PODCAST · society
Bammer and Me
by Mike Balaban
Co-founder of BAMMER.co, Mike Balaban is building community through storytelling.
Episodes
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Brock Yurich: Becoming Massive
Brock Yurich is a first-time filmmaker, producer, director, actor and all-round talent. His new hit movie, “Test”, is the tale of a queer bodybuilder pursuing his dreams and navigating a tumultuous relationship with his deeply religious mother. In this interview, we split fact from fiction…
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Brock Yurich: Becoming Massive
Brock Yurich is a first-time filmmaker; Producer, Director, Actor and all-round very talented man. His new hit movie "Test" is the tale of a queer bodybuilder persuing his dreams and navigating a tumultuous relationship with his deeply religious mother. We split fact from fiction, discuss his...
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Jacob Butchoff: Self Destruction to Self Acceptancence
This week I talk with Jacob Butchoff, a British man whom I connected with through a friend I serendipitously sat next to on a plane. His life story is incredibly interesting: he harbored deep self hatred for being gay which sent him on a violent journey, one we’re pleased to say he's on the other...
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Johnathan David Katz: Homosexuality Through Art History
Joining me this week is accomplished art historian, genre and sexuality lecturer and gay rights activist, Johnathan Katz. He takes us on a journey through not only his life and career but the discoveries he's made in the history of homosexuality through the lens of art history.
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Perry Brass: Southern, Jewish, Impoverished, Gay
Perry Brass, the accomplished author, playwright and founding member of the Gay Liberation Front joins me to talk about his incredible life as we discover many parallels between us, and discuss many more amazing memories and achievements. It is an honor to converse with a man who has seen and…
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Dastan Kasmamytov Returns: Mountain Climbing and New Activism Efforts
Dastan returns to talk with me about his mountaineering activities around the world and the community he has built with it as well as his more recent escapades in gay rights activism, an update on his ban from Kyrgyzstan and more.
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Art Smith & David Kennerley: Gay Bars Through The Ages
Back after almost 1 year! Today's episode is also available as a video on our Youtube at www.youtube.com/@BAMMER47Mike Art Smith of YouTube Channel Gay Barchives fame and David Kennerley, author of Getting In, a history of gay clubs in 90's NYC, join me, Mike Balaban, to talk Gay Bars Through the...
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Suzie Kruger: London Fetish Maven
Suzie Kruger felt like she just fell into the role, but has maintained one of the most impressive careers organizing Adult Parties across London Europe and the rest of the world. Join Mike on a journey with icon, Suzie Kruger as she tells us all about her trials and tribulations at the vibrant...
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Mohsin Zaidi: The Remarkable Journey of a Gay Muslim
In this heartening episode, join Mike as he engages with Mohsin Zaidi, a passionate lawyer, LGBTQ activist, and best-selling author of "A Dutiful Boy". Learn about Mohsin's remarkable journey from a poor London neighborhood to his rise as a celebrated lawyer amidst the challenges and triumphs of...
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Peter Tatchell: Fearless Human Rights Activist
It's an honour to have Peter Tatchell on the podcast, a fearless LGBTQ and human right's activist who's launched social movements the world over including in some of the most politically dangerous countries. He and Mike talk early life, influences and trajectory and his own gay journey both in...
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Prof. Steve Gillon: Modern Historian and Documentarian (Friend of JFK Jnr.)
Steve Gillon recently retired following 40 years as a professor of American history at some of the most prestigious universities in the US and UK where his students appreciated his dedication to storytelling even more than his in-depth knowledge of history. He also served as long-time…
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Alexandra Billings: This Time For Her
In her epic roller-coaster of a memoir, "This Time For Me" Alexandra Billings muses on her unlikely journey as an accomplished actor and performer as well as her other lives in sex work, as a HIV positive activist, not to mention a huge LGBTQIA+ icon. Join Mike and Alexandra as she dishes about...
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Barney Frank: 30 Years of Kicking Prejudice’s Ass
Barney Frank represented Massachusetts in Congress from 1982 to 2012, thirty years in which he was one of the most powerful, smartest, and wittiest politicians in DC. He was also the first LGBTQ Congressman to voluntarily come out while in office, a highly controversial move in 1987 during the...
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Eric Cervini: Young Gay Historian Making Waves
Today the accidental gay historian interviews a young, credentialed historian illuminating gay history and actively working for representation on TV and beyond. Eric Cervini has been and continues to be incredibly busy; having written a NYT Best Selling and Pulitzer Prize finalist book in 2020,...
