder and host of Miss Manhattan, a nonfiction reading series. Please welcome, alyssa Hi.
Speaker 1:Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:So yes, okay, I know that your book came out in 2023, but I kind of want to like go back. I know you've done a lot of press with that and you've become kind of the the like voice of the history of drag which is rad. From my gleaning.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, oh good heavens. I stand on the shoulders of many who have come before me um well, you've done great pr for yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. I'm just gonna say that, uh, but I want to backtrack. So you're originally from florida.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm from fort lauderdale. Okay, well, broward county, but fort lauderdale is the largest, closest city yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So how did you get to new york? Like was did drag, drag you here or even waiting to say that I swear in my notes I said did drag, but I I yeah I got witty right there, yeah because we, you know, we love talking about just how people end up and sure they're doing um yeah, so basically like, what made you decide to come?
Speaker 3:how old are you? And and you know what you've been doing here I have been wanting.
Speaker 1:I had been wanting to live in I hope god let me go back. So I moved to new york um a little over 15 years ago now. Um, I had been wanting to live in new york, I don't know. Probably since I could breathe, I I started saving to move to new york when I was 16. Oh, wow, um and uh, my parents were native new yorkers. My dad was from the bronx and my mom was from queens. Um, and it was sort of I don't know, it was in my blood and they would talk about it all the time. And when I was growing up, the culture and media that I was interested in were books like Please Kill Me, the uncensored oral history of punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain and Joshua Zeitzpper, um, and you know the village voice and things like that and um, those were the different forms of media that taught me where the weirdos were.
Speaker 3:And I always felt like that in my soul.
Speaker 2:Did that come from your parents? Um, they like. Did they always have a foot still here in New York?
Speaker 1:Uh, they had a heart foot still here in New York. They had a heart probably still here in New York. They moved down to Florida in what I like to call the other great migration of Jews.
Speaker 2:Boca yeah.
Speaker 3:Raffaella, Northern Miami right.
Speaker 1:So they lived in a part of Broward County that had like, like a larger Jewish population, called Inverary, and Lauder Hill was a town that I grew up in, which is right next to it, and their parents moved down to Florida in the 70s and they followed, and one of my favorite documentaries kind of about that phenomenon, although it's more about people moving to Miami Beach is the last resort love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that documentary and it's so.
Speaker 1:It's partially about that and partially about the photography of andy sweet, who was photographing all of these people as you know who were um, who you know were then lounging at the pool in their poochie bathing suits and just like living their goddamn lives yeah, I know it's so great and so my grandparents moved down, my parents moved down, um, but my mother, my mother lived in florida, for god, like maybe almost 50 years, and still called herself a new yorker really like this was in her blood yeah those things that her stories were about.
Speaker 1:Like they were cats, they went up to the Catskills, you know, they did the whole thing. They were like New Yorkers through and through. My dad had a thick accent. You know, my mom had it on some words, but it would come out more if she spoke to other friends from New York. From New York, oh for sure, yeah, um, uh. So how old were you when you moved to New York? I was 21. Wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I always just think about being that age. You know, when you moved to New York, like I would probably be, I don't think I moved here till my 30s, yeah and um, but yeah, I just like I'm always so impressed when you're that age and moved to New York and don't die.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, I just, I just wanted it so badly.
Speaker 3:And I moved here to be a writer.
Speaker 1:You know I had like this office job for like six months, and then I got laid off and I had to kind of figure out what to do, and so I've been freelancing since then. I've been freelancing almost god. That was february 2011, so how many years is that? 14 and a half years, almost fantastic um, oh, a little over 14 and a half. Is that the math? Yeah, yeah, we're we're artists.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know exactly. I was like we're like issues my favorite about. Yeah, that's so impressive though oh, thank you I mean, so do you visit, uh, florida a lot.
Speaker 1:I'm obsessed with florida right now she wants a pool, I want to oh yeah, um, I have to go down, so this is like the sad part, I guess I have to go down every couple months. My my parents passed away.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:And I have been working on selling their house. So if anyone listening is interested in buying a house in Broward County.
Speaker 2:Oh, darling.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry oh thank you, I appreciate that. So I have been just like I go down every couple months and work on the house and keep trying to box stuff up and md it up and that kind of thing. Um, uh, so yes, new york, I know, I know, wow, we got siblings fast.
Speaker 2:No, it's just me, an only child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah um, because I don't know, I don't really know how else to answer the question I could like walk around it, but we'll get there eventually.
