How Queer Nightlife Survived and Evolved | Ana Matronic | Pt. 02

Part two — and we’re going even deeper.

In this episode of Trigger Warning, Adam and I bring back Animatronic to dive into the real history of queer nightlife — from the global legend Bricktop to stewarding Fire Island’s iconic Ice Palace.

If you don’t know Bricktop, buckle up.

She was a Black saloon singer and hostess from West Virginia who became one of the most powerful nightlife figures in Paris, Mexico City, and Rome. She introduced the Charleston to Paris. She hosted royalty, writers, jazz icons. Her life feels like it should be an HBO anthology series — and yes, we pitch that too.

Then we shift to home.

We talk about the Ice Palace — open continuously since 1970 — one of the most important queer disco venues in history. Before it was the Ice Palace, it was the Boom Boom Room, the Bat Cave, Tiffany Au Go Go. There were fires. There were rebuilds. There were actual laws preventing same‑gender dancing — which led to counting men and women separately on the ramp.

That history matters.

Today, we see ourselves not as owners — but as stewards. Restoring it. Protecting it. Evolving it. Keeping it alive for the next generation.

This episode is about honoring the past while building the future of queer nightlife.

Because clubs aren’t just parties.
They’re archives. They’re sanctuaries. They’re survival.

🎧 Listen or watch wherever you get your favorite podcasts
 🔥 Part 1 is also live — so maybe start there- or don’t.

@triggerwaringnyc

@redeye_ny

@pridehousemedia

Write to us at: Questions@TriggerWarningPod.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

What happens when you let Enfant Terrible, now just terrible, Daniel Nardicio, off his leash to say and do whatever he wants? The man who has offended everyone is back.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Along with my brother from another mother, Adam Klesh, we're back with our latest creation, Trigger Warning. A podcast that is not for the faint of heart. Prepare to be offended, enlightened, and highly entertained. Trigger Warning is not a safe space podcast, but answers the questions no one wants to ask. Serves deep in vodka and a dash of bitter.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Each week we'll bring you the highest and lowest in NYC nightlife. So buckle up, you've been warned.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Don't tell anyone. I think they know I've left.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

So real quickly, can I just uh for our listeners? Yes. Bricktop's a thing for me. I love her. I love Bricktop. Okay. Yeah, we share a birthday as well. Red hair. You share a birthday August 14th? Yes. With Bricktop.

SPEAKER_05 1:20

Yeah. Yeah, Bricktop. Uh, she I was born on her 80th birthday.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Can you just quickly give our listeners a quick what Bricktop, for anyone listening who doesn't know, uh was someone that I for some reason have this affinity.

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Oh, I she's undeniable. She she is so so charming.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

A black woman with red hair, fire red hair, yeah. Who created all these things. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

So Bricktop is uh is a black woman from West Virginia whose mother was born two years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Uh she uh she had red hair and gray eyes. Her mother had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her sister, Etta, also had blonde hair and blue eyes. And and they called her blonde Etta, which then became blondezetta, and they called her they called Bricktop Bricktop because she had red hair, so which is an old old school nickname for it's like toe head. It's like toehead, and we 100% need to bring bricktop back. I'm absolutely I'm definitely a bricktop.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So much better than a ginger.

SPEAKER_05 2:30

I'm not a ginger, I'm a brick.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Bricktop.

SPEAKER_05 2:33

Thank you. And so uh bricktop.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I just keep hearing the Commodores in my head, but then it's brick house.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Yeah. Bricktop was part of a was part of the you know the the ragtime and jazz saloon singing phenomenon. She worked with people like Jelly Roll Morton and then got a call working in Harlem in the 1920s. Lesbian? No, she was not, no, she was not.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

One time in college, Daniel.

SPEAKER_05 3:04

Uh yeah, there were rumors that so let's let's get back to the um Bricktop was a saloon singer and a hostess. Yes. And then she gets a call from Eugene Bullard in Paris to come over and be part of the burgeoning Harlem and Monmarch scene where jazz was going crazy. So this is Paris in between the wars, which is a time that I am absolutely obsessed with. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:36

Paris between the world wars is just like good time Sally Central.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Kurt Weil, Weil no?

