Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Trans Activist Skye Spectrum
An audio version of this podcast can be found here.
00:00:01.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday Lee Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Find us on Ko-Fi slash sometimes hilarious horror. We are finishing up a series of special episodes dealing with vulnerable populations and big issues during the, well, we'll just call it what it is, during the fascist takeover of America.
00:00:29.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And this week we have with us Sky Spectrum, who is a multi-talented artist and activist. ah Z is proud to be part of the Ipsy Ann Arbor LGBTQIA plus community. And they're also known as Kevin, actually. And you can see Kevin or Sky on the Trans Narrative podcast, or locally, if you're an Ann Arbor type, you'll see them around town in the neighborhood theater group and in two different choirs, the chalice singers,
00:00:59.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
from the Unitarian Universalist kind Congregation and a Measure for Measure, which is a men's choral group. So out of drag as Kevin. And now we'll have links in the description. Okay. Hi, hi, hi. Thanks for being here.
00:01:16.84
Skye Spectrum
Welcome. Thank you, Winston, for having me on. This is an awesome topic to be talking about, especially right now, because we need to be out and proud and not cower as much as we possibly can, because yes,
00:01:34.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, man, civil disobedience. I'm here for it. And the thing is that for so many people now, simply liking yourself and treating yourself well and finding any modicum of happiness in the world is a revolutionary act because boy, they sure don't want us to.
00:01:53.23
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, i um I am fairly privileged in my life that I have reached the ripe old age of 44, and I am still out here, I am still queer, and I am not going anywhere.
00:02:11.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:02:11.56
Skye Spectrum
so
00:02:14.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it is typical on our show for us to go a little, well, it'd be a little off topic for us, but we like to ask guests about the first horror movie that they ever remember seeing.
00:02:24.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's just for fun. and So we can not start out on an incredibly heavy topic.
00:02:25.53
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
00:02:29.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
So let's let's have it. Let's hear your story.
00:02:31.22
Skye Spectrum
Okay. So the first horror movie that I can remember seeing was probably, uh,
00:02:46.41
Skye Spectrum
like the original Nosferatu. Um, my parents took me to the historic Redford theater in Michigan. And there was the organ plane and that, I will say, was my first experience with horror.
00:03:02.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
How old were you?
00:03:03.99
Skye Spectrum
um Probably like somewhere in the age of 10 or below, from what I remember, it's a long time ago.
00:03:13.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
So did you get it? Did you get that it was horror?
00:03:15.58
Skye Spectrum
Of course not. But that was, what that was yeah, from what I was remembering, that was probably it, yeah.
00:03:23.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's really interesting.
00:03:24.35
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
00:03:25.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause that's, uh, I mean, it's super arty to take a kid to see that movie, especially with the, the, the live music and everything, but that's, wow, that's really interesting. So I was, uh, when I looked at your bio, I actually learned some new pronouns.
00:03:40.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
What I'm seeing here is Z, which is Z I. And, uh, here, is that how we pronounce that?
00:03:46.88
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, so back actually when I was in college, I had a linguistics professor tell me that these would never make it into the lexicon, no matter how noble the cause would be.
00:03:47.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
H I R.
00:04:02.27
Skye Spectrum
And
00:04:05.21
Skye Spectrum
Unfortunately and fortunately, it was kind of right, but at the same time, I can say now that in big mouth, I saw these words in displayed of different pronouns that one could use for being gender neutral, which I think the
00:04:24.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Well like the the MX in the in the formal is is something I've been trying to use more
00:04:31.50
Skye Spectrum
MX, yes, that's another good one too. Uh, so I do only know one other person in my current, in my actual life that does use Z in here. Um, most of the people that are gender neutral do use they them. However, I feel that Z in here are more fitting as an individual singular pronoun than they, even though it does have a historical reference as being a single
00:05:04.82
Skye Spectrum
pronoun back from like the medieval times.
00:05:08.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, how ah do people respond that are not part of the LGBTQ community um when you introduce a ah new pronoun like that? What kind of responses do you get from people?
00:05:20.49
Skye Spectrum
Well, so that's the interesting part of it is that I really don't. When I introduce myself, I just introduce myself with my name. um depending on the circumstances and circles that I'm in, that's when I will throw in the pronouns.
00:05:38.40
Skye Spectrum
And for me, as a trans male, I worked hard to find the he him with Kevin.
00:05:51.32
Skye Spectrum
And so I look at Z here as like extra toppings. If that makes any sense.
00:05:58.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
i see yeah it totally does um i know a lot of people are resistive to not just using the correct pronouns but like people are flipping out and about pronouns in general and it always makes me laugh because first of all they can't seem to tell me how upset they are about pronouns without using pronouns because uh well you know maga people in particular are not exactly known for their good grammar which is another reason why it's so funny the idea that they get irrationally angry about grammar, given the the state of their, because, you know, I'm a language person, I've been writing
00:06:39.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
my whole life with with an eye toward just being a popular writer and and being read. And I love seeing language change, but I also have ADD and I don't remember things very well. I'm on the spectrum and all that there. So um I'm not always Johnny on the spot when it comes to remembering people's pronouns, if they change during my my knowing of them.
00:07:03.51
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:07:04.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
And what I find is that I have never had a trans or or nb person get angry with me because I have said the the wrong pronouns. They either say nothing or they'll gently correct me.
00:07:20.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Oftentimes, I'll be like, oh fuck, I'm sorry, I i did that wrong, i'm I'm sorry. And then they'll end up consoling me.
00:07:25.00
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:07:26.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no, it's okay, it's okay.
00:07:26.88
Skye Spectrum
Mhm.
00:07:28.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
like No, you don't have to console me because I'm a fuckup and can't remember that you know you told me a year ago that you were doing this thing. and i you know Because obviously, decent people want to be respectful to each other.
00:07:43.81
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
00:07:44.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I have, on the other hand, seen lots of people get angry when they're asked to respect someone's pronouns.
00:07:53.32
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, um so here's the interesting part of my life is that I i have two trans-nibblings now, and um my mom has problems.
00:08:09.65
Skye Spectrum
And my mom has seen me go through my life and been there for me.
00:08:16.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, your family is, like, Christian religious, right?
00:08:19.00
Skye Spectrum
No, no.
00:08:20.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, they're not. Okay.
00:08:21.44
Skye Spectrum
um So this is part of my interesting childhood. um My mom where was, is reformed Jew and my dad was raised Episcopalian, but is more agnostic.
00:08:38.96
Skye Spectrum
So I didn't actually have a religious upbringing except for my grandparents. And it was choosing to go with them to church to find sense of spirituality and and belonging. And my friend from college used to joke, my brother and I would happen when Dharma and Greg got married and had kids.
00:09:06.15
Skye Spectrum
um and
00:09:11.01
Skye Spectrum
it was very much the choose your own adventure kind of thing.
00:09:18.06
Skye Spectrum
My parents in the 70s got married by a Unitarian Universalist rap ah unit unitarian universalists minister and an openly gay rabbi.
00:09:31.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
00:09:31.95
Skye Spectrum
So yeah, um that is my upbringing.
00:09:38.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, OK.
00:09:38.18
Skye Spectrum
So thankfully I didn't have to deal with the religious dogma as much. And the only person who really gave me any of a hard time was my dad's mom um who was really vicious both when I came out and is is like lesbian and then as trans equally.
00:10:09.15
Skye Spectrum
Um, irony would have it that she fell and died after attending my college graduation. So make of that what you will.
00:10:21.14
Skye Spectrum
Um, so yeah.
00:10:22.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. um So it sounds like overall, ah with the exception of you know the greatest generation, um you you got the kind of support that you needed from the people and in your circle.
00:10:37.90
Skye Spectrum
Yes, i was I was also very grateful because i from a very, very early age, even wait of course before I knew anything about queer identity, LGBT community or anything like that, I'd always reached out to other maternal figures, figures you know like teachers um who were there to be able to have support on for me through the the challenging times and you know thankfully that's that's how I was able to survive. Even my mom's mentally unstable you know parts of her life and dealing with the chaos of having you know you know a queer child in the 90s had its own challenges.
00:11:39.08
Skye Spectrum
Uh, I also am grateful that I, uh, share a connection with our current attorney general in the fact that I grew up in her childhood home and share an openly lesbian teacher that went to, that taught at the high school that we both went to.
00:12:00.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Cool.
00:12:04.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Neat.
00:12:04.46
Skye Spectrum
So yeah.
00:12:04.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so, um, I've been told from people who feel very confident that the word cis is a slur. Is the word cis a slur?
00:12:17.22
Skye Spectrum
In my opinion, it isn't because it's, it's again, I not being a cis gendered person, I don't know if I'm the right person to speak about this, but from my experience, if you're gonna say trans, and that's acceptable, why is cis not?
00:12:43.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and I think that that is the rub, sir, that ah that the people who think that cis is a slur are using the word trans as a slur, and that's how they came to feel that way about it.
00:12:47.13
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:12:56.62
Skye Spectrum
Oh, okay. So yeah.
00:12:59.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
but That's my guess. i Because again, I don't want to speak for transphobes because I am not i amm not authorized by transphobes to speak for them.
00:13:09.37
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:13:10.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank goodness. um yeah And the thing is that like any word can be a slur if that's how you're using it and certain words can be used by certain populations
00:13:20.48
Skye Spectrum
Mm hmm.
00:13:25.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
not as a slur because of a you know they're either reclaiming the word or they use it differently. I can tell you a while back there was a fashion designer who was specializing in swimsuits for large women and they designed something called a fatkini which was a generously designed bathing suit with a bare midriff and I thought it was amazing and I really wanted one and I posted about it online and I was told that I should not use the word fat-kini and that that was horrible and it was mocking and that the word fat is a slur and no one should use it.
00:14:04.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
and I did not agree with that because I am, ah you know, i I certainly dabble in body acceptance. I'm not especially good at accepting my body as as it is, but I i recognize that as ah a goal for a lot of people and I think it's a valid one. And that's the thing that I think once a word has hurt someone,
00:14:30.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's reasonable to say, hey, don't use that word toward me. I don't like it. I think that's a reasonable thing, but I think when we make the leap to you use that word, you're hateful.
00:14:35.16
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
00:14:42.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're a bad person now because the word itself isn't what makes someone a bad person. It's whether or not, yes, exactly.