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Barbara Poma: Pulse Night Club Owner and LGBTQ Activist
We're lucky this week to be joined by Barabara Pomo, staunch ally. Shaped by the loss of her older gay brother to AIDS in the late 1980s, Barbara Poma has become an integral part of the LGBTQ community. First, she bought and managed the Pulse Disco in Orlando, Fla., turning it into a multi…
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Stanley Stellar: Legendary Gay Photographer and Historian
Iconic photographer Stanley Stellar, 77, has been documenting queer life and male nudes since 1976. When he began, most media outlets wouldn’t even feature images of men with their clothes on. Best known for his street photography, Stanley was present and shooting during many milestones in gay...
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Lilly Ann Velez: Ecuadorian Woman of Trans Experience
We're lucky enough to have as out guest, Lilly Ann Velez, a 39 yo Ecuadorian woman of trans experience. She explains misconceptions and describes the spectrum of trans experience, all while sharing with us the almost 30 year journey she's taken to becoming the woman she is today.
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Hudson Taylor: Athlete, ally, fighting homophobia and transphobia in sports
In 2010, three-time All-American collegiate wrestler Hudson Taylor slapped a gay-equality sticker on his headgear before a match, leading to an interview with OutSports, an LGBTQ media outlet. Afterwards, he heard from 2,000 mostly closeted athletes who were moved to see a straight ally standing…
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Khalleed Ahmed Part 1: The Journey of a Gay Somalian Refugee
Khalleed Ahmed and his family fled civil war in Somalia, spent eight years in Kenyan refugee camps, and finally were given asylum in the United States. Join us as we listen to Khalleed share his journey to becoming an openly gay, Islamic, cardiac surgeon and an inspiration for others living in...
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Dastan Kasmamytov Part 2: Leading the first LGBT Mountaineering Team in Kyrgystan.
Dastan Kasmamytov, a 30 y.o. Kyrgyzstani, is an LGBTQ activist and founder of Pink Summits, an LGBTQ mountaineering team attempting to scale the Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. When that's completed, Dastan will become the first Kyrgyzstani citizen to...
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Dastan Kasmamytov Part 1: Outed on national TV in Islamic Kyrgyzstan
Growing up in the central Asian nation of Krygystan, Dastan Kasmamytov had no idea he’d ever become an LGBTQ activist. But, when he was outed in national media at 19 and a fatwa was issued by the Islamic religious authorities, urging their followers to stone him to death, that path became...
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Andrew Tobias: Author of ”Best Little Boy in the World”, Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and LGBT Activist
Andy Tobias' journey from being the "Best Little Boy in the World" (the title of the best-selling coming out memoir he authored under a pseudonym while still in grad school in 1972) to serving as the first openly-gay Treasurer of the Democratic Party from 1999-2016 is a fascinating one. Growing…
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Kevin Jennings: LGBTQ Activist, Author, and Historian
Kevin Jennings grew up in a southern trailer park, son of a homophobic itinerant Baptist preacher, was the first in his family to go to college (on a full scholarship at Harvard), and took the risky step of coming out while he was a high school history teacher in 1989. He quit that job in 1994 to...
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Jim Fouratt: From Civil Rights to Gay Rights
Jim Fouratt has been in the right place at the right time: he co-founded the leading anti-Vietnam war group in the 60s, he was present at all four nights of the Stonewall rebellion in June 1969, and he was an assistant to legendary music producer Clive Davis at Columbia Records. Listen as he…
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Khalleed Ahmed Part 2: The Journey of a Gay Somalian Refugee
Khalleed Ahmed and his family fled civil war in Somalia, spent eight years in Kenyan refugee camps, and finally were given asylum in the United States. Join us as we listen to Khalleed share his journey to becoming an openly gay, Islamic, cardiac surgeon and an inspiration for others living in...
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David Mixner: Longtime Civil Rights, Anti-war, and LGBTQ Rights Activist
David Mixner has been an author, political strategist, and civil rights activist for more than a half-century. He was first involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and later became a prominent LGBTQ rights advocate. A close confidant of President Bill Clinton in the early days of his...
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Paula Harrowing: British queer activist
Paula Harrowing, a 49 y.o. British queer activist describes what it was like coming out into London's vibrant and diverse lesbian club scene in the late 80s and 90s only to be greeted soon thereafter by the arrival of AIDs. While nursing her gay male friends who were succumbing to that disease…
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Michela Griffo Part 2: A Pioneer in Women’s and LGBTQ Rights Movement
Michela Griffo talks about the battle for LGBTQ civil rights from the first NYC Pride March in 1970 onward, the arrival of AIDS in 1981, the formation of real gay and lesbian community after that, and where the LGBTQ movement goes from here.
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Michela Griffo Part 1: A Pioneer in Women’s and LGBTQ Rights Movement
Mike talks with Michela Griffo about her life as an early and active member of the National Organization for Women in the late 1960s, a link to the Stonewall era, and one of a dozen or so participants from the first Gay Pride March in NYC in 1970 who’re still with us. She joins us today to talk...
