QN_122324_Final_v1

QN_122324_Final_v1

[00:00:00] There’s no place like the Qube.

Family, it’s your favorite queer radio personality, Anna Deshawn, and this [00:00:30] is Queer News, your favorite weekly news pod where race and sexuality meet politics, culture, and entertainment. We are officially, officially, officially heading into the holiday season. Season this week. So Merry Christmas. If you celebrate Happy Hanukkah, if you celebrate Happy Holidays, okay, if you don’t get down with any of it, but in any case, I hope you lean into ease that you lean into rest and surround yourself with a whole lot [00:01:00] of love because you deserve it.

You deserve it. Okay. Now family, get your merch, get your merch, get your merch. Hey, get your merch, get your merch, get your merch. Hey, that might be a new song. I didn’t know I needed a jingle, but Maybe that’s my jingle family. Get your family merch. The store is open. Okay. We got discount codes everywhere.

You just got to subscribe to the newsletter to get the discount codes family. Get your merch. Okay. That hoodie is so cozy. [00:01:30] Yes, that mug is so cute and the family ornament, it is our first annual ornament. Okay. Now, if you order it now, it might not get there in time for your tree, but you’ll have it. And I’m just saying, I think it’s going to be a collectible.

Now family, I also want you to remember to send me your queer news tips. Okay. A link is in the show notes and cute crew. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How many times can I say thank you? I need to learn. Thank you in other [00:02:00] languages. Okay. Cause that’s how grateful I am for your continued financial support for this podcast.

Yes. I hope that you continue to use your discount codes and the emails that you continue to enjoy. Write your exclusive perks for being part of the Q crew. I’m going to keep beefing in buffing that up. Okay. Because I want to thank you. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. This podcast wouldn’t be happening if you couldn’t help support the costs, okay, of making it happen.

So thank you. [00:02:30] Now for the news, it’s December, which means it’s time for me to wind down and only drop some queer news headlines and an interview. Okay. It’s a beautiful combination. For me, I hope you’ve been enjoying it too. Now in politics, the bill I was talking about last week, right? It actually passed the Senate, passed it.

The national defense authorization act NDA, that’s right. It’s a 895. billion dollar military spending bill [00:03:00] that for some reason, Republicans decided to dirty it up. Okay. They just couldn’t help themselves by adding in a last minute anti trans provision. Yeah. So if you don’t remember last week, or if this is your first week listening, let me just give you a little bit more.

This provision in this particular act prohibits service members, children from receiving gender affirming healthcare. through military health plans. I think this is just dirty. It wasn’t needed. Military spending is a bipartisan situation. Okay. Everybody [00:03:30] agrees. Well, at least all of them agree that military spending needs to be done.

So it’s never a question. Question. Yes, but they just felt like they just had to put a little bit of anti trans legislation in there. It’s dirty. It’s dirty. And it’s the first piece of federal anti trans legislation that’s passed in over 30 years. It’s [00:04:00] the end of the year and they just could not help themselves.

It was really just a power play by Johnson. And here we are, here we are speaker Johnson, just pandering to the far right, so he can. Retain his position of power, but I, I don’t want to get Democrats off the hook here. Yes. We know what Republican is going to do, but we demand of our democratic legislators to be different, but they were not, they [00:04:30] weren’t.

81 of them voted in the house, right? For this bill. And then 36 of your democratic senators joined them. Now, this is even after Senator Tammy Baldwin led an effort to introduce an amendment and she wasn’t alone. She was joined with 20 of her colleagues, but Democratic leaderships didn’t have her back.

They didn’t have their back at all. Yep. Which means they didn’t have our trans siblings backs either. But you know [00:05:00] who I want to thank in this moment? I don’t want to focus on those people. I want to focus on the people that voted no. The people that decided that they had a backbone, the people that decided that trans rights mattered.

Yes, that we could still pass this bill without this provision. Yeah. I want to thank those senators and you should too. If one of these senators are your senators, you should email them. You should call them and you should just say thank you because it wasn’t easy to do to stand up against the power that exists.

Yeah. In DC. So we [00:05:30] want to say thank you to. Cory Booker out of New Jersey, Andy Kim out of New Jersey. Okay. Jersey represent. We want to thank Mike Braun, Indiana, a Republican. Yes. Mike Lee out of Utah and Markey and Elizabeth Warren out of Massachusetts. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden out of. Oregon.