00:14:48.60
Skye Spectrum
Right. It's the intention.
00:14:52.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
So.
00:14:53.48
Skye Spectrum
And that's...
00:14:53.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I don't have a fat Keeney yet, by the way. Donate to our coffee store so I can get one.
00:14:58.38
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
00:14:59.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not you, the listeners. um um so So listen, America is about to get a whole lot worse for trans folks. It's already starting. People are getting thrown out of their jobs.
00:15:12.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah protections are just evaporating. um And but we thought, actually, when I wrote these questions for you a couple weeks ago, it looked like the oppression was going to be on a state by state basis.
00:15:25.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that already doesn't seem to be the case. There are some some federal crackdowns. I've heard about people trying to leave the country and not being able to because of passport problems, because passports ah you know require a gender um that
00:15:36.45
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. Marker.
00:15:41.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. And, and be people are not like, like, what what are your thoughts on all that?
00:15:44.21
Skye Spectrum
So and here's, ah so I was actually just um on the trans narrative podcast ah with Sasha Rent. I'm going to mangle that name.
00:16:02.99
Skye Spectrum
um but she's a lawyer for the Lambda Legal.
00:16:08.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:16:08.78
Skye Spectrum
um and that so Organizers are organizing. People are doing what they can. However, I have heard of ah folks who, from what I understand, are US citizens.
00:16:32.62
Skye Spectrum
born in the US that are getting their documents taken away.
00:16:40.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I've heard that as well.
00:16:40.64
Skye Spectrum
Now, I i don't i would like um and wish I could say that that was not happening and that we're gonna brush it off, but at the same time I'm going, no, no, no, I can't because Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. And as someone born in the Jewish community, I of course look to this and say, haven't we been here before? Why are we here again? Oh, because we didn't learn from history. And so of course we are doomed to repeat it. So
00:17:25.94
Skye Spectrum
I actually had ah a friend, a local, you know, um activist who's known me for many years um come to me in Meijer during the election and almost like it was out of the 1930s Germany say, do you have your passport? You need to get your passport now. He's going to win and he's going to come after trans people.
00:17:55.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:17:56.62
Skye Spectrum
and it shook me to my core to be there shopping for whatever I was shopping for and then be shook with the fact of, oh no, this is this is serious, it's real.
00:18:10.17
Skye Spectrum
um So then, and here's here's where I started to think because
00:18:14.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
well It really didn't seem like he could win again. I mean,
00:18:23.32
Skye Spectrum
My mom said he was going to, my cousin, one of my other cousins said he was going, like, there are people who, um and my mom is not a Trump supporter. I just want to make sure that is abundantly clear like not this that. the way that we're in, but people were telling me, my friend Tiffany, who told me, you know, unfortunately your mom's right. I think he's going to win. And then to me, what the the the extra sting was, was that,
00:18:51.92
Skye Spectrum
I was volunteering for the Harris campaign. I was like, I am on the ground. I am doing, I make phone banking. I am doing their tech IT help for their phone banking folks. And I was doing what I could and I attended the rally in Ann Arbor. It was the only rally I could attend. I hopped off the phone banking and I said, all right, folks, I'm gonna go to the Harris rally.
00:19:21.70
Skye Spectrum
And I was able to get one of my bucket list dreams achieved, which was be on camera for a rally.
00:19:37.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:19:37.92
Skye Spectrum
So there I was with my sunglasses, because that's part of the reason I was there with my maybe fabulous glasses that I got from the dollar store. And someone's like,
00:19:51.20
Skye Spectrum
Can you do me a favor and be on TV and step behind the podium? I go, yes.
00:19:56.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Can I?
00:19:59.01
Skye Spectrum
And so there I was. I came up to about Kamala Harris's shoulder um halfway there. And I only saw myself because i after the election, because I didn't want to jinx it.
00:20:18.28
Skye Spectrum
I didn't want to look for myself and somehow jinx the election. Um, and so I ended up finding myself on a Randy rainbow video, having around five times to see it.
00:20:29.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, awesome.
00:20:30.31
Skye Spectrum
Um, so, but in the rally, there was energy, there was awesome, you know, however,
00:20:30.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
00:20:41.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, a couple of friends of mine went, i I don't, you know, do stuff like that anymore.
00:20:46.48
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, but the hard part for me was I was right where the, I could see the teleprompter and trans rights was in the teleprompter.
00:20:46.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
But
00:21:04.64
Skye Spectrum
However, nobody that ever made it on stage, not, um, governor walls, not, um,
00:21:17.89
Skye Spectrum
ah Debbie Dingell, not um Kamala Harris herself. Nobody mentioned trans rights. So we were fighting like cowards and so we lost as cowards.
00:21:36.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, that's rough.
00:21:37.58
Skye Spectrum
So, and then to top it all, yeah.
00:21:40.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, so so you think that not mentioning, see, I have a hard time thinking that, like, I agree that it is wrong to not mention trans rights because they're a vulnerable population and they're under attack.
00:21:53.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course we should be talking about that. I can't imagine that a lot of trans people were so offended by that that they voted for Trump.
00:22:01.77
Skye Spectrum
No, no, no. and And like, here's the thing. I, I, and there were people who, that when we'd call them, they'd be like, if you call me one more time, I'm not voting for Kamala Harris. Like I, I, you know, I would like to believe that you didn't.
00:22:16.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, that logically follows, not.
00:22:17.76
Skye Spectrum
Like, you know, I would hate to think that democracy wavered on an extra phone call.
00:22:24.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, I mean, I was a voting ambassador, so I talked to a lot of people. And I mostly, I focused a lot on like decent people that went to the same poor high school as me, because I went to two different high schools.
00:22:34.39
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:22:36.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I was trying to talk to the people that you know People who were legitimately on the fence instead of just calling my buddies and agreeing with them.
00:22:43.12
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:22:46.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
and it I had a very difficult time not getting upset at how much, not just misinformation, but very blatant Nazi-style propaganda.
00:23:01.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know ah ah particularly about trans people, because if you are willing to believe that there's an entire demographic whose entire lifestyle is predicated around grooming children,
00:23:01.26
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:23:14.59
Skye Spectrum
I.
00:23:15.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's you have to already hate those people to believe something like that so easily if you told me that about any demographic whether it's you know Catholics or policemen or I mean even priests I know most people who become priests don't become priests for that reason you know and yet people seem very willing to believe
00:23:20.81
Skye Spectrum
So.
00:23:33.39
Skye Spectrum
Right.
00:23:36.05
Skye Spectrum
and Yeah.
00:23:39.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
even something super simple that they haven't thought through. Like if someone says, Kamala slept her way to the top. They don't even seem to understand what they're saying. And I, i'll you know, cause I would respond to that with, okay, wait, what men do you accuse of being so desperate to have their weighing touched that they hired or promoted someone who was not fit for the job? Which men did that? And why are they still in power?
00:24:06.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you never get to that. You never get to that part.
Skye Spectrum
Here's my point. here's Here's my point is that I don't understand how there are people that are activists that are for freedom of choice of one thing.
00:26:31.56
Skye Spectrum
but they don't understand the plight of the intersectionality of them. It is a statement of certain communities that are in that area that are like, yeah, pro pot, but who cares about queer rights?
00:27:20.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
I could certainly feel your frustration with that, and I i think that's absolutely valid. If there is a community or a fandom that does not have bigotry in it, this will be the first I've heard of it.
00:27:31.58
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:27:32.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, you know, we all used to be Harry Potter fans.
00:27:33.33
Skye Spectrum
and yeah
00:27:35.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
We know how that goes. um
00:27:37.74
Skye Spectrum
My friend actually just sent me something regarding that. i And he was afraid he didn't want to be seen as ah as a um a turf supporter. And I go, nope, nope, you're not looking.
00:27:53.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Honestly, and and I'll go on the record as saying this, I think it's perfectly fine to enjoy the Harry Potter things that you already have.
00:28:00.81
Skye Spectrum
who
00:28:01.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
I like i deal with that by making sure that any way that I consume that content, I do in a way that does not send money to that person.
00:28:10.67
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:28:11.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Additionally, i have I no longer shop at the Noble Collection, because that was always such a big deal for me. Like, oh, it's tax time. I have $100. Oh, my gosh.
00:28:22.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm going to pick out some cool, nerdy thing. ah you know I had a friend and for a while. I got her all the the different Hogwarts houses, pens, because they I mean, those were cool. Noble Collection had so much cool stuff.
00:28:34.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
But long after it became clear that Rowling was not a person who deserved support, they chose the money and instead of of decency. So.
00:28:45.50
Skye Spectrum
Well, and and that's like another thing that this election had me kind of reeling from because, you know, I used to work, I worked 12 years at Apple and I was the token trans person at Apple at my store for a fair amount of time.
Skye Specrtum
Then to see Tim Cook, openly gay CEO at
00:31:55.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:32:08.04
Skye Spectrum
the Trumpler takeover,
00:32:10.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think we're all pretty disappointed in some of the people that have gone fash lately.
00:32:18.69
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. So I just am.
00:32:21.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, that motherfucker ruined McDonald's for me. As a fat stoner, I take personal effect. My first job was at McDonald's. Like my first time clock, wear a uniform, show up on time job was was that. And You know, like some people are not surprising.
00:32:38.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nobody's like, oh no, Bezos went fast. Oh, no, not Zuckerberg.
00:32:42.18
Skye Spectrum
Right.
00:32:42.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
But like decent people, too.
00:32:42.75
Skye Spectrum
Um,
00:32:45.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, I don't I mean, I guess they can't be decent if they're doing that. But fuck you, Snoop Dogg.
00:32:49.77
Skye Spectrum
Well, and I think it, I mean, I, again, I would like to believe, I would like to believe that Snoop Dogg did it for the money and he's just going to, I mean, i Oh,
00:32:52.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just fuck you.
00:33:04.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, my understanding is that he needed some friends pardoned, and I don't know, I didn't verify that, but I've been told that by several sources that he played the inauguration so that Trump would pardon his friends, which is, I mean, that that's a tough call, ah honestly.
00:33:11.82
Skye Spectrum
okay.
