Book & Podcast Review: Savage Love

Over the last week I have been marathon-listening to the Savage Love podcast. Dan Savage is a sex and relationship advice columnist for the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger. I had previously come across Mr. Savage in the form of his books, through my work at the bookstore. In Skipping towards Gomorrah, he indulges himself in the Seven capital Sins on a quest for happiness. There is The Kid, about the adoption process he and his boyfriend went through to add a little bundle of joy to their existence. And The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family is a memoir incorporating thoughts about gay marriage. The first two linger on my bookshelf, unread so far because I just haven't gotten around to them. (Try working at a bookstore for a couple of years and see if you don't start building up a serious backlog of reading material.)
A book also came out collecting entries from his advice column, titled - predictably - Savage Love. This one I have gone through cover to cover by now, and it is a fast and funny read. It's great for reading on the fly since the piecemeal structure means you can easily dip into it for a page or two in-between whatever you are doing. (STD's don't combine well with cooking though.) Through Mr. Savage's book and this podcast, I now know more about vaginas and the female orgasm than I ever needed to.
Mr. Savage has a bit of a pottymouth on him, which works just fine for his line of work. It signals to his audience that no question will be too rude to be taken seriously, anything goes. In some cases, the questions make you shake your head at the lack of knowledge that USA youngsters have about sex. There is real damage being done here by consciously keeping people uninformed, often under the guise of religion, but really because previous generations had it drilled into them that sex is BAD and feel they have to make others suffer for that as well.
Dan's mantra is pretty much that sex and sexual experimentation are GOOD, unless it harms you or others. It's about getting maximum pleasure out of it all, while keeping your head on straight. For instance, a gay guy who wants to visit an orgy is strongly advised not to: it carries too much risk of disease. Questions about things like *gag reflex* eating shit are handled with equal practicality (so that would be a 'not a good idea', though - rejoice - pee is safe).
Thankfully, he is also not playing along with the assumption of some gays, that gays are intrinsically good and straight people are pretty much evil. There are assholes on both sides of the fence, and Savage even counts himself as one of those assholes. On one of the podcasts he rightfully, verbally bitch-slaps an effeminate gay boy who thinks that all women are disgusting and wants nothing to do with them. He even goes a bit pussy on him (to use his terminology) by not pointing out that the boy's hatred of women probably ties in to the fact that he is a bit of a flamer, struggling with his feminine side.
The questions never get boring, helped by the voyeuristic aspect to them. Often the answers are close to what your own response would be at first thought, but with a twist and more facts behind them. Though the word SEX is on the cover of just about every magazine every month, they are pussies about the graphic and technical aspects of it. Savage deals with these with refreshing bluntness and humour. I encourage everyone to read his column and to listen to the podcast. But beware: this asshole is not for pussies.

Podcast Review: The Feast of Fools

The Little Podcast that Could

The Feast of Fools was - I think - the second podcast I ever listened to. Let us not speak of the first, there was too much anguish and mental trauma. Oddly perhaps, I did not warm to the Fools right away. But then the same happened to me with - among others - series like Buffy and Firefly of which I later became an avid fan. After I had played the field at iTunes a bit, I gave the Fools a second listen to and was hooked.

'So tell us about this podcast phenomenon', I telepathically hear you cry. Well, at the warm heart of the Feast of Fools is a couple from Chicago. There is Fausto Fernós, an intrepid designer for a local newspaper and Marc Felion, an equally intrepid bartender. Joining them on a regular basis are:

Ronnie: a BMW (Big Mexican Woman) or as Fausto calls her: 'la bomba atomica del podcasting'.

Sal-E: a make-up artist extraordinaire, who deals with all kinds of unsanitary waxing during his day job.

Amanda Steinstein: who - appearances to the contrary - is not a trannie, but in fact a natural-born, exuberant, straight woman.

Together in various groupings, they discuss interesting news items and shoot the breeze about whatever crosses their pleasantly deranged minds. Now and then there are also interviews with artistic types you might or might not have heard of. Just occasionally, as with George Takei (Star Trek's Sulu), they are known outside of the States, but most aren't and quite a few are just celebrities in the Chicago area. It has to be said that these episodes actually tend to be less entertaining than the ones with 'just' the regular cast, unless the artist has a prominent funny bone. But they make for a nice change of pace.

So what makes this podcast stand out? Well, first of all, despite both having day jobs, the couple manages to put out about five casts per week, each around 45 minutes long. For me in any case, that means they just about cover my travel-time to work and some time at the gym. But apart from quantity, the overall quality is great too. It is ably produced on both a technical level as well as content-wise, while maintaining a pleasantly loose, freewheeling feel. The hook is that you start to feel like you are part of this zany, madcap family of friends, even if it is just as a fly on the wall. Should you feel like being a more interactive fly, there is also a website with message boards and photo-galleries.

The podcast has won several awards already and it is the most-downloaded gay podcast on iTunes. Give them a listen or two and find out why. Feast of Fools Website

ps: my second favourite podcast is the weekly Never not Funny, where two stand-up comedians and their producer yap about themselves, music, sports, comedy and television/movies. Also definitely worth your time. Never Not Funny

Bad, BAD Podcast!

This is not specifically gay-oriented, but there are quite a few amateur gaycasters out there and for humanity's sake, they need to read this.

There are many ways of making a podcast really SUCK. And here are only some of them:

* Make the volume really low, so that people on treadmills and on-the-go will have to strain to hear what you are saying. If more than one person is present, make sure that some microphones are a lot louder than others and, as a final flourish, intersperse with LOUD musical interludes, to make sure that people will be straining and cringing at short intervals.
* Talk a lot about how you are podcasting, especially the technical aspects. Specify for half an hour how long it took you to prepare for the podcast, share all the heartaches and setbacks during this process and be sure to note the exact time and place that you are now - finally - recording. For prosperity's sake. Or something.
* Keep teasing stories that sound interesting, even though you have nothing interesting to say in the present.
* Do a lot of giggling about how lame and crap your podcast is in any or all aspects.
* Whatever you do, do NOT prepare some topics for your show and do NOT have anything noteworthy to say about these topics.
* Make your podcasts roughly the length of a long fart, making sure people will have to cycle through at least three 'podcasts' during an elevator ride.

So much for the bad - next time a review of my favourite gay podcast.