Speaker 2:So here I am. I know exactly Um so let's, we'll go.
Speaker 3:we'll go up again, Sorry. No, don't be sorry at all 21, where were you living?
Speaker 1:Yorkville. I lived in Yorkville the entire time, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um and uh yeah I in Yorkville the entire time. Wow, yeah, um and uh yeah I.
Speaker 3:Just it's so uncool and so unhip that no one wants to live there and it's just kind of stayed that way.
Speaker 1:Knock on wood. Yeah, I'm just like no one knows, no one's gonna. And then people are like, oh well, blah, blah, manhattan. And I'm like yo. I got friends who live in Bed-Stuy, who pay the same rent as me.
Speaker 2:Like let's not do not hate on Yorkville, okay. Your apartment is nicer bigger and maybe less rats and and shootings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean people will have a lot to say, but I'm just like you know, brooklyn is changing, my friend yeah, queens is the next frontier oh for sure.
Speaker 3:I mean, I couldn't agree more as a bar owner in greenpoint and I live two blocks away. I mean rent started out, you know. So uh, cheap right and now it's like your average is like four thousand dollars for one bedroom I mean, that is the truth, that's wild right, yeah it's wild, I mean we always end up talking about housing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I feel like I I got into it pretty quickly, right, but like there was such a long stretch where I had to kind of really defend where I live because I would say where I lived and people would like instantly think that my parents paid my rent and I was like no, no no, I just live somewhere desperately uncool yeah, right exactly that's interesting yeah
Speaker 2:because you'd think like, oh, family homes, or like you're living in the appearance apartment or something like that, um, yeah, okay, well, you're the first person, I think, that I know who lives out there oh, really, yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:I'm like already thinking about it. I was like Googling under the table.
Speaker 1:Okay, too bad, too bad. The Q Q baby.
Speaker 3:Love it. The fuzz, the buzz.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the buzz is.
Speaker 1:I hope it's not the fuzz.
Speaker 2:I know I'm just going to check something. Is it Okay? All right, we're going to investigate fuzz. I know, is it okay? All right, we're gonna investigate uh uh oh, the PA system, I think might be on trying to investigate a fuzz anywho. Yes, so that's where.
Speaker 1:I live.
Speaker 2:That's a very long answer to the question of where I live, okay and then like getting into freelance writing, like your idea was, like you want to write about culture, art or, and how did you like enter that space? You know, just start pitching places.
Speaker 1:Pretty much.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean the freelancing started by accident.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:I needed. I got quote unquote laid off from this job. Like she was just like I, I she kept me on, uh, I had. So this job was I was, with quotes around it, like the director of social media for a media recruiting firm, but it was me, just me, working for this one woman, almost like it was firm. But it was me, just me, working for this one woman, almost like it was. I was more of her assistant. Okay, um, you know, meet at this media recruiting firm and it was above Carnegie Deli and uh, so she would open the windows, um, in when it was warmer out and the whole office would smell like pastrami and she, like she refused to get a microwave so I had to eat cold soup in the winter. Um, and after about six months she was just like I can't really afford to, uh, I can probably only have you in like a couple days a week. And I was like, um, and so I was still going there, but like it got phased out over time.
Speaker 1:Um, and I was just like, I need to pay my rent, what am I going to do? And it was just like, while I was there, there were times when I would be really miserable because I would have to do things that I didn't move to New York to do. And I was like, I'm I moved here to do these things and I need to, why can't I? I just. And so I was just like, well, it's time to do the things that you moved here to do. And, um, I started just like cold emailing people asking if I could talk to them about their jobs.
Speaker 2:Um, and uh like what types?
Speaker 1:emailing people asking if I could talk to them about their jobs, oh, and.
Speaker 2:Like what types of?
Speaker 1:One of the people who gave me some of my earliest gigs was a woman named Sharon Steele who was the I forget her exact title, but she was maybe the I don't know if she was like a senior editor or a culture editor at Time Out New York. Wow. And we met for coffee and she said pitch me. And I pitched her and I pitched her and she turned down everything until one day she had an assignment she needed filled and then she called me, she emailed me, and then I wrote for her for a while and then I wanted to do more and I pitched a story to the dance editor, who at the time was Gia Corliss, and she said oh, I'm already covering that, but do you take pictures? And I had just finished a photo shoot with two of my friends who were dancers in what the meatpacking district used to look like, right, and I sent her the pictures and she was like great, you're hired and then I became the dance photographer at timeout New York for like four years, um so in.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, dance companies were hiring me to photograph them and I got. I just started doing pitching, and pitching, and pitching, more and more. One of my first big stories came because I was out with some friends at a bar, um, who are in social work school and um, there was always how many of them?