00:33:22.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
00:33:22.39
Skye Spectrum
And that's the thing is we do what we need to survive. So in that vein, I do not look, I don't look at Snoop Dog performing at the inauguration as a statement as his political.
00:33:45.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I disagree.
00:33:46.54
Skye Spectrum
He is a performer who then, like you said, he wanted to get his friends pardoned. Well, I don't know about you, but I do what I can to help myself and my people that I care about.
00:34:02.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think that's fair. I do. Um, but I definitely disagree that playing the inaugural is not a political statement. Of course it is. And that's why Trump wanted him to do it.
00:34:14.29
Skye Spectrum
Right. No, I'm not saying that it isn't a political statement. All I'm saying is that. the reason behind it isn't that he is, you know, a fascist and he's, you know, bigot, but this was his, as someone who is in power, he used his power and connection to help his friends.
00:34:41.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, I get it, I guess.
00:34:43.39
Skye Spectrum
and that's And that's what I'm trying to do myself. I'm trying to use, any platform that I have to advocate and to be as vocal as I can for those that cannot, um, and to spread the word to those who want to hear. Cause I know I'll never like, I'm never going to be in that position.
00:35:17.93
Skye Spectrum
No matter how famous I get, I would never do that. Now, do I have friends in jail? No. So my circumstances are a little different than Snoop Dog's. And I don't know what that amount of power and affluenza that they all came down with does because
00:35:49.38
Skye Spectrum
When you're that well off, when you don't have to think about anything financially, I think your brain is corrupted. Like, you can be really corrupted by the fact that you can just, without a thought, buy a yacht, you know?
00:36:13.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i i that's one of the things that I asked actually, all these people that go fascist and and do fascist things for fascists. And I think, is there a specific dollar amount that you just stop thinking about other people?
00:36:28.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know that that's true because plenty of Democrats are greedy and rich and they still care about other people. So I don't.
00:36:35.91
Skye Spectrum
Right. this That's what I'm saying is that I think that um there are, unfortunately, a lot of people that are um fucking ill with affluenza and they have no regard for anybody that does not have what they have. And like, is seeing evidence of like,
00:37:03.83
Skye Spectrum
the California wildfires, we have people from all over stepping up because they've seen how our government reacts.
00:37:14.88
Skye Spectrum
They're like, Oh, no, not on my watch. I'm going to do what I can use what power I have and influence that I do to be a force for good, be a force for change.
00:37:34.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, that's like all you can do. I don't know.
00:37:37.16
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:37:38.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So if ah for for people that are in danger of some of the new laws, people that have just lost their jobs, um what ah what what do we do for those people?
00:37:41.39
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:37:51.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
what are Are there resources available? like if if i mean it is It is technically still illegal to fire someone for being gay or trans, right?
00:37:54.36
Skye Spectrum
There are.
00:37:58.06
Skye Spectrum
Yes, um it is.
00:37:59.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like technically?
00:38:01.56
Skye Spectrum
it It depends also where you are. It really does depend on where you are, okay? ah I have a friend, Caroline Penny, who is creator of the Trans Narrative Podcast, who unfortunately lives in Indiana and works at a small Christian college.
00:38:25.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, whoops.
00:38:26.20
Skye Spectrum
um So i tomorrow I'm gonna start a GoFundMe for her because She got kicked out of her parents' house twice.
00:38:40.66
Skye Spectrum
Twice. The first time I said, you come here, I have a blow-up mattress, you can stay with me. We'll spend the new year together. The second time, it was after um the new year, and she had a place lined up, but who she got sick and was sent home from work, and her shithead stepdad,
00:39:05.45
Skye Spectrum
kicked her out in the freezing cold weather. And I said, there's no way that I'm going to let you freeze to death in your car. So my unemployed ass spent 80 bucks on a hotel room in Indiana. So she didn't have to die because her parents were neglectful and hurtful.
00:39:26.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, well, homelessness, man, that shit can be instantly fatal depending on where you are and what's happening.
00:39:30.38
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
00:39:33.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, the weather alone can kill you, but, you know, ah particularly for trans people who are, you know, I don't need to tell you, but I'm telling listeners that the the risks of um hate crimes are just insane.
00:39:35.62
Skye Spectrum
and Yeah.
00:39:48.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, Like not even people that are like domestic terrorists and they plan hate crimes but I mean just casual like You know things being thrown at them out of cars and just ridiculous like Because bullying is very much back in fashion in the United States Among certain stripes of people just grown-ass adults acting like playground bullies like they just never got over fifth grade and
00:40:06.89
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
00:40:17.31
Skye Spectrum
ah And so also, the other thing I can um share, I can share it in the, you know, send it to you and attach it to the link in the bios resources for trans folks, um because i'm I'm fairly well connected in the community.
00:40:34.58
Skye Spectrum
um and I have access and resources that people who aren't as connected as I do. um So I can share that as well for folks that are are legitimately concerned rightfully so about where to go, how to do, what we what how do I survive? And unfortunately,
00:41:04.93
Skye Spectrum
I have bad news that we are in a situation much like 1930s Germany where people are going into hiding and that does mean detransition.
00:41:17.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
What a shame. What an awful thing.
00:41:19.89
Skye Spectrum
Yes. I, yeah.
00:41:22.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, we've had a couple of these episodes about specific issues. We had a show on gun ownership. We talked about education and local ah organizing. And we talked about sobriety. And also, I think this is a kind of an issue that touches on all of those, but but suicide prevention.
00:41:45.54
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
00:41:46.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And the thing is that I am occasionally suicidal. I had a big bout of that. My last one was in 2022. um Because COVID actually will cause suicidal depression, depending on how long you get to have it.
00:41:57.72
Skye Spectrum
Yep.
00:42:02.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And and the the key in all of those things is connection and community. That the more isolated you feel, the more likely you are.
00:42:14.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
to hurt yourself, the less likely you are to stand up for yourself or to to take the steps that that you need to. And that's that's exactly what they want. like That's the basis of stochastic terrorism, you know this idea.
00:42:27.02
Skye Spectrum
who
00:42:28.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's why like they're fucking up all the social media networks, because social media networks are such a powerful way for marginalized and vulnerable people to get together and organize and share information like they want so much to keep us from supporting each other.
00:42:39.89
Skye Spectrum
To connect, yeah.
00:42:47.43
Skye Spectrum
But here's the thing that they may have. the So the right is using the playbooks from the past, but so is the left. And I was just at the rally in Lansing. And the amount of trans resistance and joy was the medicine that I needed.
00:43:17.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Awesome.
00:43:17.83
Skye Spectrum
And now the the ah incredibled incredible thing about this is that not only was this a rally in Lansing, Michigan, but this was coordinated across nine states in the country, all at the same time on Thursday,
00:43:47.60
Skye Spectrum
January 30th, at noon to three, people stood in solidarity with us, for us, and there will be one at the Capitol in DC.
00:43:50.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:44:06.43
Skye Spectrum
And I am going to that.
00:44:08.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, here's my question.
00:44:10.20
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
00:44:11.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
My concern, I mean, obviously we have lots and lots and lots of concerns, but one of them is that eventually Trump is going to send the military to clear out protesters.
00:44:23.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then a bunch of 18-year-olds who were trying to afford college are going to have to decide whether or not it's a lawful order to open fire on civilians. Thoughts?
00:44:36.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, am I exaggerating?
00:44:36.79
Skye Spectrum
so i mean
00:44:38.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do we think that's, oh no, that would never happen here? Or how likely is that?
00:44:42.24
Skye Spectrum
Unfortunately, unfortunately, I'm going to say we have been here before.
00:44:47.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, Occupy Wall Street was almost like that. And I think the only reason more people didn't die is because so many of the protesters were like middle class or above and of the right pigmentation.
00:44:50.33
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:44:59.43
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. And that's. partially why I am doing what I can because I know I have white privilege.
00:45:11.50
Skye Spectrum
I have passing privilege as a male. Nobody is going to look at my bald head and beard and go, hello, miss. Um, like nobody.
00:45:21.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah ah
00:45:24.91
Skye Spectrum
And that is partially why I am starting drag as Sky Spectrum as an act of defiance of saying, I refuse to blend in to hide for safety.
00:45:40.52
Skye Spectrum
You know, my grandpa Bernie helped liberate the camps.
00:45:46.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ha ha ha ha ha!
00:45:46.43
Skye Spectrum
Like that's the stock that I come from. So there's, I would bring it on. We are at war. This is a war.
00:45:58.93
Skye Spectrum
The war is not coming. It is here. Um, and unfortunately it was declared on Americans own people.
00:46:09.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:10.52
Skye Spectrum
So this, I would call the second civil war.
00:46:11.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it well it it's interesting because it is very much the Southern strategy, but instead of it just being about Black people, it is also about ah Well, it it was gay and trans people, and now it's it's pretty much all liberals.
00:46:28.27
Skye Spectrum
Everything.
00:46:28.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know The Southern Strategy, for those who don't know, is a ah conservative ah strategy to win voters by telling bigots in the South that no matter how poor you are, how bad things go for you, you're still better than a Black person.
00:46:46.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that was a strategy. It was a winning strategy you know for the South. And we're still dealing with the fallout from it, because between that and the bigoted-ass electrical ah electrical electoral college,
00:46:57.52
Skye Spectrum
but Damn those grids!
00:47:00.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
I sound so smart. um it But between you know those two things, Republicans have had kind of a stranglehold on this country.
00:47:02.62
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:47:09.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I realize that technically I'm told Trump got the most votes last time, but ah as we know, the last two Republican presidents before this did not have a mandate from the voters.
00:47:20.99
Skye Spectrum
Well and that's...
00:47:22.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yet we were saddled with their bullshit anyway, and we still pay the price for it.
00:47:26.41
Skye Spectrum
And unfortunately, I have to say that I saw this coming in 2000 when I was bright and happy and like energetic and look at me, i'm i'm i'm eighteen i I was 19. I'm 19 years old and because at eighteen like there was no election. So I didn't vote when I was 18.
00:47:48.77
Skye Spectrum
um but 19 and I am ready and I am like, okay, there is no way that Gore is gonna lose.
00:47:59.29
Skye Spectrum
There's no way.
00:48:00.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
00:48:00.86
Skye Spectrum
like their had like Look at this guy W, he's a joke. He's like, da, da, da, and then like we all saw what happened. And I saw that and that's when I started to get pissed off.