SPEAKER_05 3:43

Yeah, I mean, I think he's more Weimar, but don't quote me on that. But yes, it's it's all that's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

But that whole area of the world, like 1920 to 35, was it? Yeah, absolutely. But those those 15 years there, like 1920, 1935, the other night, and it was like all that kind of music, meow meow.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Yo, I love meow meow. And she was fucking make it.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

She's incredible. Trying to get her here.

SPEAKER_05 4:07

Oh, she would be incredible, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

I've had her here before, but I would love to get her back anyway.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

She's fantastic, she's amazing. So um Bricktop became a hostess entertainer in Paris. She introduced the Charleston to Paris. Wow. Uh, and she started working at a place called Le Conduc and then uh became the manager and then opened her own uh string of establishments, starting in Paris in the 20s, and then she uh moved uh when World War II started, she moved to Mexico City, and then was part of the scene in Mexico City, which was you know the the golden age of Mexican cinema and the sixties, right? Sorry, and um and at that time Mexico City was I think the fourth largest city in North America and um and was absolutely just oh glittering, yeah, glittering our bathroom in Mexico is all Mexican actresses from the golden age.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Obsessed.

SPEAKER_05 5:21

Dolores del Rio, so good. Yes. Obsessed. Obsessed. And so she had a she had a club in Mexico City, then she um What is the club in Mexico City called, do you recall? Bricktops. It was always called Yeah, it was like everything she did was bricktops. Yeah, it was always bricktops. She's smart, yeah. It's about branding. Yeah, and um and then uh then Rome in then she went to Rome in the 1950s. Uh so the Dolce Vita era Rome, she brought back, she kind of retroed um New Orleans style jazz and 1920s style jazz, Cole Porter and things like that, um, for the Roman audience. And that was the golden age of Roman cinema. So uh she had so many famous people through her doors. Uh Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor made their first appearance in public as a couple at Bricktops in Rome while they were filming Cleopatra, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Why hasn't there been a movie made about Bricktops?

SPEAKER_05 6:29

Now, this is this is what I think.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:32

Shonda Rhymes, let's talk.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Other than other than Whitewash. Shonda Rhimes is the person to make.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

I would and I would like to do it, and I would, I would, I would be a fucking amazing showrunner. I really would be a really good showrunner. Bricktops as an anthology series. Okay. So you you have interesting people coming into Bricktops, and then you follow them. So you've got Elsa Scaparelli, you've got Cole Porter, you've got um Prince The Prince of Wales and Wallace Simpson, you've got fucking Gloria Swanson.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Um did you see the Scaparelli exhibit?

SPEAKER_05 7:13

I haven't seen it yet, and I'm dying.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I was just in London to exit. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_05 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Um and it's all her stuff that she did with well with Dolly.

SPEAKER_05 7:23

It's uh apparently um Elsa Scaparelli's favorite song to hear Bricktop sing was If I knew you were coming, I'd bake a cake. I'd have baked a cake.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Also another like Bugs Bunny song. Right. Yeah, very much. Tell me more about my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

We're gonna take a break real quick. We're gonna come back in just a moment. I want to talk to you more about what bringing it to now, the Ice Palace. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 7:47

Being here in this and how I how I how I finagled my way in.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

I think we've got a two-part runner.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

I finagled my way. I finagled it, and I I you I think I had a big hand in you taking over this space. 100%. I didn't want to. I no, you did not have to. You have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

We're gonna be rep, we're gonna talk about that in just a moment. 100% agree. Keep listening. I did not want this burden.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

And this said, ah.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Keep listening, keep watching. Uh we'll be back with part two with automatronic and the history of the ice ballots.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

All right, so we talked about history. We talked about your history, we talked about history in general. Nightclubs, really. Yes, exactly. It brings us to now. We're sitting in what I would say is the most iconic queer club in the world. I I feel very honored to be. I am not even like when it came up that we were gonna take over the Ice Palace or we had the opportunity. I I was like We were eyeballed deep in red eye. We were just literally about to open a club where we were building in the city, and I was like, you know, we don't have the money, we don't have the, you know.

SPEAKER_05 9:09

And you were you were looking at Mexico too, I think. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

I was starting Mexico at the time, and so all of a sudden it was like, how am I gonna do this? But you said You have to do it, and you were right.

SPEAKER_05 9:20

I I just you had you have to do it. I was like, you guys have to do it. You are the only you're the only people who understand, and we had been talking about it for years.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

I agree.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

We had been talking about it for years, and I and I had been saying, Daniel, when you take over the ice palace, you are going to install me as the house historian. Because the very first time, yeah. The very first time I came to the ice palace, I was very excited to come to the ice palace.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah. For Carol.