Speaker 1:there were like four of them and there were only three of them that night and I was like, oh, where's Ronin, the person who my friend Ronin, who is still a good friend? Um, they were like, oh, he's at a Hebrew event. I was like he's at a huh, like a what? And it turned out it was this organization for gay Jewish men that threw parties and that was my first big national story and was for the Jewish Daily Forward. Um, and then I used that to like, because when you pitch you say like you know, this is my background and here links to my stories.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 1:That was a story that I used to get other stories, and then I pitched more and more and more. I had another big story for the Cut many years ago and it just kind of kept snowballing and I just kept going, that's amazing, so impressive.
Speaker 2:I also really love HeBro.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hebro, yeah, I also really love.
Speaker 1:Hebrew. Yeah, I just appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I love a good pun and like dad jokes, but what?
Speaker 1:I usually say is that you know, I never wanted work to be my life. I wanted my life to be my work Nice. And I just wanted to get paid to do the things that I loved.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I still am working on doing that. Yeah, that's the, I think, the best way.
Speaker 3:Beautiful, I think that's really great advice too to everyone that's listening is like just reach out, you know, like what's the worst that could happen.
Speaker 2:You know, I know.
Speaker 3:I love that. I love that you just kind of started emailing people and just saying like will you meet me? Will you meet me? Because you know, even if one out of 20 does that can change your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just put yourself out there, yeah, you know, I think we forget about that, I think we beat ourselves up, yeah, you know, and sort of go. Oh, why Everyone's yeah?
Speaker 1:we turn ourselves down before yeah, and you can't stop doing it throughout your career either. Like that was something I had to. I had to start doing again recently. Yeah, you know um and it's not it's. It's never like a drag on yourself to ask for help yeah, you know, and I think you know, there's a lot about culture that tells us that it is and that you you know, is a part of the like American national identity in like really horrible ways, but it's not really the way that people live in lots of other places or, you know, in lots of other communities and it's not a universal item.
Speaker 1:You know it's okay to say hey, like can you connect me to your editor? Hey, will you talk to me about your work at this publication? You know, and, uh, people worth their salt will want to help you, um, because chances are someone else did it for them. I was just going to say you know my mother always said the worst thing that anyone can ever tell you is no exactly or not respond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You, you know, you never know until you take the chance that just reminds me. You know, I have a really good friend that got into advertising and I just remember this right now, but that's she was, you know, bartending in the service industry and just started reaching out to people in advertising yeah, and saying like what's your job? Like, yeah, you know what do you do. How do you do it? Yeah, how do I get involved? Yes, we always forget that. I'm just so inspired by your story.
Speaker 1:I mean I just think that's awesome. I mean that's not to say it's not hard you know, like for every story that gets passed, like there's, however, many others that don't you know yeah, um, but I don't know. It's about celebrating the wins, which is something that I have to tell myself you know I have to remind myself of that constantly. It's very difficult. Yeah, um, but I don't know, it's mine and that makes me happy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful thank you, um, so how I'm just like I'm blown away by you. Okay, my back pain is gone right now. Seriously, I just want to hear more absolutely, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Did you go to school for writing? Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:I studied, uh, so I went to Carnegie Mellon, um, and at Carnegie Mellon there were several majors within the English department and I was a double major in professional writing and there were several tracks within professional writing and mine was journalism Okay, and then there was a creative writing major, and then there were tracks within creative writing and mine was nonfiction. So I was just studying the truth all day and different ways to write it all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you find that that education was helpful? Did you learn tools? Was it networking or was it just refining?
Speaker 1:Um, I think it was all of the above. I think I was. I think I was a person who needed to be in an environment where um structure I don't know structure but like I needed a place to grow emotionally as it related to to the idea of work right and that was really beneficial for me to be in an environment like that and to like navigate New York and be with all different types of people and um, to even have an understanding of it's important to remain humble, I guess, Um, but also to be able to grow the confidence to know that I could do different kinds of work and how to make my own work better on my own.
