So, we're over 250 episodes in to this show, and on some days when I'm feeling particularly cocky I'm like 'oh, yeah, I think I've learnt everything there is to know about being queer', and then on other days I'm like 'actually, I know nothing about the human spirit and the resilience of queerness despite the odds.'

(Ok, that was a little dramatic, but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying!).

All of that is to say, that this week marks our first episode featuring a chubs and chasers space – a whole queer sub-community I knew practically nothing about until my guests graciously fielded all my eager (and perhaps ignorant) questions.

And, who are these guests? Well, it's Dan and Don from The Big Fat Gay Podcast, who joined me to discuss Girth and Mirth, a social club that operated across the USA organising events for chubs and chasers.

I loved this conversation because sometimes it's nice to have the chaos of three people to try and wrangle, but also because Dan and Don just brought such different perspectives to the table.

Oooh, and if you're not familiar with chubs and chasers, don't worry – we break it all down in the first ten minutes of the conversation.

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So if I were to tell you that this week's guest had just published a new book titled 'Disco: Music, Movies, and Mania Under the Mirror Ball'* you'd be expecting some spectacular stories of glamour and debauchery, right?

Well, I'm pleased to say that author Frank DeCaro did not disappoint!

We caught up to chat about the lost legendary Chicago space Dugan’s Bistro, a gay discotheque that was a cornerstone of his coming-of-age years, and Frank was so generous in sharing stories of friendships, wild nights, and finding himself in the midst of it all.

What I really loved about this conversation is that Frank is just unapologetically himself, and from the sounds of it, his coming out was refreshingly joyous, exciting and celebratory, and it's really nice to be reminded that it can be that way. You know?

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(* this is an affiliate link, and I will get a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you buy using this link)

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We are back to our regular programming next week!

But, for our final pod-swap I am sharing the conversation I had with Tim Lagman (registered sexologist, don't you know!) on his show Sex Ed With Tim.

Tim was also a guest on Lost Spaces all the way back in 2021, and that conversation can be found ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠

Can't wait to get back to regular Lost Spaces episodes! See you next week.

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This week we have ⁠Dennis Anyone⁠, hosted by Dennis Hensley, as our special podcast-swap episode!

Dennis was also a guest on Lost Spaces all the way back in 2022, and that conversation is can be found ⁠⁠here⁠⁠

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Share your 2025 plans/resolutions with me: [email protected]

Over the holidays I'm going to share episodes from other podcasts that I've guested on throughout 2024, talking about lost spaces, queerness, and the weirdness of life.

This week we have The Queer Family Podcast, hosted by Jaimie Kelton!

Jaimie was also a guest on Lost Spaces, and that conversation is can be found ⁠here⁠

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Over the holidays I'm going to share episodes from other podcasts that I've guested on throughout 2024, talking about lost spaces, queerness, and the weirdness of life.

First up we have Gender Identity Weekly, hosted by Amethysta Herrick.

Amethysta was also a guest on Lost Spaces this year. If you want to go and listen to that conversation is can be found here

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Lately I keep thinking about that phrase "the past is a foreign country", and how sometimes a space doesn’t have to disappear to feel lost to us.

And I know that sounds like a bit of mumbo jumbo, but stay with me!

Queer spaces are always evolving and changing, and if we don't evolve and change with them, or if we're not there at the time they are evolving, then we risk being left behind.

Which brings us to this week's conversation, which happens to be one of my favourite types of stories - the big scary jump in to the unknown.

And the person leading us through the story is performance artist and theatre maker Emma Frankland, who took the big scary jump when she moved to Brighton, England eight years ago.

In our chat we talk about living on a boat, the visibility of Brighton's trans community, and finding community and solace at The Marlborough, a theatre-slash-performance space which still exists as a queer space, but has had a change of name and a lick of paint since Emma's glory days there.

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I've been getting increasingly sappy with you recently, and I'm not sure whether that's because I'm just getting softer in my older years, or if there's just an accumulation of gratitude that's bubbling to the surface, but... well, either way, just giving you the heads up that this intro is a bit sappy!

So, what am I sappy about? Well, I just love the network of stories that this podcast is building and how there's an overlap between experiences, perspectives, and memories.

And, I love that I'm able to have these conversations and form a real sense about cities that I've never been to and decades that I wasn't alive for all thanks to the stories that my guests share and how they navigated and responded to what was going on for them at the time. And I also love how one conversation can lead to another, which then leads to another.

Which brings me to the city of Edmonton, Canada.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with singer-songwriter D’orjay about The Roost, and during that conversation, they told me about another legendary space in the city—Flashback. It was dubbed the Studio 54 of the Prairies and recently became the subject of a documentary.

So, of course I needed to go and find out more!

That’s how I found Matthew Hays, who, along with his brother, made the documentary. We caught up to talk about sneaking into Flashback when he was underage, what it was like to revisit the past while making the film, and, of course, his favourite hobby at the time—husband hunting!

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Sometimes when I'm putting this show together I like to imagine that someone has somehow found this show in 50 years time and are having a good ol' giggle at how quaint and ol'timey the things we are talking about are.

And if you are one of these people from the future it's probably worth me telling you about a little thing called the Covid-19 pandemic. This was (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime event where a highly contagious disease was sweeping the globe and, so, we were all made to stay in our houses for a good chunk of time to slow down the spread - like, around two years.

It was especially tough because we didn't know when it was going to end, and we kept having these false starts where we were told we were allowed out and then our governments were like 'oh, whoops, no, spoke too soon - get back in your houses!'.

Anyway, I tell you all of this because this week's guest, actor/singer/cabaret artist Jens Radda, had just moved to the city of Melbourne, Australia, from Sydney when the pandemic broke out, and so it had a significant influence on how he settled in to the city, how he made friends, and how he filled his days.

And the periods of 'freedom' (for want of a better word) that he got in between lockdowns were precious and exciting to him because he got to go to queer spaces like the Rainbow House Club.

Other episodes about Melbourne

"Drag And Gayness Requires Delusion" - with Lazy Susan from Death to Everyone Podcast

"Drag Can Be Different Things For Different People" - with Zelda Moon from Death to Everyone Podcast

The Market, Commercial Road, Melbourne, Australia (with Katie Underwood)

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Although I can appreciate a lot of the things about getting older I wouldn't say that I'm totally super enthusiastic about it (especially the creaking joints!).

So, it was kind of nice to talk to singer/songwriter D'orjay and get a different perspective on getting on in years.

And, in fact, everything about this week conversation is just lovely.

It's one of those looking-back-at-teenage-you and thinking both 'what the hell was wrong with you?' at the same time as 'oooh, you are such a special person', and I always find those conversations really affirming.

Finding out about a teenage D'orjay who had just moved to Edmonton, Canada, and found a little corner of the city in the gay bar The Roost was just delightful.

It's worth nothing that there are a couple of things that come up in this chat that are worth mentioning so you can keep up. -

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