00:48:14.68
Skye Spectrum
That's when I started to that's when i saw this coming. And then when I saw the Simpsons episode, I go, ah, damn, Simpsons predicting the future.
00:48:27.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
We've inherited a large budget crisis from President Trump.
00:48:32.14
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:48:34.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Back in the day when people said, oh, ho President Trump, how hilarious.
00:48:34.62
Skye Spectrum
But I wish.
00:48:38.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Remember the first time he ran? Wapo ran all of the news about him in the humor section.
00:48:44.83
Skye Spectrum
Oh my God.
00:48:46.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, yeah, those were the days back when democracy died in darkness. Oh wait, that's what it's doing now. Um, okay. So there has been like, I, you know, we've had lots of trans guests on the show. Um, and, uh, there is some disagreement as to whether or not being trans or NB is inherently neurodivergent.
00:49:10.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, myself, just just from the reading, I think that it has to be because it's it's not an established norm. um But some people use the term neurodivergent specifically to refer to autism. i I don't think that that is accurate, either linguistically or colloquially. What what do you think?
00:49:30.83
Skye Spectrum
Well, first off, my drag name is Sky, spelled from the Isles of Sky in Scotland, not the sky up above us.
00:49:38.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:49:38.97
Skye Spectrum
And spectrum, because we are all in one spectrum or another. And I think that it is complicated because you have the the language evolving out of necessity.
00:50:00.60
Skye Spectrum
And then you have people who hear the language and it doesn't work for them.
00:50:10.56
Skye Spectrum
So I think there's two things simultaneously happening with that because do I think that there's a correlation between trans people and autism? Yes. However, there sadly is also the same with i um sexual assault.
00:50:31.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but I wouldn't say necessarily that being trans and being autistic are connected, but that the term neurodivergence, I mean, neuro, brain stuff, diversion, not the norm.
00:50:36.31
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
00:50:42.27
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:50:44.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
So being trans would then be inherently neurodivergent, regardless of whether or not autism is present.
00:50:52.47
Skye Spectrum
See, I don't believe that just because I have met so many trans people in my life where I would say that they have a more of, I would say, typical um brain function and they're not um they're not on the spectrum or they're not in the, you know, atypical community. so
00:51:34.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, but certainly being trans is atypical. I mean, I don't know offhand the percentage of the population, but it's, you know, pretty low.
00:51:38.70
Skye Spectrum
well right it is is so it is a typical in terms of in terms of a population yes in terms of the mental part of it i that's where i tend to disagree because i think there's yeah
00:51:44.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's less than 10%.
00:52:03.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see.
00:52:06.11
Skye Spectrum
There are lots of people who are neurotypical. And there are lots of people who are trans. And yes, do I know a lot more people who are trans that are neurotypical? Yes.
00:52:25.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I think I could count on one hand the neurotypical people I know and then I, because there was, you know, my friend, well, I won't say their name, but my friend that was at H's birthday party with us.
00:52:24.89
Skye Spectrum
ah
00:52:36.62
Skye Spectrum
yes
00:52:37.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I think of him as being neurotypical. And if I tell him that he's like, Oh, well, you know, I've got this going on and that going on.
00:52:41.74
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
00:52:44.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think neurotypical is based on what we know of people as opposed to what people actually are.
00:52:44.97
Skye Spectrum
Hmm.
00:52:53.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, but here's the thing though, there are new meta guidelines.
00:52:53.66
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:52:57.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
So all the meta platforms, Instagram threads, Facebook, uh, it is now okay under community guidelines and standards to tell trends and yeah any gender nonconforming people that they are mentally ill.
00:53:12.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
That that is an acceptable thing to say. It is not considered bullying. Any thoughts?
00:53:19.66
Skye Spectrum
Of course. That's my first thought is of course, because, um, right.
00:53:26.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, i you could say the same of bigotry and transphobia, right? That those are mental illnesses.
00:53:30.06
Skye Spectrum
Because, I mean, I mean, I would obviously have obviously say that bigotry is more of a mental illness than being trans is for sure is.
00:53:40.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Well, because a kid that has never heard of a trans person can still tell you that they're not the gender that, you know, and it's weird because I just want to tangent a little bit here because when I talk to bigots and and turfs and such online, one of the things they'll say is no kids are going up to their parents and saying, I want to be a girl.
00:53:50.06
Skye Spectrum
yeah
00:54:04.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's true. They don't go up to their parents and say, I want to be a girl. They say, I am a girl. And then look at their parents like they're idiots for not seeing it.
00:54:14.89
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:54:15.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it's not, I want to change. I want to do this. It's like, no, this is what I am. Please treat me accordingly.
00:54:23.47
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:54:25.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which I think is like a fundamental disconnect. Course, these are people that believe that kids go to school and get sex change operations from the school nurse. You know, it's like you can't.
00:54:34.04
Skye Spectrum
Which has obviously never happened, never will.
00:54:37.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and you tell that to a teacher and they're like, what the hell are you talking about? We don't even have enough books for everybody. You think they're given surgeries.
00:54:43.12
Skye Spectrum
Right.
00:54:45.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, we, we can't have art class anymore because it's not in the budget. And you think we're like perform at what.
00:54:52.20
Skye Spectrum
Like slicing open a human being in the nurse's office and like.
00:54:56.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right. Right. And, and, and, you know, it's like, they believe the the litter boxes, like,
00:54:57.99
Skye Spectrum
ah Yeah.
00:55:03.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and they're walking around saying, oh, it's so stupid that there are litter boxes. No dumbass. It's stupid that you believe that there are litter boxes.
00:55:11.88
Skye Spectrum
Right.
00:55:12.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which goes back to what we were saying before. If you're so willing to believe things like this, you're already, you know, the propaganda machine saw you coming. If they if they can convince you of something that stupid that easily.
00:55:23.91
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
00:55:27.52
Skye Spectrum
Well, and that's what I want to just touch. i I mean, in terms of stupidity easily is my experience with Homeland Security.
00:55:40.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Do tell.
00:55:41.50
Skye Spectrum
So, um, I am on Snapchat and I and friends I was friends with a woman who I worked with it at Apple for several years.
00:55:57.95
Skye Spectrum
I'll say several years. And I thought she was cool. i you know we don't Neither of us work at Apple at this point in time.
00:56:08.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:56:09.61
Skye Spectrum
But I'm on her Snapchat. and I see two Trump-ler related posts.
00:56:22.72
Skye Spectrum
So I was like, and my friend was like, do you think she was trolling you?
00:57:45.56
Skye Spectrum
Then, of course, this woman screenshots this and sends it to Homeland Security, who shows up within 24 hours at my door.
00:57:52.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, that's quick.
00:57:54.58
Skye Spectrum
I wasn't even there at first when they, like, I was not even there when they showed up the first time.
00:57:55.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
You can't get a cable guy that quick.
00:58:00.41
Skye Spectrum
I was watching my friend's dog. So, I was in a where?
00:58:03.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
00:58:05.33
Skye Spectrum
And so I showed up and I was about to return a car. that I was renting to borrow my friend's dog, to take care of my friend's dog. And they showed up and they said, okay. So I said, I know exactly why you're here. I'm gonna start with the fact that I have an overactive imagination.
00:58:32.68
Skye Spectrum
And that this, yes, it was a private message that I sent to someone who I know in real life on Snapchat and then they said, you can say fuck Trump all you want. You just cannot threaten the life of a current or former president. And I said, okay, I understand. Makes sense. um And they looked around my room and in my apartment and they started questioning me, do you have any, any weapons? And they went through a bunch of weapons and I heard the word saber and I go, well, I have this lightsaber over there.
00:59:06.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:59:08.86
Skye Spectrum
And I point to like this $4, you know, cheap knockoff lightsaber that's next to my like Grogu Bluetooth speaker. And they look at my paintings like, and they're like, okay, so clearly you don't have a car. um You don't own a weapon. and And I said, yeah, so the if was if the gun materialized out of thin air.
00:59:37.70
Skye Spectrum
And the same with Trump, out of thin air. But seeing as how we're talking about science fiction, that's not gonna happen. And the dream that I had was in the style of only murderers in the building. And it all started because my ex and the dogs were sick And in the dream, my ex starts to adopt sick birds.
01:00:10.39
Skye Spectrum
um So that's clearly a dream. And I started to say, I was like, oh, and then I go to this hotel room and there's, yeah.
01:00:19.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so what ultimately happened? You told them, I mean, they were convinced, obviously, that you weren't on your way to murder the president, so then what?
01:00:27.91
Skye Spectrum
Correct. So then um i I plugged my work, and I was like, yeah, I'm writing Stonewall the musical. And I do podcasts about musicals. And they're like, oh, cool. Where can we find this? And then they left after saying, you will never see us again. And um I messaged the woman who made me have this interaction on Snapchat and I said, all caps, fuck Trump, had a lovely chat with Homeland Security, fuck Trump again.
01:01:09.29
Skye Spectrum
And then she responded, don't fuck with me or my president, screenshotting everything at this point.
01:01:15.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, for fuck's sake.
01:01:17.38
Skye Spectrum
And I then said, after that, I said, buy bigot and then blocked her.
01:01:25.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, how unpleasant.
01:01:27.43
Skye Spectrum
So, and then I joke with my friend, then my friend's like, only you would have Homeland Security come to your door and then end up plugging your musical.
01:01:38.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Too bad I didn't think to do that when the guys in black were here last week.
01:01:42.66
Skye Spectrum
Oh man.
01:01:43.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yikes. And I don't actually know if they were ice or not because they were not labeled. I've lit, I need photos that I've seen of ice. They have said ice on their stuff, but it was people in all black.
01:01:52.62
Skye Spectrum
Right.
01:01:55.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
And like, I shouldn't even have been up that day because you know, I don't be getting up in the morning. I don't have to.
01:02:01.08
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:02:01.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
but I was waiting for delivery, right? And so, you know, they dinged the buzzer and I'm like, hi, who is it? And I was expecting the guy with the the delivery and, uh, they like just sort of mumbled and I was like, I'm sorry, who is it?
01:02:09.66
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:02:15.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, uh, then I went and looked out the window and it was two dudes in black, like all black.
01:02:20.39
Skye Spectrum
Oh my God.