Speaker 1:Um, and what I needed to become a better writer? Um, and I don't know, to see myself in the context of a larger, to see myself in the context of a group of people, you know, because writing is such a solitary, it is such a solitary act. And then you know, you're in a workshop with like, or many other 19, 20, 21 year old people and, yeah, you're able to I don't want to say have ownership of your voice, but like to just temper yourself. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:Kind of like solidify and hone in on your perspective, your, your voice and also just like check yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I think you know, when I graduated high school, I was I was valedictorian, which, like I hardly ever say out loud you know I think I stopped I, I think the last time, I, I don't, I, I just, but it's important in this context, I think because I needed to be taken down a peg Right right, right, I mean you were I'm sure you were like the big fish in a smaller pond and then you're going to an ocean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, of people who are just as, if not, more intelligent than I am, just as, if not, more talented than I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not more intelligent than I am, just as, if not, more talented than I am, and you have to rise to the occasion and I needed to be in a place where I could do that, and I was my writing mentor. Is I still call her my professor Jane Bernsteinstein, who's a phenomenal writer? Please feel free to read some of her work. Um, and she was she. She is like the creative writing equivalent of holland taylor, in legally blonde.
Speaker 1:oh wow, really yeah yeah, um and like would have been played by Holland Taylor like 20 years ago. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Nice, love it.
Speaker 1:And that is her demeanor and presence and she's like a very elegant, elegant, eloquent person and I learned so much about poise in my own writing because of her. And I mean, we still have this relationship and I'll send her my articles, you know we text In my mind.
Speaker 3:I'm just like I'm creating a relationship with Mary Carr right now in the same way I'm like oh, my God, yeah, she's only.
Speaker 2:If only she knew my name, you know like that that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Um, so let's talk a little bit about um, just because you know we run a reading series, but so how long has your reading series been going on for is?
Speaker 1:it's exclusively non-fiction it is exclusively non-fiction. Okay, yes, so how long has it been going on? For it was april 2014, so that's almost 11 and a half years, holy shit yeah, oh wow, I didn't realize it was that long yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, you know, just tell us a little bit about it, sure uh, it's called the miss manhattan non-fiction reading series, and I hyphenated non and fiction a long time ago and I just never undid it. So, um, but nonfiction is the is my wheelhouse and it's the the is it genre medium um category, category that I am most familiar with um and the area that I feel most qualified to.
Speaker 1:I don't know disseminate to other people um, and whenever I would go to a reading series before I started mine, there would be like a non-fiction reader, like every third time and there would be one and I was just like well, that's the, that's the stuff that I actually want to learn about so what if I did that and I was working with an arts collaborative for a while um, and what they would do is like they would.
Speaker 1:They would be introduced to a space and then figure out what sort of event to throw there, essentially Okay. And the back room at Niagara became one of these spaces and I was like I know what I want to do and I want it to be my baby.
Speaker 2:Cause there's these gorgeous like heavy dramatic curtains and they're just intimate.
Speaker 1:And my friend Gabe had been running a comedy night at the former Gershwin Hotel.
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was just like, well, if Gabe can do it, then maybe I can do it too. And I have to credit Gabe, because there were a lot of trails that Gabe blazed for me where I didn't even know things were possible. And then he would do it and I would be like, oh, oh, can I also then do that? And then I did so. Gabe was part of that process and, um, I was like, well, what kind of evening would I do? And I was like, oh, non-fiction, like yeah like oh, and then.
Speaker 1:So I was working with this collaborative and the space became available and I was like this is I want to do this. This is going to be my baby. But then the woman who ran the organization was like I, actually we did one reading there and it was, I think it was maybe like January or February of 2014. And one or two, I think maybe it was two. And then she was like, oh, I actually don't want to use this space anymore. And I was like, okay, so I'm going to leave the organization, I'm going to take the space, since you don't want it, and that's kind of the only reason I was sticking around. And then I'm going to do Miss Manhattan. Yeah, and that was the first Miss Manhattan at Niagara was April 2014.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's amazing. Thank you, wow, I know that's inspiring. How many years are we Two? One?
Speaker 2:We started 2023.
Speaker 3:This is our third season technically. Yeah, okay, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool, thank you. Yeah, 2023 this is our third season. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, cool, thank you. Yeah, I love it and I kind of want to tie in a little bit of your interest to drag with. Well, starting to just jump in from the reading series, are you a performer of any type?
Speaker 1:uh, I am a go dancer.