Yeah. Rand Paul out of Kentucky. Didn’t think I’d be thanking him. Okay. Here we go. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch out of Vermont. Adam Schiff out of California and Debbie Stabenow out of Michigan. [00:06:00] 14, 14 senators stood up against this. Alongside two Republicans. Go figure. In culture and entertainment, we remember Troy Masters.

He passed away suddenly at the age of 63. He was the founding publisher of the L. A. Blade, an LGBTQ journalist whose career spanned 40 years of service. If you’re not familiar with the Los Angeles Blade, they pride themselves on being Southern California’s [00:06:30] LGBTQ news source. And at the GLAAD Awards in 2022, he said this in response to the anti trans attacks.

He said, we know what we need to do. But sometimes it takes a newspaper to remind people of who they are and what we have to do. I love that. Newspapers have been on decline, right? Media landscape has been changing rapidly, but we cannot deny the importance of media and representation in our communities.

And we cannot deny the importance of newspapers [00:07:00] and local, right? Local news. And he was doing that for over 40 years. It was a sudden loss. And I know so many people in the community are mourning the loss of Troy Masters. So today on this show, we remember you, Troy, and all the amazing work that you did for LGBTQ media.

Not only in L. A., but across the country.

Now, family, for our last Queer News headline for today, Revry [00:07:30] TV is calling all the drag kings. Uh huh, I know you thought I was gonna say drag queens. Mm mm. Revry TV is calling all the drag kings to the front. They’re developing a new show hosted by comedian Murray Hill. They’re saying this is the first drag king competition series of its kind.

That’s huge and overdue. Okay. I love me a good drag king. Yes. And they are currently accepting applications through January 5th. So I’m calling on you to call on all your favorite drag Kings to apply for [00:08:00] this opportunity. If accepted, there’ll be part of the inaugural show. And if it goes well, Maybe they’ll have some money and funding to do another season.

Let’s go drag kings. I know y’all out there I’ve included a link in the show notes. So you apply you tell your friend to apply, you know what i’m saying? You know how this goes and let’s see what happens

now on to the interview For this week, I’m joined by my friend, Anthony Williams, founder of Second Glass Productions. [00:08:30] He’s an actor and award winning director who is also family and creates media for us. He has a new dating show for gay men. Okay. It’s not a, it’s not a reality show. It’s a dating show, but it is real, not scripted.

Okay. And he wants to tell you all about it. So stay close because it’s interview is coming up after the break.

Need health insurance? It’s open enrollment for the Get Covered Illinois Marketplace. Our navigators [00:09:00] will help you enroll in a health plan and you could qualify for financial help. Visit GetCoveredIllinois. gov to enroll by December 15th for coverage starting January 1st. If you’re listening to this, it means we didn’t sell this ad space.

If you’re listening to this, it means running ads on our podcast can actually work. You see what I did there. Do you need some promo, a little amplification hit us up at info. at e3radio. fm. [00:09:30] That’s info at e3radio. fm. We have a platform. You should use it. Family, it’s gift giving season and SAIL has the perfect gift for you.

I know you got somebody in your life interested in singing or playing the piano, getting into music. We’ll get them some lessons for the holiday sale is the teacher you need. And he’s booking free sessions. I said free sessions to close out the year. [00:10:00] Any student that launches their lessons before 2025 will have a permanent 20 percent discount.

He said permanent 20 percent discount on lessons moving forward, but you got to visit his website and sign up today. It is keys for life, LLC. com. That’s keys for life, LLC. com. Get the perfect holiday gift today. I’m just saying. Family, it’s your favorite queer radio personality, Anna Deshawn, and we’ve got [00:10:30] another Queer News exclusive interview for you today.

I’m excited to welcome my friend, Anthony, to the show. Anthony, what’s going on? Hey, girl, I’m excited to be here. Hey, I’m excited to talk to you. Now, family, if you don’t know Anthony, it’s all good. I’m here to tell you all about him, okay? He is an actor. Let me say this. No, he’s a fantastic actor, actually, let’s be clear.