SPEAKER_05 9:55

For Carol, but I was also very excited to come to the Ice Palace because the Ice Palace has a history that is deeply linked with the history of disco. And I love disco and I love disco history. Disco is where nightlife as we know it became codified, where DJ culture was born. I agree. And the Ice Palace has been opened in an unbroken chain since 1970. It was there at the at the beginnings of nightlife and gay culture, and it still is. You and I say this all the time you can't dance to disco at Paradise Garage. You can't dance to disco at the loft. You can go see a show at Studio 54, but you can't dance to disco at studio 54. Yes, you can't, the saint is a fucking bank.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yes, I agree. Yes, 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

You but you can come to the ice palace and dance to disco.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

It's not even like when you go to like um the um in Nashville, they have the um, you know, the Grand Old Opry. Yeah, yeah. They only have like a piece of wood in the middle of the because it's all burnt down. Right. They only have like a piece of wood that big now which's left. This is still the original building. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. With, you know, some girders that had to be put in because there was a fire and this that way.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

You know, it's like the old girl needed some, you know, some tape and strings. Yeah, no, totally. But yeah, hello.

SPEAKER_05 11:35

That was my reaction when I first came here. I was so excited to come to the Ice Palace because of its place in disco history. And when I walked up the ramp, I thought to myself, oh, nobody loves this place right now. Right. This place isn't being loved in and appreciated and and treated with the respect that it so, so richly deserves. We do not have temples of nightlife culture. We don't have churches. There's there aren't that you know, archiving nightlife culture has really only kind of been a recent thing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

And so this is really the last 15, 20 years is when it's really kind of had its thing. And that's why I say frequently. I mean, I know I'm repeating myself like a broken record, but I we never call ourselves like the owners of the ice bells. I always say we're the stewards. Yeah. And like we really inherited something that had an owner for 20 years and was kind of like squeezing the bitch for oh, yeah, you know, blood from a stone.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Well, I say he was the worst thing to happen to uh gay culture since AIDS. Yeah, yeah. Dr. Frank, the guy who owned this place. He uh was the worst thing ever. Whatever, I don't want to talk about it. But he was paying the worst person, I literally the worst person.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

He was paying his bills based on your underwear party. Nothing else was the worst person I've ever met. He's just like off.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

But I mean that and you know a lot of terrible people. Terrible people, terrible worst.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

But we were really fortunate to have people like Anna, like Austin Derrick, like Anna's husband Seth Kirby, who we now have a team between the the four stewards that are the red-eye guys, our dramaturge animatronic, our our uh sound wizard Austin, and our our lighting designer, Anna's husband's. I mean, fucking last night. I was crazy. The lights are crazy last night. Okay, it's so good. The new lights are so good. But everyone has a passion, and it it's not something that can be done by one person, right? So somebody's got a music passion, somebody's got an audio passion, someone's got a lighting passion, someone has a detail passion, a cocktail recipe, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

We understand the assignment, which honestly, I believe, is like I we were given this thing that we are like, okay, now let's like honor it.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I mean, even Taylor, our business partner, Taylor, with like the advertisement for the sponsors, so we can have the money to give her the care. Yes. We are not in a cheap business. No, that's we're not in a cheap business.

SPEAKER_05 14:07

Well, and the how what's the square footage on this bad boy? It's a football field.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

She's 5,000 square feet.

SPEAKER_05 14:13

5,000 square feet. She's 5,000 square feet. I mean the footprint alone.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

And we're using every fucking inch of it.

SPEAKER_05 14:20

It is sinking into the sand.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

You know, it's every year we lose her a little bit, and she's got to get, you know, jacked up a little bit. She's got to need a new pair of heels.

SPEAKER_05 14:28

She's wonky. She's wonky.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

But also it's but it was originally the boom boom room, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:33

It was originally boom boom room.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And then Michael Fesco give us give the children the history.