Speaker 1:I go-go dance at burlesque shows. Um, as Miss Manhattan that's my performance name Very cool. Um, I've only just started doing that fairly recently. I would say Um, and like a handful of times, um. But my relationship to drag is, I would say my definition of it is maybe a little more liberal than most people's, because or maybe not most people it's more liberal, and I think there's just so much that is gender performance in our day to day lives that there are a lot of things I think are drag there are a lot of things I think are drag.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, you know, like I think if a lot of politicians had an understanding that they are in drag, that the world might be a little different, to say the very least, you know.
Speaker 2:I agree. I mean, we're all performing some sort of character, some more obviously than others, and especially like in the political you know, like you know that that person on stage is going to be a different one than in his kitchen with his family. Sure yeah, it's politics, is theater, drag is theater.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Um, when I am hosting Miss Manhattan, uh, it is a little more. It's like an enhanced version of myself. There's more makeup. There's, like you know, I think last time I wore red Marabou pleasers. You know my reading series, Um, and that's, I mean, and it's one aspect of my personality. The other aspect of my personality is, you know, the one you see right now where I'm wearing Birkenstocks.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 2:They are hot pink, but they are still Birkenstocks. Girly, girly if we're gonna.
Speaker 1:So I recognize that there are heightened aspects of my gender identity when I am on particular stages. There are elements of drag to that for me, especially when I'm go-go dancing, especially as Miss Manhattan, and then I also host. I co-host with my production partner a history and a drag history and performance show called the Glitter and Concrete Show, and that the next one is at Lincoln Center oh, that's exciting On September 19th, called the Glitter and Concrete.
Speaker 3:Show and that the next one is at Lincoln Center.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's exciting On September 19th, and that is also my emceeing persona. Is not that I'm not fabulous now, but like capital F fabulous?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And quippy and campy and all these kinds of things, and I would never. I don't think I have earned calling myself a drag queen, but other people have.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And that is, and I don't think that I ever would. And if someone would like to level that at me, then I am. I am delighted and honored by that. But my own relationship to drag is is understanding the way I present myself as a performance of gender identity in certain situations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple years ago, but you've been doing journalistic work in this, in this realm, and then this community for a while now. Yeah, and you said that you just started performing since the yeah, so I'm just curious how was there any like reticence or pushback when you started navigating these communities and maybe perceived as more of an outsider than you are currently engaging in that performance yourself now, intentionally?
Speaker 1:I don't. I think that's probably more of a question for people who are observing me, you know, but I had been such a fan for so long and I think I don't know someone had said to me once like oh, I've seen you out, and I was like, yeah, like why wouldn't you see me out? Like this is what I love to go do, and I was never on safari. Was the thing? That's a great way to put it. Was a thing. Yeah, um, that's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah and uh, I was never looking at and in any of my work because I've written about lots of different subcultures and, um, I was never looking to other a person. I was only looking to tell a person's story that hadn't been told, if they didn't want to tell it themselves. I didn't have the bandwidth or something like that, and it was an idea of helping a person understand another person's life. Right, and I think one of the best ways I can describe it is many years ago, I was working on a story about a woman whose profession was to test sex toys at a company like a wholesale sex toy company.
Speaker 1:And she was the person who decided what they bought and what they sold in the store and everything like that. She was a sex toy buyer and I told my mother what I was working on and she goes alissa, is that something that young ladies write about?
Speaker 1:and I said to her well, uh, these are stories that don't get told and I think it's valuable for people to learn about lives that are different from their own. And she sort of nodded and said okay, and then not that I was asking her permission but she was like all right. And then the story came out and she was like I have to give you credit, I really learned something about this.
Speaker 1:And I was like, well, you know, that's what I was trying to do, and I think in a lot of my work I am still writing for my parents in that way where, um, I'm not trying to, I'm asking them to meet me, instead of writing down yeah, I love that, if that makes sense and when, even when I was working on the book like my primary person I was thinking of primarily was like a queer teen in the midwest who, like you know, teens in New York have pretty regular access to drag brunches or you know, drag in like spaces where to community, to inspiration and also just like places that you can enter as a non-21 plus person to see drag right right don't have that across the country, and so I was thinking of people who don't and who might be looking for or needing to know that they had a lineage that went back further than a television show.