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Dave Kopay: First NFL Player to Come Out of the Closet
Dave Kopay was the first prominent athlete to come out and the first male athlete in a major professional league to do so when he publicly disclosed he was gay in 1975. A hero to many LGBTQers for his courage, he paid a permanent price in being shut out of coaching jobs in colleges and at the pro...
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Joel Tucker: The Backstreet Cafe Shooting
Mike interviews Joel Tucker twenty years later: one of six survivors of the horrendous Backstreet Cafe shooting in Roanoke, Va. on September 20, 2000.
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Cliff Morrison Part 2: The World’s First AIDS Ward
Cliff Morrison talks about forming the first AIDS ward in San Francisco General Hospital in 1983, as well as, his recent involvement in the making of “5B”, an award-winning documentary about that experience (now available on Amazon).
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Jacob Tobia: A Coming-of-Age Gender Story
Jacob Tobia is a gender-nonconforming Los Angeleno who’s on a roll. Three years ago, they landed a job as an executive assistant on the hit Amazon series "Transparent." Shortly after, Jacob released a New York Times best-selling memoir, "Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story," and secured an option…
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Stu Fenton Part 2: Confessions of a Male Escort turned Addiction Counselor
What do you do after you’ve been a Colt porn model, male escort, and drug addict? After kicking his drug addiction, Stu Fenton spent ten years getting his degrees in psychotherapy and gestalt therapy, opened a private therapy practice, and now counsels LGBTQ chemsex addicts in a private clinic, R...
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Rob Smith: Creating Gender-free Fashion
Rob Smith, founder of The Phluid Project, talks about his journey from his life as a successful fashion executive to creating the world’s first gender-free clothing brand.
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Cliff Morrison Part 1: The World’s First AIDS Ward
Cliff Morrison arrived in San Francisco as a nurse in the late 1970s, as AIDS was about to erupt. In 1983, while working at SF General Hospital, one of the epicenters for the new disease, he was tasked with forming the world’s first hospital ward dedicated to serving people with AIDS. In the…
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Stu Fenton Part 1: Confessions of a Male Escort turned Addiction Counselor
Stu Fenton has had quite the life! In his early twenties, Stu was a Colt model and a male escort. That high life led to drug addiction, multiple near-death overdoses, and eventually rehab. Currently, he manages a chemsex treatment center in Chiang Mai, Thailand, one of only five in the world...
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Frank Carducci, NYC Avant-Garde Theatre and Stonewall
Mike talks with Frank Carucci, a life-long New Yorker, about working in the NYC avant-garde theatre scene, the Stonewall riots and life in NYC over the last 60 years.
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Poet Edward Field Part 3: Gay Life in 1950s New York
Ninety-five-year-old renowned poet Edward Field shares stories about gay life in NYC amid the social change of the 1950s, and life with his partner of 58 years, Neil Derrick.
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Poet Edward Field Part 2: Being Gay -After WWII
Renowned poet and author Edward Field discusses with Mike, his colorful and bohemian life after WWII, including his life in France and Greece developing his craft as a fledgling poet, and 1950s gay life in Manhattan and McCarthyism.
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Poet Edward Field Part 1: Life as a Gay Soldier in WWll
Mike Balaban interviews renowned poet and author Edward Field. At 95 years old, Edward shares his experiences as a gay man in the military during World War ll, talking about his affair with his master sergeant in boot camp under the noses of his fellow recruits; his adventures as a navigator on...
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Coming Out
Mike talks with 25-year-old documentarian, Caleb Holland, and compares their experiences coming out. In 1975, Mike, in his mid-twenties, was attracted to other guys, but successfully hid it from all who knew him. Almost 40 years later, Caleb relates how he was constantly told he was gay by…
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Author David Nimmons discusses gay community
In this episode, Mike interviews Dave Nimmons on gay male bonding and how gay men can find meaningful ways to connect and create community. David Nimmons, a former president of NYC’s Lesbian and Gay Community Center, is the author of “The Soul Beneath The Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay...
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LGBTQ Activist Eric Sawyer and the Queer Liberation March
Mike Balaban talks with LGBT Activist Eric Sawyer about the Queer Liberation March on Sunday, June 30, 2016, which runs three hours before the NYC World Pride March, and why we need this more than just a celebration of LGBTQ rights.
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Self Discovery
Cross-generational perspectives on LGBTQ issues and themes from a 66-year-old gay activist/historian and a 25-year-old. millennial documentarian.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Bammer and Me have?
Bammer and Me currently has 45 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Bammer and Me about?
Co-founder of BAMMER.co, Mike Balaban is building community through storytelling.
How often does Bammer and Me release new episodes?
Bammer and Me has 45 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Bammer and Me?
You can listen to Bammer and Me on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Bammer and Me?
Bammer and Me is created and hosted by Mike Balaban.
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