01:02:23.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they're like, they had like, not like a mask mask, but they had like a hood sort of, and, uh,
01:02:30.58
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
01:02:31.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i I was like, yeah, what but who who are you looking for? And they said they were looking for the family upstairs.
01:02:40.38
Skye Spectrum
Oh.
01:02:41.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
and well and the thing is they weren't dressed like they were coming to visit a family.
01:02:47.54
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:02:47.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, and then it like suddenly occurred to me and I was like, yeah, I don't think this building has an upstairs. And then they asked me for my name and it did not get better from that point.
01:02:56.70
Skye Spectrum
Oh. Yeah.
01:02:59.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, but it, I mean, cause I figured like, well, I'm not going to let them in, but if they ding everybody's buzzers, somebody might let them in. And I don't know if it was because it was during the day and people weren't here or whatever, but, uh, they,
01:03:06.83
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:03:14.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
they did not get into the building and they eventually left.
01:03:17.08
Skye Spectrum
Wow.
01:03:19.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I don't, because my understanding is that even if ICE does come for someone, they're supposed to have like a warrant with their name on it, you know?
01:03:24.84
Skye Spectrum
Yes. Yes.
01:03:28.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if you don't have a warrant with my name on it, I'm not letting you into the building.
01:03:28.39
Skye Spectrum
And that's the good thing about.
01:03:32.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
You need to be like bringing a pizza or something for you to come into this building if I don't know you.
01:03:35.70
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. Well, and that's the good thing about social media though, is that it is, I have seen a lot on Facebook about like, if you see ice, here's the, here's what you can do. Like people are getting the resources out to folks who are still on the main social media, which is unfortunately Facebook. There is no replacement yet from Facebook. So we are all tied to the unnecessary evils of
01:04:07.89
Skye Spectrum
Facebook and in Amazon for certain things that like you can't function without or you know by them because they have monopoly and Yeah Wow
01:04:20.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Yep Yep, and so that's why one by one seeing them all go fast is that much more disturbing? Because you can't share links on Facebook. They just won't show links of any kind Whether you're trying to sell something or share news with someone they just you know, they they they kill links and And that used to be the main way that we like shared things and talked about things.
01:04:44.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I would be fine, give and suck money if he wasn't a fascist.
01:04:45.30
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
01:04:48.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if I had any sort of control over the content that I see, because now that he's flooding that place with AI users, I mean, they need so much for these networks to be useless for organizing.
01:04:53.62
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:05:01.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like that is their goal.
01:05:01.89
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:05:02.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
I am sure of it. That and, you know, the money obviously, but that's, ah You know, cause Zuckerberg gave Trump um a million dollars for his inaugural and Bezos gave him at least that much.
01:05:12.12
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. I mean... And again, as a Jew, as it like like they're like watching Zuckerberg, I'm like, fuck you, fuck you asshole.
01:05:29.33
Skye Spectrum
like I'm sure your great grandparents are fucking yelling at you from beyond the grave. I'm sure your ancestors are like, we did not survive the fucking camp so you could do this.
01:05:37.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:05:46.99
Skye Spectrum
Like that's, I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe he comes from a long line of Nazis and this is just on brand for him.
01:05:58.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, there's that because that's the thing is a lot of this, ah you know, when I watch people go fascist and I think, oh, you cowards, you fucking cowards.
01:06:00.08
Skye Spectrum
I mean, yeah.
01:06:07.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
But you know what? They might not be cowards. They might just be fascists. And there they're not being cowardly at all. They're totally getting what they want. Just like that guy I keep writing books about. It occurred to me like, wait, maybe he's not a coward. Maybe he's just an ass.
01:06:25.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
And boy, the evidence sure points that way.
01:06:25.47
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:06:27.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So, you know, if we can get actually into Stonewall, um for people that don't know, ah Stonewall refers to a specific event in gay history where um men took a stand against the police who used to go to their club and abuse them for fun.
01:06:32.36
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:06:47.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
um It got pretty violent because that's what it means to fight back against fascists. It has to get violent. If asking nicely for your rights was all that it took, everyone would have them by now.
01:07:00.27
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:07:00.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you are working on a musical. I guess it's it's finished now, but you're ah it's Stonewall the Musical. So, okay.
01:07:07.50
Skye Spectrum
It's not finished yet. there's still We're still in the writing process of it. um and But I have a few songs that I put on my website as like kind of teasers.
01:07:11.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:07:20.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, it will have links for that.
01:07:20.00
Skye Spectrum
and i Oh, I thought I did. but
01:07:24.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no, I'm just telling listeners that we'll have links for that.
01:07:26.66
Skye Spectrum
oh Oh, sorry, I thought you said I didn't get links for that. Sorry, I misunderstood that. um
01:07:35.18
Skye Spectrum
So yes, I also am just recently in talks with the author. um And I talk, I mean, just in terms of just conversation, not any actionable movements, but One person removed from Steven Schwartz, who wrote Wicked, um knows of my work.
01:08:04.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah. Nice.
01:08:09.60
Skye Spectrum
i And she and like she's like, oh, here, here's what you can do. Want to help your musical along? like here you know And I have a feeling that things are going to happen.
01:08:27.63
Skye Spectrum
pretty quickly once I get this done.
01:08:31.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:08:31.55
Skye Spectrum
Because I now, I have heard from the librettist from the New York City Opera of Stonewall the Opera, who listened to my demo of How Will I Find the Courage, which is about finding the courage to be yourself and is sung across two different time spans.
01:08:58.13
Skye Spectrum
in our history. It is 2016 with Jason, who is freshly 21 years old, and finding the the words to come out to his dad. And simultaneously in 1969, Johnny, who is an Italian mobster, trying to figure out if he is really attracted to Sylvia, a stand-in for Sylvia Rivera,
01:09:26.05
Skye Spectrum
who was a real life trans activist around during the Stonewall rights movement, Stonewall uprising.
01:09:34.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:09:35.88
Skye Spectrum
And he, we met at Lincoln Center, at the top of Lincoln Center, there was this restaurant and I reached out to him and in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, he premiered this piece at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I had a drink and some food with him, who also, his name is Mark Campbell, who wrote the first transgender opera as one, as I was there in the exact same place that Gene Wilder was, when he realized, hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
01:10:23.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:10:25.09
Skye Spectrum
And as a kid, I thought we were related. I thought, hey, mom, you your last name, only to find out they were both fake for the same reason, antisemitism.
01:10:39.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Yikes.
01:10:41.07
Skye Spectrum
um So I was not related to Gene Wilder as much as I wanted to believe that I was. But to have that experience, and this was after he died, um of that shared kind of connection with an artist like that, with with Mark Campbell, who met Jonathan Larson, who was there um for Rent's premiere and um told me about that.
01:11:09.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wow.
01:11:14.72
Skye Spectrum
And then there was, there's a ah an opera singer who's local that I happened to meet while I was working at Apple. And she said, keep going, I want to see this happen. And she was the one who sang Ave Maria at Aretha Franklin's memorial.
01:11:38.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow. Yeah, I saw that.
01:11:40.34
Skye Spectrum
So I, and that impressed my dad. That finally was the one who impressed my dad and he goes, wow, I've heard of her. That's awesome.
01:11:53.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's always so fun when you start advancing in your field and then you meet like bigger and bigger people.
01:11:53.24
Skye Spectrum
So, so I, and I did reach out also. So in my, my activism in terms of my, my time, um, i'm unemployed, I might as well write out to people that, cause you never know what happens.
01:12:08.57
Skye Spectrum
I never know what can happen.
01:12:08.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, totally. Totally.
01:12:10.47
Skye Spectrum
I don't know how long I'm going to be here. Um, so I wrote to Gretchen Whitmer, Jocelyn Benson, Dana Nussle asking for trans rights and sanctuary states in Michigan. And I also wrote out to Stephen Colbert, Schwartz, and Spielberg because I wanted them to at least know my story.
01:12:40.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And have you gotten any responses?
01:12:42.39
Skye Spectrum
Of course not. The closest one is I did get um Carol, who wrote um and two Stephen Schwartz books, who was encouraging me to go on her website she created for musical theater writers.
01:13:01.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:13:03.32
Skye Spectrum
So I take that as a small win or a big win, depending on how you look at it.
01:13:07.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Totally. So you've been working on this for a while. How long was like the research phase?
01:13:15.26
Skye Spectrum
um Well, I'm still doing it, honestly. um
01:13:21.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, what are some things about Stonewall the event that the average person would not know that you learned from your research?
01:13:29.38
Skye Spectrum
That it already had a song. It had a song. um And it was to the tune of Howdy Doody.
01:13:42.01
Skye Spectrum
And I learned this, and I was like, wow, this thing is begging to be made into a musical. and And a bunch of people have told me, I'm surprised it hasn't been. But yeah, so originally when the um ah cops were coming in, and there was this riot in the streets, and
01:14:06.77
Skye Spectrum
the drag queens, feminine gay men, because there weren't really drag queens back then, not like how we think of them today. um And they all formed a kick line to kind of prevent like, you know, okay, we're all going to stand together.
01:14:16.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:14:25.89
Skye Spectrum
And they all sang, we are the Stonewall girls, we wear our hair recurls, we wear our dungarees, up to our Nellie Dee's. And then like, I forgot if there was more, but yeah that that was that was it.
01:14:39.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:14:40.77
Skye Spectrum
And I saw the, there's a documentary called the Stonewall Uprising that also categorizes that, like in where I could actually hear the tune um and go, oh, that's Howdy Doody.
01:14:56.23
Skye Spectrum
Now I've never seen an episode of How to Duty My Life because I am only 44. look
01:15:03.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I think everything I know about HowdyDuty comes from happy days talking about HowdyDuty.
01:15:07.97
Skye Spectrum
Yes, I would say the same thing. So yeah, and it just kind of captured me. And i ah in my my spark honestly was rent, was seeing rent.
01:15:23.47
Skye Spectrum
twice at the Fisher Theater in Detroit upon its brand its date in the late 90s 1997 it's 9697 and one of my teachers that was that took me goes I don't like all the drug use and
01:15:45.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
What? Hmm.