And if you ever see Anthony’s head shot, you know what I’m talking about. He’s serious about this [00:11:00] business. Okay. He’s an award winning director, writer, and producer living right here in Chicago. All right. His award winning short film, Absolutely Positive, claimed the award for best director. Yes, he did at the World Music and Independent Film Festival in D.

C. in 2013. Then he had his directorial debut feature film, Thicker Than Blood, where he won Best Director again, Best Narrative Film. Child, he’s a winner, okay? And when he’s not, and when [00:11:30] he’s not working, you’ll typically find him whipping up or burning something in the kitchen. I think we mean burn in the best possible way.

Goofing around with his dog, Dax, or trying to find more ways to get out. Hey, I’m happy to be here. Thanks for the introduction. So kind. Of course, of course, you got to tell the good people, like, why is Anthony here? Because Anthony is fabulous. Okay. And fantastic and talented, and he’s got work that y’all should be tapping into and know about.

So that [00:12:00] is exactly why Anthony is here. So I want to just jump right in. You good with that? Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. So you have a docu series called It’s Not You, It’s Me. And it’s a dating docu series. Can you tell the good people about that? Yeah, this docu series came out of my own personal experience with dating.

I won’t go too far into it because that’s another show, another day. But back in 2020, I was actually, as we’re all locked down in our house, it really [00:12:30] caused me to just think about, Just my life and my relationships and how I approached relationships, whether they’re friendships, business relationships, romantic relationships, the whole thing.

And I actually went through an experience over the summer in 2020, where my identity was stolen and my bank accounts were hacked and cleaned out. My social media was hacked and taken over and my emails were hacked and I still have not gotten anything, any access back to my emails. And it’s [00:13:00] really funny how things work out though, because I’m a very spiritual person.

I’m Christian. I pray. I am very connected with God. And so earlier that year, instead of doing new year’s resolutions, I do new year’s words that I live by. And the one that was given to me that year was And I thought it was all about rediscovering who I was and this whole thing. And then six months later, that summer, my identity was stolen.

And I’m like, okay, God, like, what are we doing? What is going on? Child. Let me tell you, God, [00:13:30] sense of humor. It’s not funny. No, it does not make me laugh at all. It gives me way more questions than what feels like answers half the time. But that life experience sent me back into therapy for the second time in my life.

And I really just started to explore a lot of decisions and things that I’d made throughout my life. And so I got to talking about relationships and that really just opened my eyes and showed me that I really need to do a lot of work in that realm. So [00:14:00] as I did my own self work, I took what I was going through and thought, maybe I’m not the only person that that is experiencing a lot of trauma.

What I’m going through and thus it’s, it’s not you, it’s me was born. And that was about four, three and a half years ago now. So we’ve been developing it for three and a half years, shopping the idea around to the public to get a good sense or a good feel of if this type of show is a show that our community would be down to watch and I ended [00:14:30] up.

Last year, moving forward with raising money to, to film the proof of concept for it. And the idea behind the show is it follows three bachelors of color here in Chicago or any city as they decide to get back into dating. But the thing is, they’re also, while they’re deciding to get back into dating, they’re also in therapy to unpack baggage from previous relationships.

So that way they don’t take it into the new relationships. that they’re starting to build. And so this show is [00:15:00] really a hybrid of queer dating meets mental health. And it’s true that oftentimes we don’t allow time for ourselves to process what we’ve been through in a relationship. What we have to let go from a previous relationship and how we need to heal or move on from that relationship.

Oftentimes, we jump from one to the other and we end up taking all of that compounded trauma, compounded baggage, compounded everything into the new relationship [00:15:30] we’re stepping into and And wondering why it’s not working. Why isn’t this one working again? Yeah. Same problem I had the last time. And the last time before that.

Okay. And yeah, we really are very intentional and very purposeful with the work that we produce with my company Second Glance Productions. And this one is just the latest project that we’ve done. And after we went through filming the project, we filmed over a course of five days. We filmed 27 dates around the city of Chicago in [00:16:00] three days.

Wow. And then we took one day for all of our sit down therapy sessions. Yeah, I love that. And I think we all love a good dating show. And for clarity, this is not scripted, right? This is all reality, for real, living life, dating. Mm hmm, yeah. Situations, right? It’s all, it’s not scripted. scripted, you know, the, we loosely scripted the proof of concept, but when the show actually gets picked up, there will be no script.

