In the past few months, New Orleans has seen the closure of it’s last two backrooms. These spaces are vital for (mostly) gay men to gather socially and explore their sexuality freely. We partnered with Alexander Charles Adams, professed lover of these spaces, as they sought to understand what this loss means to the queer community.
In the past few months, New Orleans has seen the closure of it’s last two backrooms. These spaces are vital for (mostly) gay men to gather socially and explore their sexuality freely. We partnered with Alexander Charles Adams, professed lover of these spaces, as they sought to understand what this loss means to the queer community.
Narrator: Hey. The following episode of Tales of Your City contains language and themes that skew a little more adult. Just a note, in case you’re listening with your kids. Enjoy.
[Music]
Charlie: Welcome to Tales of Your City, an exploration of queer identity and community across America, brought to you by Netflix. My name is Charlie Barnett, and I am the host of this week’s episode, New Orleans.
[Music]
Charlie: In partnership with Tales of the City, the new, limited series now streaming on Netflix, we are looking with independent queer storytellers each week to shine a light on the cities we inhabit, the ways we connect, and the moments in which we find our space to be our true and authentic selves.
Alexander: There is a large group wanting to include themselves in queer culture who don’t necessarily fit that bill, but it does seem that there are like some cis women who want access to bars that aren’t their spaces.
Charlie: This week, New Orleans. That’s New Orleans, a city known round the world for debauchery and decadence. It’s hot tin roofs, black cats, and sex. Always has been.
[Music]
Charlie: A city built by the oppressed, now a sparkling jewel in our nation’s queer identity. Efforts to quote/unquote clean up New Orleans have never stuck, but that doesn’t make the present any less harrowing or isolating. In the past few months, New Orleans has seen the closure of its last two backrooms, spaces for mostly gay men to gather socially and engage each other in an atmosphere that doesn’t provide as many sexual outlets as other queer meccas like San Francisco or New York. Today’s story comes from Alexander Charles Adams, a queer, non-binary sound artist from the west banks of the Mississippi, deep out in them sticks. Professed lover of these spaces, Xander sought out why this happened, what it means to a community to lose public sex spaces, and what the hell are we supposed to do with our future? So get ready for the big hard.
[Music]
Alexander: [Sighs] Okay. Here we go. You got it. You got it. You going to get it. Uh, uh, uh, uh. [Clears throat] Okay. [City sounds] Hello, painted ladies. [Laughs]
I always park here. Any time I’m making a go of it at the Phoenix, this little parallel space is a staple.
Bye, Fred. Don’t get towed. Now, the mission at hand. First steps.
As I walk up the corner and catch the sign, a big black and white bird with wings stretched out to read, “Phoenix,” in a font that makes me ache for chic Egyptologist fashions. Now, inspecting the corner is essential to gauging dick opportunities here. It’s all about the smokers. How many are outside? If there’s five, I’m golden. Less than that, and it’s just shit the whole night, but tonight, there are 10, all sweaty bears smoking and shouting, drunk and obviously horny. Thank fuck. I reach the doors and yank. [Club sounds] The bar is packed, wall-to-wall queers with piercings, jock straps, leather bands, hankies, and beards, thick, hot beards just everywhere. [Sighs] It makes me melt.
Excuse me, sorry.
Old nudie magazines and Toma Fidelin [phonetic 00:04:09] posters cover the walls, oddly enough sharing space with Melted Moose [phonetic 00:04:13], ‘70s Leatherman [phonetic 00:04:17] porn prints and blue light leaking from the slot machines on the back wall, and these low-hanging lights with that specialty bulb luminescent bull shit, but it’s just [Inhales] so right.
So sorry, so sorry. Hi.
Man: What can I do you for?
Alexander: Uh, double tequila and ginger beer.
Man: Oh fun.
Alexander: He reaches over to get something out the ice chest, and his ass peaks out over his pants. Fuck.
Man: There you are. Eight dollars.
Alexander: Groovy. Thanks.
I’d do about half. Those four over there, specifically. That last one looks like he could fucking break me. All right, cigarette, and then I’ll go up. Wait, they’re going up. Fuck. Okay, well, just got to try it. I start sucking on that straw like nothing I ever have and just down that shit. And then I wait for them to go up, so it’s not weird. Great. Now I beeline across the bar.
Excuse me. Sorry, sorry.
I get to the door frame in the back. Beyond it, a rickety, steep staircase, the staircase.
[Exhales]
The walls look like a leather porn zine and a rule book threw up all over the place, intricate cut-outs of the most stereotypical men you could think of interspersed with no phones and white people and then big white-on-red letters, no photography. Fuck, I get hard and nervous as shit all at the same time. Right before you can see into the darkness, one last sign, one drink minimum. And then you’re in the darkness.
[Loud club music]
Thick, wet, red, dim, except for a bright screen with guy after guy loading up this bottom, speakers at full blast cutting in between the thumpa thumpa of the dance floor below. It all makes it so hard to see anything. I cling to the bar to give my eyes some time to adjust, just to be sure and deal with—
Man: What can I get for you, dear? Oh, nice eye makeup.