Speaker 2:RuPaul no shade on the television show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and I was also writing to explain it to my parents.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I didn't really need to explain it to them because they also brought me to my first drag show, but I I always believe that knowledge is power and that fear comes from the lack of knowledge. So if I can give someone knowledge and reduce fear or the lack of understanding or the fear that can come from a lack of understanding, then you can help bridge a gap in a little bit of a way. So when I write, I still think about them, and I still think about a person who needs to hear that story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think that makes total sense, that you know I am not comparing. But you know the way I think about it in my brain is like my brain is. I write a lot of nonfiction about sexual assault and at a very young age and very, very, you know, physically violent way. And I have to tell you now, when I write those stories or mental illness or stuff like that, I do think about the people that have similar stories that need a voice.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Need a voice.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense? Because so many times I've done reading series and there's at least one person that comes up to me and says same thing happened to me. Or thank you so much or like that was all the feelings I was feeling, and I think that continues on. When I started, I didn't write that way.
Speaker 3:But now I really do you work for yourself to get through and to process things and fictionalize it, to separate yourself as a form of healing, yeah you know, um, and then that, yeah, then you learn through that discovery that you're creating a space for someone to belong in who exactly isolated yeah, yeah, you know a voice where maybe at that moment they're too timid to have it, or just having someone come up and say, hey, that, like your mother, I mean to say that. To say, hey, I learned something from this, you know, I learned about a person on the planet that I didn't know existed, like how exciting is that? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:And just humanizing, yeah, everything yeah, you know and you know, oh, no, go ahead. Um, in reference to your question, you know, no, community is a monolith. I'm sure there's people out there who are like you know, this is not yours and that's okay, you know.
Speaker 2:Do you think that this current social political climate is? How do you think the community? Have you seen people responding in new ways or do you think that people are being affected differently than previous? Suppression and opposition existed. Is this a new dynamic or is this a repeating of history?
Speaker 1:It's a repeating of history.
Speaker 1:yeah, and that was one of the things that was a difficult lesson to learn when I was working on the book, but it certainly made me realize that I was a little naive, because this book has 160 years of history in it and every, every surge, surge of drags, popularity was coupled by coupled with a downturn, and I guess I, even though I wrote that book, I was still surprised because I was like, oh yeah, we're past that, you know and we're not, but history tells us that it is just another plot point on a set of data points, as opposed to forever, and that is what I find I want to say heartwarming.
Speaker 3:Hopeful is a better word.
Speaker 1:Um, that's what I. That's the place that I I look to, or hope. I'll say it's just. These are the facts. This is part of life.
Speaker 1:But I think, for for a lot of people my age and even younger like this, is the first time in our adult lives that we are witnessing it, as opposed to you know, like when I was working on the book, there were drag artists, um, who were telling who were working in the 90s, who were like there is no way I could have gone into a restaurant and told them I wanted to do a drag brunch without getting thrown out on my ear you know, and this is the 90s, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:And then there was a huge drag boom in the 90s, um, but uh, it was very much viewed as a trend, um. And then you have another downturn, you know it's a silly little whatever. And then rupaul's drag race, yeah, which is a juggernaut, a dynamo, whatever yeah, word you want to use.
Speaker 1:And you know what happens. With great visibility also comes great criticism, yeah, and sometimes that criticism takes the form of you know? And then I laugh because if I don't, I, you know, it's too dark. I, you know it's too dark, right. And that backlash comes in the form of like taking away someone's rights. And violence, which is extremely dark and it is cyclical.
Speaker 3:however, yeah, yeah, fuck, fuck, but a cycle so cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, that pendulum, just we're just swings.
Speaker 3:You know, right now, I know I've been um off the subject, but I but I. I recently just got obsessed with stonewall right and and just been watching all these documentaries and reading and blah blah and it's like you know, as you say, like not that long ago really. And it feels like we're back all you know again, which kills me. You know, like what do we do as allies? I don't know. I mean, I don't know, it's just so complicated you know, that's all I have't know. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's just so complicated, you know. That's that's all I have to say. Well, the other part of that, too, is that gives me hope is that, um, we are now in a moment where, uh, queer community, um, trans community, drag community, LGBTQ individuals now have more allies than they ever have, Because it has only gotten bigger as time has gone on.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that's really powerful in because the only people, who are not the only, but the people who are standing up for these rights are not just the queer community.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so it's just more and more and more people every time who are saying actually no, you can't do that, whereas you know 50 years ago it would have been. You know, the ACLU would have done something, but they would have done like something for like one person. Right, which is not a shade on the ACLU, it's just.