SPEAKER_05 14:38

There were there were iterations, yeah. Um the last incarnation before 1970, I believe it was called the Boom Boom Room Boom Boom Room. It was also called the Bat Cave. Um and it was also called um uh Tiffany Augogo at one point because there were um news to me. Tables and Tiffany lamps, like Tiffany style lamps that were that were uh hung over the tables.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And if you go to the Cherry Grove archives, I believe, they have some beautiful photos of like when it was originally the ice bell. There was like you had to walk down and the bar was in this circular center. It was all silver. It was all silver, yeah. And imagine all the lights were like incandescent parking. That's hell. That's why Michael Fesco agrees in here.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Michael Fesco, who was the guy that named it the ice bowl, said he wanted to name it that because it was so hot in here. Yes. And then he named it after uh, F. Scott Fitzgerald story, yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

And it's built on the original grove of black cherry trees, which is where we get cherry grove from.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

That's correct. So the it was the the Perkinsons who opened the first inn on Fire Island named it Cherry Grove for the for the grove of black cherry trees. They were all destroyed in the 1938 hurricane. That's why they there aren't anymore.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Um's fault, they just they weren't here.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

They yeah, and so and then Perkinsons uh sold to and then it became Duffy's. Yes, and then Duffy's burnt down in 1956, and then this current building that we are in now was was built and opened in 1957.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Which you know, the reason there are those metal girders between there, there was a fire, yeah, and those went across and then they put them into like cinch it.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

She survives she survived. Yeah, yeah. The hotel did not the hotel burn down in 08? Yeah, something like that, yeah, yeah. Somewhere around. Not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Um what uh but what they put up is a worst thing, it's a travesty.

SPEAKER_05 16:43

Once again, it's a travesty. And taking out the balconies was such a bad idea, it's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And they had these beautiful walk-around wraparounds where you could like cruise. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

And also, it's my least favorite color for a house. The color of butter.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yes, yeah, it is it is butter yellow.

SPEAKER_05 17:02

Butter yellow.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

What do you have? Not to put you on the spot, but whatever. Do you have like one like deep cut favorite fact about the ice palace? Is there one that makes people go, oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Oh, yeah. Good. I have one, I want to hear yours. What's yours? Dela Reese was performing here, Dela Reese the Singer. And back then, when there was a fire alarm, everyone had to go out because everyone was on the fire department. Yeah. Because there was like literally, you had buckets. Yeah. And she was doing a show and the fire alarm went off. And as I've been told by people, everyone just got up and walked out of Delaree's show to go handle the fire. She was like, Come on to my house.

SPEAKER_05 17:48

I'm on the And they're like, Nope, sorry, gotta go out.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

She was like, all of a sudden it was empty. Yeah. And they all ran to go, you know, that's what this community does, though.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

That's what I love about this community.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

I mean, I love this community. I told Patty Lupone I said it's I love this community because like the lesbians run the fire department and the gays are on the beautification committee as God intended. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:13

I guess, I guess my favorite deep cut fact is is that Jimmy Daniels, who was part of the gay Harlem Renaissance, was was the Maitre D here for years and years and years. And he was the black guy.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah. Which is black gay man.

SPEAKER_05 18:30

Yeah. And uh and uh yes, he was incredible. I I also love the fact of the well, not love, but um, I like to tell people about the ramp and why the ramp was was built, not just for accessibility, but to also count uh people, because prior to 1970, it was illegal for same-gender couples to dance together, uh, and there had to be one woman for every three men. And so they had to ensure that because if they were raided by police, uh uh they could they do a head count, they could lose their they could lose their liquor license. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Yeah. So they would have actually uh I remember hearing about this, they would have a person on a uh stepladder or a ladder just looking around and yeah, or like lifeguard chairs with like flashlights. If if a guy and a a guy two guys danced, they would flash them.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

It's so crazy. It's so crazy. It's wild to think that we have a we've got a nice little plaque from Guinness Book of World Records for the oldest continuous running um queer venue in the world. And it's crazy to think that it was all going on while the DSM still said it was a mental disease, yeah, and it was illegal to be a homosexual in the United States.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And this place was rocking and fucking rolling, giving giving people a safe haven.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

It's been through a lot of iterations.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

That's why it means the care that everyone gives it.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Well, I've been here for 25 years in this building, 25 years, a quarter of a fucking century. I've been standing here. I've seen it through a lot of different different things, and I will say that like right now, this period is very exciting.