01:15:49.63
Skye Spectrum
I thought about it. I thought about that. I mean, it's still, I don't know who this teacher was at this point in time. I couldn't tell you cause it was in high school, but that stuck. That statement stuck with me for forever. And I thought, yeah. And unfortunately it did not age well. Rent did not age well. And the the movie adaptation was horrendous in my opinion.
01:16:16.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Was it worse than Cats?
01:16:18.41
Skye Spectrum
No. Cats was its own special. um
01:16:25.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
How dare you make an Adrice Alba movie that's not good. I don't ever want to see a cat related to Adrice Alba movie. God damn it. Are you serious? it Well, you know, he did that other movie where he was like fighting a lion or something and it was terrible.
01:16:33.10
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:16:37.88
Skye Spectrum
Oh, I, I, I saw cats.
01:16:40.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Terrible.
01:16:43.88
Skye Spectrum
Um, cause I've seen this, I've seen the stage show when I was a kid, my parents took me to go see cats. Um, and I remember watching the movie and going, I, why did they have to do this?
01:16:59.80
Skye Spectrum
Cause there's a staged film version. There was a, uh, a film staged version of it.
01:17:07.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah.
01:17:07.01
Skye Spectrum
That was perfectly fine.
01:17:08.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, the reason that Cats works on stage is because it's so interactive and there's, you know, so audience stuff going on and it's just this big, wonderful spectacle.
01:17:09.85
Skye Spectrum
It's money.
01:17:14.06
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:17:20.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
And when you condense that to like, oh, look, it's a movie of of that and it's just this thing on a screen, you know, even ah in a theater, it's not going to come across that well.
01:17:27.59
Skye Spectrum
Well.
01:17:30.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
But You know, i one of my pet peeves about media in general is when you get amazing talent and then you squander it. And and Cats is is one of those those quintessential examples of squandering talent.
01:17:39.55
Skye Spectrum
Yes. Is that.
01:17:44.14
Skye Spectrum
Even I'll say even to the very end where you see Judy Dench is like teeth. And I'm like, oh, did she know this was happening?
01:17:55.13
Skye Spectrum
She looks terrible.
01:17:56.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Explain yourself, Dame. um
01:17:58.45
Skye Spectrum
Like, and then to have Jennifer Hudson's nose like drizzling with a snot.
01:18:05.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, Jennifer got Hudson gets on my last nerve.
01:18:09.01
Skye Spectrum
I mean, but obviously not because of cats, I'm sure.
01:18:12.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:18:15.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, no, the thing about about Jennifer Hudson is that ah she became like just suddenly startlingly famous because of American Idol.
01:18:27.09
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:18:27.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then she was cast in a movie as a major star and she was nominated for an Oscar. And then she was cast in the Sex and the City movie. Like all those things happen, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right in a row.
01:18:40.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
A few months after that, she was in a Weight Watchers commercial, which is already pretty sus for someone like me, because I've worked that program and, you know, that that's another show.
01:18:44.41
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:18:52.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
But but the the first line of the commercial was, before I lost weight, my whole life was can't.
01:18:52.70
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:18:59.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
now that i've lost weight my life is raring to go or you know something about like how she was nobody when she was fat it's like bitch you won american idol and then you won an oscar for a major motion picture like that's not can't that's more than most people experience in a lifetime
01:19:04.32
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:19:17.51
Skye Spectrum
in a lifetime. Yeah. like so and And I will say I agree with you with Jennifer Hudson because I feel the same thing.
01:19:19.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And you're pretending that it was nothing because you were a few pounds heavier than you are now. And it's just infuriating. It's a horrible, horrible lesson for younger people.
01:19:29.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's very frustrating.
01:19:35.89
Skye Spectrum
I felt the same thing.
01:19:40.30
Skye Spectrum
And then hairspray.
01:19:46.56
Skye Spectrum
No, I mean, No one can dispute her voice and her talent.
01:19:53.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, sure. Absolutely.
01:19:54.43
Skye Spectrum
Like, ah one of my dreams is to sing with that woman, okay? But you have her in a role where the role was intended for a larger woman.
01:20:14.67
Skye Spectrum
That's the whole point of hairspray.
01:20:16.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Hmm.
01:20:18.71
Skye Spectrum
And then you have Jennifer Hudson as she's skinny.
01:20:26.34
Skye Spectrum
Like there are certain things where representation really matters.
01:20:34.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:20:34.38
Skye Spectrum
And some exec somewhere probably was like, Oh yeah, well let's get Jennifer Hudson. She can sing. And, you know, and she does an amazing job, but like part of what made the original hairspray work was you had divine opposite ah of, um like for I forget her name, but a bigger African-American woman as um Mama Maybell, I forget my brain is flaking at the time, but anyways, yeah.
01:21:16.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, we we know what you mean.
01:21:20.93
Skye Spectrum
But yeah, the representation matters.
01:21:23.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, speaking of which, are you are you familiar with the the new Disney show, Win or Lose, that's coming up?
01:21:23.97
Skye Spectrum
And...
01:21:30.97
Skye Spectrum
No.
01:21:32.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, there's a new show coming up on Disney and it's about a ah softball team.
01:21:37.49
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:21:38.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they cast a trans girl to play a trans character, and then decided that they did not want a trans character.
01:21:44.22
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:21:48.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
So they did keep the actress.
01:21:47.84
Skye Spectrum
Oh.
01:21:50.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Yeah, i was I wrote about it for Culturists, actually. that's That's how I heard about it.
01:21:53.43
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:21:54.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Somebody said, oh, have you heard this? And I was actually, I'm kind of new over at Culturists, and I've been testing limits to see like how political I can get.
01:22:05.35
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:22:05.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because the title of the piece I wrote is, Haters Appeased as Disney Cuts Transgender Storyline from New Show.
01:22:09.65
Skye Spectrum
No.
01:22:13.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thinking, oh, they're never gonna let me get away with that. And then they did. And it's really quite awful because the whole point was that they understand that representation is important and then they did that.
01:22:27.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then because of backlash, um, actually I'll read here part of their statement.
01:22:31.84
Skye Spectrum
yeah
01:22:32.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we, we being Disney recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.
01:22:48.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, that is some wishy-washy bullshit in my opinion, especially when it comes from people that make movies where parents die all the time. I mean, Simba's ah uncle was ah murdered by his, like, his constituents, basically, so...
01:22:58.24
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:23:04.56
Skye Spectrum
I mean, I mean, that was basically Hamlet for kids.
01:23:07.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, but I mean...
01:23:09.07
Skye Spectrum
But yeah.
01:23:09.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Disney stuff is rife with like, you know, maybe people would not want to have their children see someone murdered by their stepmother, given how many blended families there are. But, you know, you get to see ah the evil queens and the huntsmen out to bring that girl's heart back in a box, and and somehow that's perfectly okay. But, oh, heaven for friend, we let kids know that trans people exist. And that's that's kind of another part of the narrative which is that acknowledging that something exists is the same as aggressively trying to turn people into whatever that is.
01:23:49.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know and they're And they're just not the same thing.
01:23:49.30
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:23:51.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
I can know that baseball exists without wanting to be a baseball player.
01:23:55.82
Skye Spectrum
Right.
01:23:58.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
And a good thing too, because I'm not very good at sporty things.
01:24:01.89
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, I actually, I was invited to a Super Bowl party and I was like, I'm good, thanks.
01:24:08.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no, the sea no, no. When you go to a Super Bowl party, you go for the food and to watch men act very silly because it's always the kind of men that say women are too emotional, that are getting up and punching walls because a ball didn't go far enough.
01:24:19.06
Skye Spectrum
them
01:24:23.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so yes, definitely go to Super Bowl parties for the food and the people watching.
01:24:27.27
Skye Spectrum
Oh, absolutely.
01:24:28.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Seriously.
01:24:28.64
Skye Spectrum
And the commercials.
01:24:30.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Oh yeah, that's true too. But you can always catch those on YouTube.
01:24:32.53
Skye Spectrum
And halftime.
01:24:34.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it's like SNL.
01:24:34.77
Skye Spectrum
halftime shows as well, but yeah.
01:24:37.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah, that's true. Halftime shows and the controversies surrounding halftime shows is always good.
01:24:43.13
Skye Spectrum
Hmm. Yeah, but it's not always. Cause I mean, it's not, I think honestly past the wardrobe malfunction with, I don't think there's been that big of a controversy in halftime shows.
01:24:55.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, well, remember Trump's first term?
01:24:57.97
Skye Spectrum
What?
01:24:58.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
There was a Super Bowl that like, I guess Mike Pence went to it or something. And Lady Gaga was the halftime show and everybody was like, oh, it's so great that she wasn't political.
01:25:08.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm like, are you serious? Gaga singing Born This Way is basically giving Pence a middle finger.
01:25:14.85
Skye Spectrum
Oh, yeah 100% Yeah
01:25:15.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I am here for it. Him and mother will just have to deal. Speaking of which, man, the MAGA boys are calling Trump daddy.
01:25:26.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Have you heard this? Have you seen this?
01:25:27.26
Skye Spectrum
I have I have Daddy's back Daddy's back.
01:25:28.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Have you heard about this?
01:25:30.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is so funny.
01:25:33.84
Skye Spectrum
You know like and it has Roseanne Barr in like a video of the two
01:25:38.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, do not get me started about Roseanne. My God.
01:25:42.22
Skye Spectrum
No, I know, I I loved your show back in the day.
01:25:43.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm a fat, funny brunette. I cannot. I cannot with Roseanne seriously.
01:25:50.16
Skye Spectrum
I was such a fan.
01:25:51.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course. Well, because back then she was working class and presented herself accordingly.
01:25:52.76
Skye Spectrum
And then, yeah.
01:25:59.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, yeah.
01:25:59.05
Skye Spectrum
by But I will say there there is a Disney show that I have come to love right now because it is what's getting me through this time right now.
01:26:11.09
Skye Spectrum
And it is called Dog with a Blog.
01:26:18.97
Skye Spectrum
and It was from 2012. So in 2012, I was not watching Disney content.
01:26:25.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:26:26.74
Skye Spectrum
And I just happened upon this show and it's like this talking dog. And It has like two, there's only two names you'd like recognize in the show and everyone else is more of an unknown. But the the the premise of the show is the kids can, the kids know he does, he talks, but they of course have to keep it a secret. And he gives this blog for folks to like keep up with him. And I don't know whether the people who, because they haven't,
01:27:03.80
Skye Spectrum
It's 10th place in Pasadena, California.