Speaker 1:this is how it was was yeah time, right, you know right um, I think the first person, the first is it I would have to be fact-checked on this but one of the first maybe we'll say trans people that they represented was a person named sir lady java in san francisco okay um, and this was in the 70s yeah, you know, and how many times before that would they have been needed? Yeah um, so again not changed on the aclu.
Speaker 2:It's just, all these things change over time, and now there's more and more and more and more I mean they just renamed, a couple years ago, uh, the marcia p johnson park over in the east river yeah, um which I was honestly, a couple years ago the Marsha P Johnson Park over in the East River, yeah, which. I was honestly a little surprised that it went through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So and then you have now like this stuff with the national parks trans people being removed from the Stonewall website of the National Parks, like disgusting. And completely inaccurate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1:You don't get to rewrite history?
Speaker 3:No, you don't, and it's just like ugh. Infuriating really, and I'm just hearing Dan Savage in my head right now, you know. I'm like he's like stay strong, we can do that, you know, like, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's like with anything, it's having conversations, like you said, educating people, and that takes away fear and that takes away, you know, insecurity, um, when you're in in a space with people that you don't understand or that are different from you. Um, just creating more opportunity for people to to connect and to learn about yeah, people not like themselves. Yeah, that's the hope, exactly that's you know I mean, I think that's why we do, why we write, why we do the reading series.
Speaker 2:Why we do this podcast is to have conversations and to create connections, um human connections yeah, human connections.
Speaker 3:Um, should we do some questions anything? Um, thank you, by the way, for everything that you do. I mean it was just listening to you today was so inspiring on so many levels. I mean it really was like it's amazing. Um, do you want to plug your book a little?
Speaker 1:sure, my book is called glitter and concrete, and it's a cultural history of drag in new york city. Uh, it came out in september 2023 and it has since become a national bestseller. Um, it was named one. Oh, what else happened? It was a finalist for the LGBTQ Nonfiction Lambda Literary Award. It was named a Stonewall Honor Book. It was one of Vogue's best LGBTQ books of 2023 and also one of Booklist's best history books of 2023.
Speaker 3:Wow, two words Fuck. Yeah, book list best history books of 2023.
Speaker 2:Wow, two words fuck yeah, great, yes, and you should be. Thank you, I'm proud for you, thank you fantastic um all right.
Speaker 3:Well, let's, let's answer a question or two and I'm not gonna say what I'm gonna do after the podcast. What now, now I to do after the podcast? What nap? No, go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, okay. Has a work of literature or art ever?
Speaker 1:directly influenced your life. There are a couple. I mean, please Kill Me, like I mentioned before, that was the book that taught me that, uh, for lack of a better phrase you could live a life less ordinary and um, where the people were who did that? And I mean, my copy of that book has been through the war.
Speaker 1:It is one of my prized possessions. I met Legs McNeil once twice. The first time he did a book signing and I told him this book was my Bible. And then he wrote inside the book if this is your Bible, I must be God. Oh nice, that's what he wrote. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:And then for the books. I don't know if it's the 20th or 25th anniversary, I forget, but I actually got to interview him and Jillian McCain at Jillian's home and it was, oh God, like 16-year-old me was having a fucking heart attack, like it was incredible. I couldn't believe it. And then I wrote this piece. And then Legs messaged me on Facebook and told me I was a great writer.
Speaker 1:Wow and then my brain fell out, so that book was really impactful. Another book is the book called Hypocrite in a Poofy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman. It's a memoir about growing up in New York in the 70s, and it was from that book that I learned that you could write about yourself with a sense of humor and flair and sparkle and still be a serious writer and also not be an asshole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right right right, the asshole part yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would say those are up there, definitely. And then there's, you know, different writers whose like bodies of work are very impactful to me. Nora Ephron is like a huge Susan Orlean.
Speaker 1:Ben Fong-Torres was another person who I got to write about and there was a documentary that came out about him a couple of years ago. Um, and I interviewed the director and, uh, the piece came out and Ben Fong Torres messaged me on Facebook also and said, as we Chinese say, merci beaucoup, that's cute. And then, like, recommended me to an editor of his who needed a writer and I was just like my brain is I can't.
Speaker 3:That's fantastic I can't do this.
Speaker 1:I just like I can't this. I just like I can't. Um. So those are. Those are some, yeah, people who have been very influential and I, like in my wildest dreams I never thought that they would even read my work, let alone yeah, say something nice.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, though you know what I mean. I don't know what I would do if you know if mary car reached out or you know Bonnie came back from the grave. Or you know, yeah, yeah, Damn.
