Tierney Talks

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Tierney invites screenwriter Michelle Badillo and comedian Heather Jewett into the Montez Press Radio RV outside the 2019 Los Angeles Book Fair. While book collectors stroll MOCA and the radio staff cracks beers on lawn chairs outside, Michelle, Heather and Tierney crouch around the motor home's dining room table and discuss their mothers. The segment is called "Maternal Adoration and Agitation" because that bond is crazy AF. Heather reads a piece called "Meal Time With Mommy," Michelle reads a diary entry from high school and I read an excerpt from my short story "Reseda," which originally appears in Dazed and Confused A/W 2019. 

Heather and Michelle's stories are sooooooo funny and beautiful, you'll squeal and squirm and smile. 

Follow Michelle @_mistermichelle and Heather @hurrrjurrr

Thank you Montez Press. 

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Michelle Badillo is a screenwriter and actor from Queens, New York. We are globally renown best friends. Michelle is a sexy television writer and humorist, best known for her work on One Day At A Time, the Netflix reboot of the original Norman Lear sitcom, and The Bold Type, a show about young journalists for which she probably drew great inspiration from my life. 

You also might recognize Michelle from the steamy, non-binary facesitting scene in season one, episode three of the Starz show Vida. She's appeared in Vogue because modeling is very easy for her.

Michelle is so funny, so smart, so silly, so naughty, so sweet, etc.

We talk about The Hills: New Beginnings, especially how emotional Michelle became when Mischa Barton appeared on screen and how much we love Brandon Thomas Lee. We tell the story of how we met and our first impressions of one another – including lip rings, crowns, bodycon dresses, cigarettes, screenwriting, Facebook and early bedtimes. We also reflect on trusting our intuition, coming out after a GSA meeting and noticing childhood class dynamics. 

We mock the trust fund kids we went to school with, including their helicopters home to La Jolla, self-driving sports cars and wack-job parents. Michelle has the nerve to disclose where we attended school and I covertly assert that I was too smart to go there. I finally admit that I was famous but bullied on campus. 

We talk about the unique way moms talk about their daughters' bodies and Michelle teaches me how to become a successful screenwriter. I qualify multiple comments with "not to stigmatize" because I don't want to stigmatize. Michelle sings a couple of showtunes, lusts after Megan Fox and reflects on the more challenging aspects of lending her own teenage experiences as a queer woman of color to a character on TV. 

Finally, we play "Tierney Answers," an incredible new segment where my guest interviews me about my many attributes and preferences. 

Follow Michelle on Instagram and Twitter - @mistermichelle_ 
Follow me too  - @tstar7

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Credit and thanks to Margot Padilla, the best sound engineer

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Peggy Noland is an American fashion designer and artist known for her eccentric clothes and cheeky critiques of consumer culture. 

In this episode, Peggy discusses being a lifelong “texture queen,” the biological underpinnings of our slime obsession and the thrill of crushing Tide Pods between her fingers. We get into her experiences teaching high school students, closing her iconic store in Kansas City and changing the vehicular aesthetic of Los Angeles one hand-painted car at a time. 

We also talk about why she is so impacted by JOANN Fabric and how an early exposure to fast fashion factories in India changed her career trajectory.  

Peggy counsels my imposter syndrome, describes the emotional experience of making projects alone and addresses learning from creative misses. 

Peggy is a silly, supportive friend. Follow her on Instagram @peggynoland. 

“Peggy’s Cartoon-Up” is an original song by Shannon Shaw and Seth Bogart. Watch Peggy’s car-painting webseries here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqGa6p1BINg&t=1s

“That’s So” is an original song by @disfantasy (a new bubbly hip hop group featuring our audio producer Margot Padilla). 

Follow me @TSTAR7 and share this podcast with someone who likes slime, clothes or the sound of my voice. 

Credit and thanks to Margot Padilla, the best sound engineer. 

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Jiz Lee is an award winning porn performer, queer porn superstar and author of the anthology “Coming Out Like A Porn Star: Essays on Pornography, Protection, and Privacy.” This episode begins with two readings from the book, followed by a conversation with Jiz about the origins of their porn career, the importance of teaching porn literacy rather than arguing about “good porn” versus “bad porn,” not shaming someone’s sexual fantasies and dispelling myths about porn production.  

Then, we move into a panel discussion with Lotus Lain and Miss Mimosa. Lotus Lain is an independent porn performer, writer and activist who works with the Free Speech Coalition, the adult industry's trade association. Mimosa is an artist and sex worker with experience as a professional dominatrix, BBW porn performer and fetish content creator who spends most of her time in San Francisco in LA. She also works behind the camera in both adult and mainstream film, doing both casting and performer advocacy. 

The group discusses diversifying who gets to feel sexy, their experiences disclosing their work to both friends and family and new acquaintances and the hypocrisy of the way Hollywood treats sex workers. Lotus speaks about being outed as a porn performer without her consent, the stigma of having sex for fun and how porn can be one of the safest settings to explore kink. 

Mimosa remembers asking her mother about how she would react if she became a porn star at the age of ten and reflects on body positivity within porn. 

“Having a body that’s different, for me, was always a source of power,” Mimosa says. “When you’re your own home, other people will want to be there.”

This episode was recorded live during Pillow Talk in the penthouse at the Standard Hotel in Los Angeles. Follow @jizlee and buy their book here: bigcartel.com/product/coming-out-like-a-porn-star

Credit and thanks to Margot Padilla, the best sound engineer. 

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Andrea Amez is a gifted esthetician, discerning product concierge and educated cosmetic chemist. She is best known for the "transformational facials" she gives at Skin Worship, one of the most influential, holistic beauty collectives in Los Angeles, and for her own fabulously luminescent skin.

Our friendship alone changed my skin way before she gave me my first facial. Andrea convinced me to stop relishing in the sick pleasure of extracting my own blackheads, educated me about the benefits and tricky politics of the "green beauty" industry and actually got me to use toner and sunscreen daily (after years of knowing I should).

Andrea is also a cranial sacral therapist, meaning she performs subtle bodywork on the bones of the head and spinal column to release energetic blockages from the body.

She may see celebrity clients in Beverly Hills and have her signature style of natural glam featured in L’uomo Vogue, but her philosophy as a healer is inclusive and compassionate. 

Listen to our conversation to hear how a run-in with a Hollywood superstar in the early 2000s fueled her passion for skincare, how she's attempting to correct gaps in the availability of quality skin services for women of color and how spirituality factors into her practice as an esthetician. 

Andrea also answers questions about types of retinol, under-eye discoloration, under-boob acne, the various dermatological issues plaguing our inner thighs and genitals, whether or not smoking weed is bad for your skin and how so many influencers go about achieving skin as smooth as a dolphin's.  

Andrea is brilliant, hilarious and delightfully down-to-earth. Follow her on Instagram @amez_skinworship. 

While you're at it, follow me @TSTAR7 and share this podcast with someone you would discuss your ingrown hairs with <3

And if you'd like Andrea to answer your skin, beauty, etc questions next time we talk, send them ALL my way: [email protected]. 

Credit and thanks to Margot Padilla, the best sound engineer. 

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