01:27:07.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:27:08.47
Skye Spectrum
and But I just noticed, and I took a photo of this on my phone of the TV, the dad is a bride. Something Reagan.
01:27:20.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
01:27:20.09
Skye Spectrum
bre um I forgot the actor's name, but it's Beth Littleford as the mother.
01:27:23.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:27:27.27
Skye Spectrum
um Is it Brian Reagan? It was something like that. um but he went to Northern Michigan University, apparently.
01:27:37.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, neat.
01:27:39.18
Skye Spectrum
And it it's like those Miller Boyette shows that we had growing up, um like Family Matters and Full House and all that, but it's better because it's from 2012.
01:27:50.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, I didn't, I didn't watch a sitcoms in that era.
01:27:54.92
Skye Spectrum
um
01:27:57.67
Skye Spectrum
And it's just really well done, like joke after joke after, it was like, Thank you. And it has, the first episode I think has Harvey Guillen in it from like what we do in the shadows.
01:28:10.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, no way.
01:28:11.71
Skye Spectrum
um And it's it's it's a brilliant show.
01:28:16.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, so dog with a blog.
01:28:16.32
Skye Spectrum
So if you need uplifting fun family show, you know.
01:28:18.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Everybody got that?
01:28:24.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you right now are in a couple of different choirs.
01:28:28.61
Skye Spectrum
Yes.
01:28:28.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Tell us about that.
01:28:31.03
Skye Spectrum
So I first for the longest time was in Out Lab Chorus, which is an amazing LGBTQIA plus chorus.
01:28:36.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm hmm.
01:28:42.56
Skye Spectrum
And then I was like, yeah, what else? What else can I do? So I am now part of the Challa Singers, which is out of the Unitarian Universalist congregation of Ann Arbor.
01:29:01.21
Skye Spectrum
And so Unitarian Universalists are, the basic tenet is that we take a little bit of every religion and here we are.
01:29:02.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
How did the Unitarian Universalists differ from like Episcopalians?
01:29:23.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so it's not specific to Christianity. It's literally anything.
01:29:26.56
Skye Spectrum
No, not at all. there are a lot There are people who come from Christian backgrounds that enter into yeah know Unitarian Universalist spaces um that you know affirm their faith in that way. There are folks from the jews Jewish faith that go to there. there's um it's basically The majority is um based in Judeo-Christian faith with Islam and some pagan um spirituality as well.
01:30:06.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:30:07.96
Skye Spectrum
um So it is, and I first found out um from my ex-girlfriend, one of my ex-girlfriends in college, um her family, they call them Die Hard UUs.
01:30:23.72
Skye Spectrum
And I just, I was like, wow, that's pretty amazing. And they're actually the closest to, they're they're really close to Judaism in terms of their practice, in terms of like the way they function and the, you know, the called for social justice.
01:30:33.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:30:46.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, in a high degree of intellectualism as opposed to blind faith, like you're allowed to ask questions, you're allowed to discuss things.
01:30:51.60
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
01:30:53.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, obviously Judaism is is like that as well, but...
01:30:57.59
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, that's what my mom's friend who's a rabbi told me that too. She's like, yeah, the UUs are closest to Judaism, I feel. I was like, yeah, I can see that.
01:31:11.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:31:11.46
Skye Spectrum
So, and that's my faith spirituality singing. um And the music ministry is great. The people are wonderful. I actually sing with my,
01:31:27.97
Skye Spectrum
my cousin on my dad's side of the family, who's like 90 something years old, I wanna say, maybe I'm aging her, but yeah, she's up there.
01:31:38.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my goodness.
01:31:41.95
Skye Spectrum
um And a bunch of other people who are just amazing and wonderful. And
01:31:50.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, musicians in general are such, but I think because music can be an individual pursuit, but also collaborative. I find that that musical communities, like when I had to be Catholic, my favorite part about Catholicism after the incense and the fish fries was singing in the choir because it's everybody together excited for a common purpose.
01:32:07.03
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
01:32:15.28
Skye Spectrum
Exactly.
01:32:17.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
But you also have a music history podcast and I am dying to know more about that.
01:32:19.57
Skye Spectrum
So that's been kind of, unfortunately, on a hiatus just because of life.
01:32:28.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:32:28.64
Skye Spectrum
um But my my friend and business partner, Chris Anderson, and I started of this podcast because, you know, he he read my Stonewall musical. He read the first draft of Stonewall the Musical. And he's like, dude, you have something. This is going to be pop. This is going to be seen.
01:32:59.14
Skye Spectrum
And he and some other members of Allied chorus were the first member for the first people who got a glimpse of this and were like, um, yeah, bring it out soon. Uh, so it was through him that we kind of started talking, you know, as, as, as stoners do, we talk and go and waves and,
01:33:24.30
Skye Spectrum
<unk> come up with amazing ideas, some of which are brilliant and some of which are just stoner crap that we just come up with and we move on. um But in one of our our our stoner conversations we had, we were talking about the history of musicals. And so we started a podcast where we would deep dive into various musicals.
01:33:57.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
How far back do you go?
01:33:59.53
Skye Spectrum
um I mean, like all the way.
01:34:03.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
So like ancient Greece?
01:34:05.56
Skye Spectrum
Well, no, like, so, um to be clear, so we did, and we we did an episode about that, yes.
01:34:08.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, the the first theater were musicals. There was always a chorus, always.
01:34:16.59
Skye Spectrum
um I forgot what the title is, it's Grease in the Beginning, whatever, it's on the website. There's a link to all the episodes that we have on
01:34:23.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Lissa Strada, ha-cha-cha.
01:34:30.16
Skye Spectrum
Is that what it's called? I don't know. Yeah. oh so It's been a while.
01:34:34.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Actually, it's ah that's a joke that some some college friends of mine used to have. that it was yeah but Because we were radio dramas, not musicals, but but that that was always in the hopper and it never came to pass.
01:34:38.40
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:34:41.74
Skye Spectrum
yeah
01:34:44.02
Skye Spectrum
okay
01:34:48.39
Skye Spectrum
and and remember and So what we do is we start each episode um with a a musical it's like we talk about the show in a musical tone like so I think for Sweeney's having you're talking musical history pod and like you know like that and and for Annie we're like I think we're into something here yes yes I think like from the newer Annie and we do
01:35:25.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I love that new Annie. That was so good. What's that girl, Quevensey?
01:35:28.45
Skye Spectrum
with, it was amazing.
01:35:30.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I like burst into tears.
01:35:30.63
Skye Spectrum
Oh my God.
01:35:33.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Spoiler alert, burst into tears when it turned out she couldn't read. That was such a gut punch.
01:35:39.03
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:35:41.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Such a gut punch. So when, when are you coming back with the Music History Podcast?
01:35:43.89
Skye Spectrum
So yeah. And so, um and that's, because Chris has been asking me to. So honestly, I don't know.
01:35:54.72
Skye Spectrum
I'd love to say a time, a date, but
01:35:57.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, but you don't want to disappoint people.
01:35:57.71
Skye Spectrum
um
01:35:59.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, so stay tuned, right?
01:35:59.74
Skye Spectrum
I don't want to hear, but so we have everything up till the last show that we did was about West Side Story.
01:36:01.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did...
01:36:08.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, nice.
01:36:10.47
Skye Spectrum
You know, because the new West Side Story had just recently come out.
01:36:14.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, did you like it?
01:36:15.55
Skye Spectrum
It was amazing.
01:36:16.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
01:36:18.05
Skye Spectrum
I like the only thing, the only thing that I have that I thought could have been better because of accessibility was subtitles.
01:36:35.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Were they bad? I don't think I washed it with subtitles.
01:36:36.26
Skye Spectrum
There was nothing.
01:36:37.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
so Really, Disney?
01:36:38.52
Skye Spectrum
There were nothing. So in this is where I like understand um Spielberg's intention.
01:36:52.35
Skye Spectrum
I totally understand the intention. where you don't want to other the language. So that's why they did not use any subtitles.
01:37:02.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, for the Spanish you mean? That is crazy. i I did not know that.
01:37:08.56
Skye Spectrum
So.
01:37:09.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
I didn't, I didn't see it in, I saw it because I watch everything with subtitles. Um, so i I would not have noticed that when I watch it home and I didn't see it in the theater.
01:37:15.88
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:37:17.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you're saying that the Spanish in the movie in theaters was not subtitled.
01:37:22.43
Skye Spectrum
Or at home.
01:37:24.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Huh.
01:37:25.93
Skye Spectrum
Either way, you are not gonna know what the people who are speaking in Spanish are saying unless you speak Spanish.
01:37:37.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like see, I would like that personally because I have a little, I have like high school Spanish.
01:37:42.26
Skye Spectrum
Mm-hmm.
01:37:43.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's fun to like kind of get it because I'm way typically American in that way and that I've had the chance to learn other languages and I just haven't taken the time.
01:37:48.92
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:37:53.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Honestly, I'm not finished with English yet. I've still got plenty more to do with it. but um yeah But yeah, that's that's surprising and and disappointing for for many reasons.
01:37:57.39
Skye Spectrum
yes yeah yeah so right so like i yeah right so like i understand the intention that speilberg was trying to do but as someone who is watching the movie who doesn't speak
01:38:05.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Because yes, that is very otherizing to just put people speaking and then American audiences don't know what they're saying.
01:38:26.38
Skye Spectrum
a lot of Spanish, it really like it gave an access gap.
01:38:28.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mmhmm.
01:38:36.28
Skye Spectrum
and like Literally everything else was amazing about the movie. I i loved every minute of it. I thought it was brilliantly well done, but that is the only thing that I
01:38:54.97
Skye Spectrum
I'll say, I'll say when I get to talk to Mr. Spielberg, I say, yeah, that's the only thing about it that I didn't like.
01:39:05.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I hear that creators love it when strangers just walk up on them and start telling them what they don't like about their work.
01:39:12.68
Skye Spectrum
Well, no, I like when I said I emailed him and I didn't mention that obviously, but it was like, hey, um have you ever thought of ET as musical?