SPEAKER_05 20:10

And my mission uh here as the priestess of the palace is to restore the prestige that this place once held, which was huge on the world stage for disco and and DJ culture. Roy Thode, who is um pictured on the on the doors outside uh in the DJ booth, his he DJ'd in the back, and his Saturday nights here were wall-to-wall people. Yeah. Wall to wall. You just couldn't move. I I'd and I'd get um, I had an amazing, amazing experience where a guy said, Oh yeah, I mean, back in the day, you just I'd just put on my black speedo and walk from the pines down the beach, and then just walk off the beach and onto the dance floor and dance all night, my speedo and bare feet.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

It's still that way on Friday nights. The kids just come after us. That's what I love about Johnny Dynell is he saw that picture outside of all the guys like dancing and stuff like that, and he goes, you know, people want to say to me that everything was better back then. He goes, I was there, and that's basically what Friday night is. It's still that way or Saturdays with Mother Disco or different, you know, things that we do. It's it's not like it's all lost, it's just morphed.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

And I and I think to Anna's point, like we're we're there, and we're just like maybe one more season away from this being one of those places that people talk about oh, I spun at this club, I spun at this club, oh, have you played, you know? Yeah. I think we're right there, like, oh, you gotta play the Ice Palace.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

You know.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

My last question Yes. It's one o'clock in the morning. You're DJing the party of your life. Okay. What is the track that you hit? The track that you go, this is the track. I know this might be a moment you want to take it.

SPEAKER_05 22:06

Keep pushing on. Things are gonna get better. It won't take long. Keep on pushing to the top. Who's that? Anaya Day and the Sunday. Oh, she's gonna be here. I know. I can't wait. Oh my god, that's so great. I love that song. That's probably, yeah, probably. Is that the one that like if you go home and you didn't get to drop in your set, you're like, ah usually I actually last night I played uh I played the song that I go home and I listen to, which is a song like whenever I've played it, it doesn't really work. Like people don't I have I have I can be accused of having having like really dark and hard taste and so eyeliner taste. Yeah. Um and and this is one of those tracks. I don't even I don't even know who it's by, uh, but it's called What's Up. And um and yeah, it's just one of those songs that I yeah, I played it last night and and but I I probably won't next week. It's hard to know.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

You know, it's one of those things. My favorite, probably my favorite truck club track is uh Pure Pleasure Seeker by Moloco.

SPEAKER_05 23:14

Oh uh and it does not work, no, it doesn't work in a club, no, but it's such a great song. It is a great song, it is a great song. I also love the thing that I love about that song is that the chorus doesn't come in until four minutes into the song, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, it's just like dun dun dun dun dun. That's such a song. It's a shame.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

No more Moloco.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Yeah, I know, I know. She's transphobic.

SPEAKER_05 23:33

Yeah, fuck that.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Fuck those people. Oh, fuck. I love you so much.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Fuck TERFs. I know she's fuck the TERFs.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Wait, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring this up, though, because we talk so much about Fridays and Saturday nights and you know, big DJ stuff.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

You've started a party here on Tuesdays.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Called Queirdo. Yes. That is I mean for me, it's such a special thing because it's it's those songs that like all of us audiophiles and like deep listeners, like we you don't get to hear that on, but it's dance floor-worthy music.

SPEAKER_05 24:04

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

But you don't hear it on Fridays and Saturdays on the street.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

And this is what really bothers me about millennials. I'm sorry. The it I I I talk it up to y'all having Neptune and Capricorn rather than Neptune and Sagittarius. Gen X has Neptune and Sagittarius, which is such a much better placement for Neptune in everybody's chart. But um uh the commercialism that is rampant in uh in kind of queer culture b bothers me.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Like that song of the summer stuff, like you know, uh Disney's great. We had a great time at Disney's.

SPEAKER_05 24:47

Can we move move beyond uh the taste of a 12-year-old girl?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Hannah Montana.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Yeah, can we move beyond that taste? Right. And in Gen X, um, you know, alternative culture was was a thing. It bubbled up into the mainstream. I'm the grunge class. I graduated in 1992 in at, you know, from a high school in Washington state.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I'm a sennial. I'm like right at the end of Gen X into. And so um And thankfully the baby, I have older siblings, so I I got to hear, I got to hear all of that stuff that I thought was cool before I got into the garbage tracks.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

So I'm of the generation where it was not safe to come out as gay. So a lot of us came out as goth first. Totally. And there was safety in the darkness. Yeah, yeah. You could be weird, you could wear makeup, you could mince around in lace cuffed.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

And just be classified as that and not have to worry about the world saying you're a fag. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Exactly. So I'm from the generation where it was, you know, we came out as goth before we came out as gay, and uh, and there is there's a soundtrack to that. And the the music, especially of kind of British synth pop in the second British invasion of the 1980s. I love it, is really, really important. And it is a lot of music by queer artists that should have more of a presence in queer clubs. Dead or alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The Bronsky Beach.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

You dropped a Frankie Goes to Hollywood last night. Welcome to the pleasure dome. Right as I walked in and I was just taking my pants off to be in my long underwear, you were like, here's the moment.