Speaker 1:And on the days when I am having a really hard time and I'm pitching and I'm you know whatever, I dig myself into this dark hole. Those are the kinds of things that I make myself remember, yeah I think that's great because there are dark holes yeah like I would be lying if I said that, oh, this is so easy and I'm just like please you know like I'm not trying to make my life look like instagram, okay well, I was just gonna.
Speaker 3:I was just gonna say you know, and remember how hard you worked to get to where you are, you know, and hustled yeah Right, it's not, it just didn't fall in your lap. No, you know, we've learned that today.
Speaker 1:So it's.
Speaker 3:I mean, but that's something to always remember. You know how? About you, marissa? Give me a book or two.
Speaker 2:I think for writing my memoir Lydia Yukonovich Chronology of Water was a big influence of mine of being raw and being gross and honest and not necessarily like self-debasing, but just being honest about mistakes and being gross and being sexual, being a sexual creature, yeah and um and that can be liberating and it can be traumatizing right at the same time. Yeah, uh, so the way that she talks about, yeah, her life and her, yeah, her tragedies and her triumphs, that was really yeah. Yeah, gave me kind of permission to just write my truth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, I think that's great. Yeah, love it, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, what about you, baby?
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean it. It kind of changes with where I'm at in my life really Right. But instead of listing off authors, I guess for me it would be just remembering those, that feeling in that moment of when you find that book you know, when you open that book and you're halfway through and you're like this is going to change my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like this book here at this moment, right now, I'm either going to go into literary depression because I can't chase it with anything else, or it's going to change my style of writing, my train of thought, you know, and so I've just countless books that do that yeah, yeah, this weird vibration popping out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a special moment, I agree. That happens when you're reading something and you're like you're actively realizing what you personally can take from it and use to enhance your work exactly um, I have that when I read ruth reichel's work. Yeah, also eve babbitts. Um, huge, huge eve babbitts and ruth reichel stand, yeah, forever and ever. It's just any time that I can read writing that takes a subject seriously but doesn't take itself too seriously right makes me really happy yeah and I just you know, I love you know, these long, gorgeous pieces by, like, judith thurman in.
Speaker 1:The New Yorker, but I don't think I'm Judith Thurman and I need, I think, always to exist on a plane where I have the opportunity to inject lightness, and when I read work by Nora Ephron or by Eve Babitz, in particular Susan Orlean.
Speaker 3:I love Susan Orlean, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I met her at a party once and I couldn't talk to her oh I, I don't know what I would say anything she or her, her book party was hosted or one of her book events for the library book was hosted by a colleague and then, like a couple of us, went out afterward they were like, oh, come on, and she was sitting across this cocktail table for me and I could not speak to her oh my god, I would be so nervous too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you just like shut down, you're like there's nothing.
Speaker 1:I could say to you, or at least what it feels like, is there is nothing I could say to you that you haven't heard from like thousands of other people, um, that would be meaningful to you in any way. It would just it and it just feels like such like a selfish moment and I just end up not opening my mouth.
Speaker 1:That happened once. That happened once with Nan Golden and I cried like I could. I was like inches away from her and I like couldn't open my mouth and I just I left this event where she was speaking.
Speaker 3:I was crying in the street oh sweetie, oh wow, oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1:But anyway, when you see the moments of, you know it could be in any medium.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's something in here that I understand, that speaks to me in another way and, to be able to, to cull that into the collage of yourself, because we're all collages exactly um is extremely powerful, because then you it's like recognizing a tool that you wanted and then being able to like say oh okay, now I'm going to go purchase that tool and put it in my tool belt yeah, where I think it belongs yeah you know and yes, okay, so I need.
Speaker 1:Oh, it looks like I need a hammer, but I'm gonna go get like a pink hammer yeah and I'm gonna put rhinestones on it and I'm gonna maybe strap it to my chest instead of putting it in my tool belt or like whatever it is Like. So you, you go and get a hammer, but then you make it your own.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. I love that. That's a great way to end this episode, because that was beautiful.
Speaker 2:And it's so true. Go find your hammer. Yeah, go find your hammer, wrap it in duct tape if you want, Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for joining us. No problem, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me Good luck with everything, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the invitation. All right, don't we feel inspired?
Speaker 3:Yes, very inspired. Right now.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Alyssa. Yeah, All right hon.
Speaker 3:Cheers.