01:39:21.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah nice
01:39:23.66
Skye Spectrum
uh because i could totally write one if you are able to because yeah definitely not no oh this
01:39:27.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're saving private Ryan. um
01:39:32.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not everything. Well, did you ever watch um the Ben Stiller show, like the his comedy series? There was a sketch on there once that was um Oliver Stoneland and it was like an amusement park based on Oliver Stone movies.
01:39:48.26
Skye Spectrum
movie is
01:39:51.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's it's worth YouTubing if you ever get a minute for that.
01:39:53.35
Skye Spectrum
Okay, I definitely will check that out.
01:39:55.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, so, so with regard to music history, I'm curious to know if you saw the yacht rock documentary on HBO.
01:40:03.30
Skye Spectrum
The what?
01:40:04.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh, yacht rock.
01:40:04.47
Skye Spectrum
I'm going to say no.
01:40:07.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Cause that just dropped over the last, I think last month between like Christmas and now the yacht rock documentary dropped.
01:40:17.30
Skye Spectrum
Yacht Rock documentary.
01:40:18.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, you know, like, uh, music that rich assholes listen to on their yachts. Um, well, you should probably watch the documentary and see one of the guys that made the the documentary is, uh, he was on our show as well.
01:40:25.84
Skye Spectrum
Oh, okay. That's, I was trying to understand what that was. I go, yacht rock. Like, do they have a specific genre of music that's like in.
01:40:45.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, yeah, my friend, uh, Hollywood, Steve Huey, who, uh, he was in Pirates of the Caribbean.
01:40:45.05
Skye Spectrum
Oh, nice.
01:40:50.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why he moved from Michigan to go out to California to be an actor.
01:40:54.35
Skye Spectrum
Oh, awesome.
01:40:54.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he was in, you know, he's done some commercials and stuff, but he was in Pirates of the Caribbean as one of the pirates.
01:41:00.39
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:41:00.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so yeah, and he's a cool dude. and the And yeah, they, they showed his, uh, his documentary on Yat Rock on the HBO, which I am dead naming because shut up your HBO.
01:41:12.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um.
01:41:13.63
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, HBO doesn't need any more press. They're good.
01:41:17.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but that's that whole thing of them. I mean, they they basically pulled an artist formerly known as Prince. Like, no, no, no, we're max now.
01:41:25.43
Skye Spectrum
Oh, oh, oh, Max.
01:41:26.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
You had contracts with HBO.
01:41:27.46
Skye Spectrum
Oh, right. Yeah. no
01:41:29.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
like ah ah You didn't have a friend called home box office.
01:41:30.61
Skye Spectrum
Which, honestly, I have to say I like Max better than HBO only because of my late friend Max. Like, which obviously would have happened regardless, but...
01:41:46.22
Skye Spectrum
Yeah, no, I can't say that again.
01:41:50.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
So so what the what what is coming up next for you?
01:41:50.85
Skye Spectrum
Although in my...
01:41:53.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
what What do you got going on?
01:41:53.85
Skye Spectrum
Well, I i am...
01:41:54.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're working on the musical. What else is happening?
01:41:56.97
Skye Spectrum
I am... um
01:42:01.38
Skye Spectrum
going to debut as Sky Spectrum in my drag solo act debut at the North Star Lounge, February 20th, where I will be talking about my life in between these songs and how they relate to me and starting with Believe as the first number and the first one that's set.
01:42:14.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
01:42:30.24
Skye Spectrum
um and not surprisingly because i am recently divorced so you know love after love life after love is yeah that's where i'm at it's yeah it's an hour long set and so i'm working on that right now and i'm also
01:42:36.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. So sort of ah like a one person show. OK.
01:42:56.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, an hour. That's rough. I know I tried to get a tight 15 together once to do some stand up and I chickened out, but an hour, man, even with songs, that that just seems like a whole lot.
01:43:03.92
Skye Spectrum
Oh, man.
01:43:07.92
Skye Spectrum
I'm timing it out now. like i had i I had too many songs on the list, and I wanted to talk more. And I was like, OK, if I do like three-minute talks in between the songs, then I can get to, you know. um But yeah, i'm I'm excited for that, because i numerous people over the years um have told me that I have an amazing voice and I am just now starting to realize I do.
01:43:41.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:43:42.30
Skye Spectrum
ah Well, I knew I had, I mean, but I found the courage.
01:43:42.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
01:43:47.62
Skye Spectrum
I finally found my courage to, you know, so to be who I was always meant to be, which is a performer. you know, I was dubbed Phantom of Briarwood.
01:44:04.20
Skye Spectrum
Because I would sing in the hallways and...
01:44:06.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I'm sorry, but Briarwood Mall, when it's closed and all the people are gone, it is a great place for singing. Man, the acoustics are dope in that place.
01:44:13.35
Skye Spectrum
see i know That's why I kind of miss it.
01:44:15.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Serenade that giant cough drop.
01:44:19.26
Skye Spectrum
I do kind of miss the, um like, the the mall emptiness because yes it was great um yes so now and then the funny part is is that so now i am going to the planet fitness there at briarwood mall which now makes the second
01:44:27.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yeah, I worked there when there was a movie theater there at the Madstone, the independent film theater. And so of course you're there till all hours, you know, you're there until the last movie ends and you sweep up all the popcorn. So it's like two in the morning. You'd be doing and Dawn of the Dead stuff in that mall.
01:44:51.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:44:55.43
Skye Spectrum
movie theater turned gym that I am going to. The first being in West Bloomfield, so.
01:45:06.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, so we do like to give guests an opportunity to ask me a question if you have anything you want to ask me.
01:45:06.30
Skye Spectrum
ah
01:45:13.77
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. um How long have you been doing this podcast?
01:45:23.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Oh gosh, well, this is the third season technically, but we had two seasons in our first year. So um I think it's been about a year I think we started in February of last year so yeah yeah because we're finishing up the second year of the magazine and this is like the beginning of of the second year of the podcast so yeah all right dude well then it is time for the mad lib
01:45:41.96
Skye Spectrum
Okay. Okay.
01:45:53.02
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:45:58.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:45:58.21
Skye Spectrum
Okay.
01:45:59.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
all Alright, so the first one is, oh come on you guys, so the first one is Person in Room Female, so I'll put me for that, and um I did send ah the good people of Mad Libs a note about, the thing about Mad Libs is they don't really get updated, they just get rerun over and over and over again, but real binary vibe in the Mad Libs.
01:46:17.51
Skye Spectrum
Hmm. Okay.
01:46:22.20
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:46:22.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
real binary um okay so i need um uh let's see one two three different plural nouns-huh what was it pillows you're just looking around the room and saying stuff go ahead
01:46:34.01
Skye Spectrum
Hmm. Let's say lamps. Windows.
01:46:47.26
Skye Spectrum
Yeah. I really am.
01:46:53.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
One more.
01:46:54.53
Skye Spectrum
And, um, pianos.
01:46:59.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now I'm jealous that you're in the room with a piano. All right. Give me a singular noun.
01:47:08.46
Skye Spectrum
Window?
01:47:11.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. And a leather. Okay. Another noun.
01:47:19.88
Skye Spectrum
Batman.
01:47:23.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one more.
01:47:27.55
Skye Spectrum
Homer.
01:47:29.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
What is it, Homer?
01:47:31.11
Skye Spectrum
Yeah.
01:47:34.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, and I need a verb ending in ing. Actually, I need two of them.
01:47:40.38
Skye Spectrum
Oh, um, moving, singing.
01:47:48.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right, and I need an adverb.
01:47:55.13
Skye Spectrum
Let's see. I'm so sorry, i my brain, I need, what does it have over here?
01:47:59.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
An adverb is a verb that describes a noun. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Describes a verb.
01:48:04.13
Skye Spectrum
This one's a bird.
01:48:05.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like an adjective, but for a verb.
01:48:09.01
Skye Spectrum
Uh,
01:48:13.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Sometimes they end with, like what what is it?
01:48:13.42
Skye Spectrum
swimmingly. Swimmingly?
01:48:17.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Swimmingly. All right. And I need an adjective.
01:48:23.32
Skye Spectrum
Gold.
01:48:26.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
And a part of the body plural.
01:48:30.41
Skye Spectrum
Feet.
01:48:33.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so this is called a bad nightmare. One night when I slept over at my friend Wednes's house, ah I had a house, cool, um I had a gold nightmare that scared the living lamps out of me.
01:48:45.30
Skye Spectrum
yeah
01:48:52.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
I dreamed I was in school, standing in front of my English window, giving a report on Shakespeare's pillows. when I realized I wasn't wearing any pianos. Embarrassed beyond belief, I swimmingly put my hands over my feet and ran out of the classroom at breakneck Batman. Suddenly, I was being chased by a wild Homer. Just as the Homer was about to catch me, I woke up moving with fright. I spent the rest of the night singing with the light on. Yeah.
01:49:29.51
Skye Spectrum
That's awesome.
01:49:29.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
irreverent.
01:49:33.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
And with that, we conclude the interview. So Kevin, I want to ah excuse me, Skye, I want to thank you so much for being here. um It was great having you and I certainly learned some things.
01:49:47.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
um and
01:49:47.11
Skye Spectrum
Thank you, Wednesday.
01:49:48.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
like
01:49:48.53
Skye Spectrum
It's been awesome having been on here.
01:49:50.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool, cool. And I want to remind all our listeners that we are sponsored by Sometimes Hilarious Horror magazine. You can find us on Ko-fi. That's K-O hyphen-F-I slash Sometimes Hilarious Horror. That is the best place to lend your monthly support or pick up an issue. Man, our current issues have been so, so good. Stories coming in from all over the world. we had ah a Polish author, somebody from Ukraine recently.
01:50:19.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Yeah, yeah, i'll be all over Africa.
01:50:19.68
Skye Spectrum
ah wow
01:50:22.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't even know how these people are finding out about us, but we are getting incredible submissions from all over the place. So that is just awesome. And we're gonna be, as of next week, getting back to our regular format of one-on-one interviews, ah talking to creatives, which we we definitely did here.
01:50:41.06
Skye Spectrum
Oh, wow.
01:50:41.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
but
01:50:42.07
Skye Spectrum
um
01:50:42.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know, a little less issue focused and more talking about the neurodivergence and the work. So hopefully we will see all of you back then. Bye bye.
Comments
Post a Comment