It will be all real people, reality, all real dates, all real therapy sessions. And y’all [00:16:30] can sit back and watch the screen and eat your little popcorn and be like, we’re very thoughtful, very methodical, intentional, and purposeful with how we crafted the show and how the show is going to be carried out.

And I had. The utmost pleasure of attending the stage play version of the adaptation of the docu series called The Dating Game. My wife and I went, I believe it was on Valentine’s Day. And I just thought it was, it was [00:17:00] comedy meets dating and watching people be uncomfortable. Live child family. They called on people from the audience to come up there.

Y’all want to go on dates and

Watching people in real time, these things, these skits are going around the internet where people have the balloons and they’re popping the balloons and if they don’t like you, have you seen this? I’ve seen this. You’ve seen this, right? It makes me so uncomfortable. Me too. Oh my God. And so watching people date on, right in [00:17:30] front of me and meet each other, it was just like, oh my God, I am cringing.

Where’s the tequila? But it was so much fun. It And talk about a hoot to be able to put that together. And honestly, that is something that’s like separate from the docuseries. So we were trying to find a way to bring media with entertainment. And holistic health. And so that’s where we came up with the idea for the LGBTQ Patois that you attended this past Valentine’s day and huge [00:18:00] undertaking, but the benefit possible, I like if people to this day, like, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in Chicago.

Like, where did you get this idea? Where did it come from? And I’ve never seen anything like it. So I’m, we’re glad to, you know, be innovators in that. Right. And it was so entertaining. I absolutely had a wonderful time and his family go follow Anthony. Cause if they bring it back, I’m just telling you, you don’t want to miss it.

That’s just the facts. That’s just the facts of the situation. Now. A big congratulations is also in order because you came in first [00:18:30] place in the LGBT Chamber Biz Bootcamp. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And you won with your business Second Glance Productions. So I think that is fantastic. Thank you.

It was, talk about quite the journey putting together. This dating docuseries, which we shot in November, and then I had a couple of days off for Thanksgiving and then immediately went into planning the soiree. And even in the midst of planning the [00:19:00] soiree, I had the interview for the bootcamp and then the first class for the bootcamp four days before the soiree happened.

And yeah, it was an eight week course with the Illinois LGBT chamber of commerce. And I had the privilege and the honor of being. With a cohort of just beautiful entrepreneurs, smart entrepreneurs, creative, innovative entrepreneurs, all in one space. And I really feel as if we all created our own family and support system because we all knew what we were in for and [00:19:30] we were in it together.

And I feel like we only had each other to be able to get through it. And so when we got to the pitch competition, we really didn’t feel like we were competing against each other at all. We all were really rooting for each other and we were like, we don’t care who wins. We all got through this together.

And we all got to the end of it and we were happy that we were able to do it with each other. But yeah, it’s, it was a huge honor and it’s something that I am still wrapping my brain around today. Um, but it was one of the best experiences. It really was. [00:20:00] I love that as an entrepreneur, these accelerators and bootcamps have been so helpful where they can reinforce things that you already know, and then expose you to things that you didn’t know.

And then also I found that being around other people who are pursuing similar goals, aspirations, who are also big dreamers, that type of energy is just so good to be around because oftentimes You are the only big dreamer around. You find yourself in spaces. You look around, everybody’s doing their nine [00:20:30] to five gig, which is, and let’s be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that.

And it’s very different when you are dreaming big and choosing to pursue it full time and how you function and live in the world. It’s just so different. And so these bootcamps and accelerators are just so important. So big up to you again, big win. I love that. And I want to also share my screen with everybody because I think it’s so important for people to have the opportunity to take a peek at [00:21:00] your work here.

So this is the trailer for the documentaries, right? Tell us what’s happening here. So here all of our bachelors are going through the beginning stages of being sent out into finding their dates. Um, so they’re all assigned three dates each to go on over the course of the show. And so they’re making their wishlist of what they’re looking for in a partner.

Because you don’t know, you know, what you’re looking for unless you know what you’re looking [00:21:30] for. So yeah, they’re going through, they’re being introduced to all different types of people. And the way that we discover the three people that they’re being assigned, they get to pick one themselves. Their chosen family gets to pick one based on knowing them.