SPEAKER_05 26:40

I love that moment because it's Welcome to the Pleasure Dome, into my song with Bright Light, Bright Light, Cold Sweat, Hot Boys, into Oxytocin by Billy Eilish, which I I was I love that song. And it was so exciting to play. And you were there, you were there, and what and I heard, and it's the kind of song that I know people love, but you never hear it on the dance floor. And so like people were like, I was seeing like people like look around at each other, going like, oh my god, ooh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Well, that's what I mean about queirdo, right? So like I was it was last year, yeah. Last year, I was like going through my own moments and whatnot, and I was in this like new relationship that was very secretive for you know, because of what it was. And I came to I it was Quirdo Prom or Homecoming, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_05 27:31

Um and end of the season or beginning of the season?

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Uh this had to be beginning of the season. So homecoming. Homecoming, of course. Yeah, yeah. And you have this this way on you know, your Ableton or however you did it, but there was like an extended intro, and it was the rhythmics, love is a stranger. You don't hear that banger on a dance floor ever, but where you dropped it in and you look around, it's all these goth kids like getting to have the homecoming they probably didn't have. Yes, you know, and I'm in this lovey dovey place, but I'm dancing by myself, and everything I'm taking uh is hitting, you know, and it's like love is a stranger of a different thing.

SPEAKER_05 28:12

Yeah, I love that mix. Beggar so sick. Beggar and and the, you know, um it's so I really feel like I'm getting away with something when I play this music. And it's great. Um, it ha I've had tears on the dance floor because there's a whole swath of folks who are queer, but they don't really identify with what passes as queer music in the clubs. So they they they're not serviced by nightlife. Right, right. And they're they're and I I always like to say, all right, what's our job on Fire Island? Identify the holes and fill them.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 28:58

Fire Island is all about identifying holes and filling them.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Literally, figuratively, physically, emotionally. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:07

So there was a massive hole for those of us who like a more alternative expression.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

And it's great because it starts earlier and it's like four to eight.

SPEAKER_05 29:18

It's the tea dance for the rest of us on the day everyone forgot. It's Tuesday's four to eight. It's the tea dance for the rest of us. And so, and the the whole the whole thing is you come to Queirdo, if there's a song you have always wanted to hear on a dance floor in a gay bar and never have, let me know. I will play it for you. Killing joke.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

Okay, you know, and we black the lights out, you know, we black the windows out and whatnot. It's a club.

SPEAKER_05 29:44

It's yeah, yeah. I mean, and usually it gets dark by the time it's over. So, and um, and it's it's just so super fun. Every time I play Stigmata by Ministry, I'm just like, I can't fucking believe I'm playing this in the Ice Palace. And and you know, people who never come up the ramp come up the ramp for a queerd, Brett at Floyd's, who runs Floyd's, who is always playing a queerdo soundtrack. Gary Newman is his favorite artist. You know, he he's like oh, I love Gary Newman. And and uh and Brett comes up the up the ramp for this, and he's just like, Oh, it's just I love this party so much.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Chris Fox and Maddie Glitterati come and they're just like it's this is my party.

SPEAKER_05 30:28

You know, and so that it's it it and it's me playing for my 15-year-old self every week.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

100% banana rama, you know, all of that. Yeah, depeche mode, all that stuff. I mean, it was depe was an amazing, amazing time.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Depeche mode, sexy.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Well, we love you, and we can't get enough of you.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

Oh, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

But it is that time in the show.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Well, just because we have to get a boat off this island. Yeah, because we do have to get a boat off this island, and we have to go run another one of your parties on the city.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Oh, I cannot believe we do we're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

And I have to I have to set up another podcast. Oh my god, of a bunch of naked boys. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_05 31:08

Are they gonna be naked on the podcast?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Well, it's the I don't know. Well, yeah, I think, yeah, tonight's not visual, but also like tonight is the D-World Underwear Party, underwear party kickoff in town.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah, I did that before I realized we were doing last night because Adam talked me into last night too. So it was a lot. It was it's been a lot. So I'm like not used to doing back-to-back party.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I'm used to Mexico where you're wearing the same shorts for seven days. Just kind of everything's minana. Anyway, I love you, kit.

