DINNER PARTNERS with Christopher & Eric

Welcome to Sapphire Cove Summer! Christopher and Eric kick off a rollicking release party for SAPPHIRE DAWN, the new installment in Christopher’s steamy gay romance series. One of the most brash and controversial characters in the series is getting his very own happily ever after…courtesy of a premise from Eric Shaw Quinn himself. (Opposites attract planning a wedding anyone?) Your hosts also shower tons of love and attention on the gay romance novels they love, with special shout outs to bestselling authors K.J. Charles and Tal Bauer and others. SAPPHIRE DAWN is available June 25th for Kindle Unlimited subscribers and everywhere physical books are sold. Get ready for a month of sex, sand and summer.

Say the name Matthew Shepard to any queer person who lived through the 1990’s, or any person with an ounce of humanity, and they’re likely to get tears in their eyes. That’s the case with Christopher and Eric. As they serve up THE MATTHEW SHEPARD STORY: AN AMERICAN HATE CRIME on Discovery ID, their own memories of that painful time come bubbling to the surface, reinforcing their personal devotion to the concept of Pride Month, visibility and equality. It’s a searing comprehensive documentary about the horrific, headline-making murder that changed the nation’s understanding of what a hate crime is. But its final note is a controversial one. Are we losing the progress we’ve made or are we losing perspective on how much has been accomplished since Matthew’s terrible murder and beyond? Christopher and Eric share their thoughts.

Sometimes LGBT equality means the freedom to make the same crappy choices straight people do. Your hosts travel to the beautiful Ohio River Valley to meet an out and proud hairdresser turned coal mine foreman with questionable taste in men and home decor. In episode 8 of season 32 of venerable true crime classic DATELINE, entitled “Dangerous Secret”, the unflappable Dennis Murphy narrates this twisty, soapy tale of bedroom antics turned deadly.  Meanwhile, Christopher and Eric play a speedy game of who can spot the guilty party the quickest. It’s usually Eric, but this time it might be a draw.

Pride Month continues as Christopher and Eric head to Texas for a True Crime TV Club installment that deepens their previous episode’s discussion of crime and hate in the Lone Star State. It turns out Paul Quintanilla was just one of many queer people who lost their lives to cable TV’s supercharging of bigoted televangelists in the 1990’s. In season 2, episode 3 of VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL, entitled “The Killing Trail”, we follow a hateful and bloody path from the windswept beaches outside Corpus Christi to the public parks of Dallas. Along the way they encounter brave, dedicated activists who managed to effect change in one of the country’s most conservative states.

Christopher and Eric kick off Pride Month with a much anticipated return visit from their very own citizen detective, Clark Williams, the man who solved the Billy Newton murder. This time Clark sits down at our table to share the work he’s been doing on an eerily similar case brought to him by one of our beloved Party People. In June of 1994, 28-year-old Paul Quintanilla was discovered in an empty field within sight of the Dallas Cowboys training facility in Irving, Texas, hours after leaving a popular Dallas gay bar. His hideous wounds suggested a crime driven by hate and rage. Our conversation with Clark is a searing history lesson in the dangers queer men faced throughout Texas during the 1990’s and beyond.

Rain drops on roses and 2024 is almost half over. We will have no whiskers on kittens, but Christopher and Eric do have plenty of opinions about the pop culture highlights from the first part of the year – not a big surprise. More importantly, will their current crop of favorites still be in their top spots by the time 2025 rolls around? Even more importantly, will Christopher and Eric even remember they promised you they’d answer this question come December? Doubtful, but stay tuned. In the meantime, we’re left to wonder if Christopher will enjoy more than just the pricey pilot episode of a certain much ballyhooed new FX drama and if Eric will manage to watch anything that doesn’t include a murder mystery being solved in a British garden with a side of tea.

In the final chapter of Couples From Hell Month, Christopher and Eric take a trip to Paduka, Kentucky by way of Tampa, Florida thanks to a devious, underhanded and murderous, lonely hearts con artist who cruelly plots his way into a good woman’s heart with the help of his long lost “illegitimate stepson”. While they’re all about diversity and inclusion, your out and proud hosts see little to celebrate about the fact that Charles Chumbler and Michael Kariakis are one of the few same sex couples covered in the Oxygen series KILLER COUPLES. As they serve up episode 3 of season 17, entitled – you guessed it “Charles Chumbler and Michael Kariakis” – the legal system presents them with a morally ambiguous twist that tests the definition of bias, and Christopher and Eric’s tolerance for fairness in the eyes of the law. Keep your ears open for Eric’s NSFW litmus test for homophobic judicial misconduct!

Couples From Hell Month continues with Christopher and Eric’s outraged final serving of the last two episodes of KEN & BARBIE KILLERS: THE LOST MURDER TAPES on Max. Canada’s most hideous murder case turns into Canada’s trial of the century. (Don’t just take our word for it, check out the comments from our Canadian Party People!) The resulting media melee  raises questions about the nation’s legal system in the process — questions that raise Christopher and Eric’s blood pressure as well. Just when you thought this story couldn’t get any worse, we’re greeted by a legal legerdemain from hell, evidence so distressing it sends spectators fleeing from the court room and obstruction of justice of the lowest and most pernicious sort. Eric rounds out the fiery discussion with an interrogation of everything that wasn’t covered in this otherwise exhaustive series. (Spoiler alert: Which wolves raised Paul Bernardo?)

It’s May. Here at TDPS, wedding bells are ringing and true crime victims are screaming.  To pay their own special homage to this season of renewals and nuptials, your bitter old hosts Christopher and Eric kick off our exploration of Couples From Hell Month with Part 1 of a True Crime TV Club installment serving up KEN & BARBIE KILLERS: THE LOST MURDER TAPES on Max. Our tale of marriage and mayhem begins in the Toronto area in the early 90’s, where a sexual predator is stalking one of its most peaceful suburbs. As the evil spreads, the trail of clues leads to the doorstep of a charismatic and attractive young couple, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Is this a story of domestic abuse spiraling out of control? Or is there evil beyond imagining behind closed doors? Christopher and Eric’s discussion of episodes 1 and 2 ends with a shocking cliffhanger in this tangled investigation. In our next episode, they serve up the stunning conclusion of what many still describe as Canada’s trial of the century.

In which Christopher and Eric try to put Spring Broke back together again. Your hosts discuss the lighter side of the raucous, drunken, licentious holiday that occupies the worst nightmares of most parents. And it’s all thanks to you our beloved Party People. We asked you to share your warmest Spring Break memories on The Dinner Party Show’s Facebook page, and the result was a nostalgic discussion of coming of age, coming out and how we define family and home.