And then the therapist picks one based on their wishlist that they created. So again, it’s all very intentional and it’s all very purposeful. And. Yeah, I love that. So I think that’s really [00:22:00] unique in that the therapist gets to pick one, too. Like that person probably don’t come close to the other people.

You’d be surprised because even though the therapist doesn’t know them and you know, the way that they think that they know themselves or their chosen family knows them, it’s all based on. The different perception of who this bachelor is and what they want. And so sometimes one of the bachelors that the therapist or one of the singles that the bachelors was assigned to by the therapist and it absolutely did not work out.

[00:22:30] The whole thing is even if you feel as if you don’t have an instant connection with the person you’ve been set up with. We’ve asked them to continue to commit going out on dates with them because you never know if love can spark later down the line. You never know if a budding friendship could come out of that.

Everything is not instantaneous. Like we’ve been trained that it is within this generation. We expect everything to happen now. We expect everything to be perfect in the first instance. And. We expect not to put in [00:23:00] any work at all. We expect it all to fall into place when in fact it’s the complete opposite.

There’s a lot of work that goes into not only building and maintaining a relationship, but building and maintaining yourself and knowing who you are and what you can bring or offer to a relationship. And so for that purpose, we have asked our bachelors to stay in it as much as possible, even if they feel they don’t connect with them, because there could be something that is just as beneficial that comes out of it on the other side.

Versus what you thought would come out when you went into it, if [00:23:30] that makes sense, it absolutely makes total and complete sense, and I love it. And you’re currently raising money to finish it. So, yeah, when we ended up filming the, the concept, the proof of concept, we walked away with so much footage that we were actually able to put together an entire first.

season of what we have. And so now that we’ve discovered that we are raising some more money to try to do just that, to put it together and to start releasing it as a web series or see if we can get it picked up by a streamer or a network. And [00:24:00] so far we’ve been shopping it around and there is huge interest in something like this.

A lot of the queer content that we have out right now. Tends to focus on a lot of the stereotypical aspects of queer lifestyle, whether it’s partying, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s sex, whether it’s the whole thing. But that’s the only that the queer community has been put in as far as mainstream media.

It’s slowly starting to change now. And there are a lot of different types of representations of different queer people in media. But there’s still a [00:24:30] long way to go. So what we wanted to do with this was to be able to bring back the human element of the LGBT community, because we’ve been put on this, there’s been a face that’s been painted over the entire community saying, this is how the whole community is, as opposed to saying, you know, um, that might be a subsection of the community.

And there are all these other parts as well. Um, so we wanted to be able to really put something out there that humanize, put a human face on the community, as opposed to the one that’s been [00:25:00] painted on us by people who aren’t even a part of the community. Um, so yeah, we want it to be able to show what we go through, show what we live through, show what our particular struggles and successes and things are.

Um, and, and the fact that it’s different for. Every person, it’s different for every LGBT community. It’s different for every race of every subsection of every community. Like it’s all very different. And so for this to be able to highlight that in an honest and open [00:25:30] way is what we’re hoping will be the factors that like connects.

different aspects of the community and then people outside of the community, you know, so that’s our hope is it a hundred percent. Yeah. I love that outlook of what you’re looking to represent in the media. I think that’s beautiful. I’m glad there’s interest in picking it up, come through with the deals.

Okay. And the content is so good. So if folks want to help and contribute, how can they do that? So they can do that by going to Second [00:26:00] glance productions. com slash contribute. That’s S E C O N D glance. Like you’re looking G L A N C E productions. com slash contribute. And you can give any amount of that you like, whether it’s 1, 10, 5, 000, a thousand, however much you’d like to give.

But yeah, that’s our main goal is to just start this fundraising process to see if we can finish an awesome project that we put together and get it out to the masses. I love it. So, family, if you’ve got the type of money that folds, please go [00:26:30] visit secondglanceproductions. com slash contribute and give what you can to support this great work.

Anthony, thank you so much for joining us on Queer News. Thank you for having me and opening up your Qube space to me. Thank you. Absolutely. You know, that’s what we do at Queer News. And family, you already know, we are Queer News Done Right.[00:27:00]

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard, rate and review us inside your favorite podcasting app. This podcast is written and produced by me, Anna Deshawn. Podcast editing by Ryan Woodhull and brought to you by E3 radio and distributed on the Qube. We are Queer News Done [00:27:30] Right.