SPEAKER_05 31:40

I love you.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Do you have uh do you have a trigger warning? Do you have something that triggers you?

SPEAKER_05 31:45

Who?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Both of you. It is the name of the show. Uh yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_05 31:49

Oh, of course. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

I have one, and right now it's the goddamn fucking MTA and L-I-R-R. Oh, I hate it.

SPEAKER_05 31:55

I mean, as as you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

So it it it's fake.

SPEAKER_05 31:59

Yeah, M T A should stand for motherfucking.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:03

But it's like fuck the MTA.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

So it's already there's something beautiful and something terrible about coming out to Fire Island and like the journey it takes, right? Like there's this special thing about going to Penn Station, seeing where the track is for your train to Babylon. It's normally 19. Sometimes they fuck it up a little bit, and then it's like, oh, do I have to transfer at Jamaica? Am I transferring at Babylon? So you get your second train, then you get there, and how much luggage is on the fucking colonial white bus and then it takes you to a ferry, and then the ferry times, and you hope you make the ferry and it's 30 minutes. So now in reverse we're going, but they've decided that something they probably could have done in uh December, January, and February when no one is coming out to this part of Long Island to fix the tracks, they're gonna do it as of May 1st.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

It's springtime, is when you should work on the tracks for a summer island. It's only gonna be for the weekend, right? Sure. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 32:55

Only for the weekend, yeah. When everyone wants to be on the train.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Everything the MTA does is on time and totally concise. Yeah, yeah. And let's do it on a Saturday and a Sunday, right when May pops at 57 degrees. That's what's triggering me right now.

SPEAKER_04 33:10

All right, well.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Because now it's like fuck, you gotta take a car, or they've got these shuttle buses, and what a bus of 50 people is gonna sit in traffic to Babylon.

SPEAKER_05 33:18

I absolutely hate a shuttle bus scenario. Yeah, just get that out of my face.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Just do this in January.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

So that's what triggers me. Yes, okay, we we do a trigger every week. Sure. So my trigger this week is I hate it when people think because I have a chihuahua, that it somehow emasculates me. Oh emasculates me. So last week I was walking Tabasco outside, and this guy's like, You need a man-sized dog. That's not a man's dog.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Like, and it'll be that whole terminology of like man up and like a man's dog. And it really is like a man.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

And I realized the reason it bothered me is because I have that sometimes with people where they're like, you know, yeah, you with your little chihuahua. And they kind of like want to like when I cook, people think that like it is less masculine.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

So like they're like, That's such like leftover bullshit, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Yeah, yeah, I get a little bit triggered by people kind of thinking that because I love this little creature who is in I mean, look at him, fucking incredible, you know, who has the personality of a Rottweiler, in my opinion. They want to like go, they want to emasculate me, but this is my trigger. Emasculating me is somehow thinking that being feminine is bad.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Is a bad thing, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Yeah, so it's like a little bit saying, like, oh, you're not a real man.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

And it's like I love my coco Vaughn and my fucking chihuahua.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah, and that's like a little bit like as if like because I love this dog, that like I'm somehow less than because they think that femin is less than.

SPEAKER_05 34:57

Do you remember that book, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche? Remember that book in the 1980s? I was just thinking about that. What a fucking stupid bullshit thing that was.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Whatever, that somehow people kind of think like it's like when people say, Oh, you're feminine side. And it's like, no, just part of me. Yeah, part Donnie is part Marie.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 35:24

And everyone is, god damn it.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah, and nowadays a little more Marie.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Lately, okay. So the whole thing on it is I've been bottoming a little bit more lately, even though I don't have an ass anymore because I've been on the GLPs, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Mama's getting her bell rung.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

And and uh Patty Lapone's here.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

She's here for your masculine energy.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

And even he is like calling me Helium Heels because I'm bottoming a little bit more. I actually texted the guy that rails me and said that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:56

Anyway, um I had a friend whose drag name was Helium Heels.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. The best drag name that I've heard in years, she reached out to me to work with us, is Wilma Carstark. And the problem is they reach out to you and like you don't know if it's Instagram or Facebook or you know, whatever. So I don't know how to respond to her because I want to book Wilma Carstark.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

I have the best drag king name. Okay. Right? Ready? Yeah last name, Petty. P-E-T-T-Y. Last name, Petty. First name, Manuel, but you can call me Manny. Manny Petty.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

That's a good one. No, isn't that good?

SPEAKER_05 36:41

Isn't that good?

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Do you have a trigger, Anna?

SPEAKER_05 36:43

Um, I mean, like everything in the Trump administration is a fucking trigger. Um, yeah. I hate Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Speaker, Mike Johnson's such a shit bag.

SPEAKER_05 36:55

He's the guy, he's two years older than me. He reminds me of the ignorant dudes I went to high school with who would sit in the back all like, well, the Bible go-go-go-g-go. Oh, I'll shove that fucking Bible straight up your Leviticus.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

And you know, those are the people that are like the least Christian people in the world.

SPEAKER_05 37:20

You know he has a grinder account. You know that motherfucker has a grinder account.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Kim and Lindsay are sharing uh 100%, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 37:29

Little fucking pissant.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Weaker of the house. But it's always been that way. Like people forget like gambling was outlawed in the United States, but like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would get together and host poker parties. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 37:42

I mean, prohibition was all of it. We don't talk about this at all, but prohibition had a deeply, deeply anti-German thing with it. Because of the beer. Because of beer. And there used to be beerstein. The whole reason why we have pint glasses and not handles is because of Prohibition, because there were beer stein smashing um parties. And like there was a it was like the record crashing during Rock and there was a German dog breed killing event once in like Ohio, where they killed a bunch of boxins, German shepherds, and Dobermans. And like others. Yeah, all that.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

And so Ohio sucks.

SPEAKER_05 38:29

The United States really sucks the microcosm.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

You know, so like I'm from there, so I kind of feel like anti-German sentiment.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

Uh also produces a lot of presidents. Chinese exclusion act. Like we if you get into that, the zootsuit riots, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

The the teetotaler people though, too. Like the Chinese thing was the gambling thing, the German thing was the drinking thing.

SPEAKER_05 38:51

Also, the the race, the race riots and the rampant um the veterans coming back home from the United States, uh, basically going on a killing spree of black people post post um World War One. Fuck this, yeah, fuck this. I am I am quite triggered by the United States history, full stop. You know what, you know what triggers me? I can't I mean I can say Oregon, I can say Minnesota, I can say Ronkonkuma, and those sorts of words, but I don't know a single word in the Cherokee language or or the Tlinket language or any of the the indigenous uh cultures of this country. That is insane to me. Yeah, because we just teach insane to me.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

I think all the time like we teach the American Revolution. We don't teach anything for that.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

Would this country be like if we actually honored the treaties that we signed with indigenous tribes?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

It'd probably be a wonderful place if we actually kept our words.

SPEAKER_05 40:07

I think about that all the time. We do not need to see an HBO uh show where they they wonder what America would be like if the Confederacy won. We need to see an HBO show about what America would be like if the United States the United States honored all of our treaties.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Alright, guys. That's it. We gotta go because this is we gotta get on audio.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah. Trigger warning.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

We don't need this. We don't need this that's just groovy thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Thank you so much for being here. Uh we'll see you guys next week. We'll see you next week. Trigger warning, hosted by Dalen Ardiccio and Adam Meet Hammer Clesh, is a Pride House media production and produced by Josh Rosensweig. Please note the views reflected in this podcast do not represent the views of Red Eye, the Ice Palace, or any of its subsidiaries. And any reference to scat, tripping, upperductors, skanks, masturbating, rump riding, wolfbagging, Cleveland steamers, jigglypuffing, rusty trombones, cosby sweaters, Mexican pancakes, and Alabama Hot Pockets are the views of Mr. Ardiccio, Mr. Clesh, and his listeners, not the establishment. If you are offended, please seek immediate psychiatric attention.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast. And while you're there, leave us a rating and review. It really helps others discover the show. And if you didn't enjoy this episode, don't tell anyone. Stay connected and join the conversation by following us on Trigger Warning Podcast. And you can send us your questions or hate mail to trigger at triggerwarning.com.