Alexander: Thanks.
Man: So, what can I get you?
Alexander: Uh, tequila and ginger beer, single.
Finally, my eyes start to clear up. Dark blobs become people huddled together in corners, pressed against walls, bent over speakers, on all fours.
Fuck that.
The bartender hands me my drink and goes back to chatting with some friends in the corner. I got to spin back around to face the sea of fuck, and then he catches me. This flash of piercing green eyes and furry belly stops me. He’s sitting next to me. I look him up and down and just swallow him. Wait, he’s talking to me.
Uh, I—
I can’t make anything out. And then he stops talking. He looks down. I follow his eyes, and then I make out something huge.
Woof.
He nods and swivels again on his stool, and I see it. I want it. I slide down, and I reach out, mouth wide, and I take his big, hard—
But that’s not what this place is. It’s what this place was, and fuck, I miss it. What you heard before was a memory from nights I’ve had between these walls. Now, nothing feels the same. My phone is in my hand. That cute bear from before is now on my screen. Since the lights are on, it’s grinder or bust up here now. I miss Jim-Backs-and-Picks [phonetic 00:08:34]. I turn to see that the TV doesn’t play porn anymore. It’s some exercise video with boys in jock straps.
Ugh, yuck.
This place was real, like real real. And now, it’s this. How did this happen? And who turned on these mother fucking lights?
[Music]
Alexander: Before Mardi Gras of 2019, our last two backroom spaces in the city were closed. First, a leather bar called Rawhide, and second, the Phoenix Bar. Now, to be clear, the bars are still open. They’re just regular gay bars now, which means way more lights, no hanky panky, and generally the same drink specials. Aside from private parties or pop-up events, these bars have been the only two places for gay men to seek out a certain kind of sexual experience for years, and the closure of these backrooms and these bars affects way more than the city queens. When you want to find other gay people, there’s this kind of reasonable assumption you’ll have better chances in a city. I grew up 40 minutes out of New Orleans in Vacherie, so the rural bottom struggle has been my life. And when you want to find people to fuck, there’s this reasonable assumption you’ll have better chances in New Orleans.
But we should start with the basics, because y’all might never have been down here before. Now, the Phoenix Bar in the Marigny of New Orleans has been open since 1983, having two floors and a debaucherous clientele. The Phoenix was home to a backroom, a part of the bar roped off for gay men to have anonymous sex, usually in the dark. What made these rooms special were their kind of sexual speakeasy feel. Think a bar in a bar meant for fucking. The Phoenix, again, was not the only bar like this. There was another backroom bar in the French Quarter nearby called Rawhide, owned by man named Tom Wood. Wood is a wealthy, gay Republican who owns multiple queer bars in New Orleans and many other businesses in and out of the city. The massive popularity and tourist customer base of these bars seems to have always overshadowed Wood’s conservatism, and I’m not immune to that. Having no more than $200 at any given time through my teenage years, places like the Rawhide and the Phoenix gave me somewhere to show up, relatively safe for my queerness, and gave me the option to get nasty if I wanted it. But now, it seems like that’s no longer the case.
Frank: For those who are not familiar with it, you know, they may have this vague idea that it’s this, you know, dark dungeon where sadomasochistic orgies go on nonstop, and that’s really not what that bar’s about.
Alexander: Now, this is Frank Perez. He is a local journalist and historian. Frank wrote a piece about the fall of Rawhide and the Phoenix for Ambush Magazine. The story goes that two gay bars fell at the same time by surprising forces. The bars did not get wiped out because of some crazy Christians. The drama begins during Southern Decadence, the largest gay street fair in the city that happens every Labor Day weekend.
Frank: During Southern Decadence of last year, there were a number of women who were denied entry into Rawhide over the Southern Decadence weekend, which is illegal and unconstitutional.
Alexander: It’s a common practice of backrooms for gay men to have very strict barriers in place against women coming in. This stems from the clientele of these kinds of bars, the majority of them being closeted gay men not wanting to be identified. As that has become less the case, these barriers have caused more and more problems.
Frank: Some of these women got very angry, and a few days later, after the Decadence weekend, someone filed a complaint against the bar but did not allege gender discrimination.
Alexander: We aren’t sure who filed the report, but it was very near this incident at Rawhide during Southern Decadence, and girl, whoever filed those reports was really trying to do ‘em in. The report to the ATC, the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, said that drugs were rampant, there were public sex acts, and human trafficking.
Frank: Whoever filed the initial complaint probably knew that if they said, underage prostitution, they would have to investigate.
Alexander: Now, the drug use, the public sex acts, the porn on the screens, all that was true, but this was an open secret.
Frank: First of all, I think it’s important to remember that the Rawhide as well as the Phoenix were not on anybody’s radar, any government agency’s radar until this complaint involving prostitution came. The city, for its part, has kind of known what’s going on in these bars.
Alexander: And the ATC has done routine compliance checks into Rawhide and the Phoenix for years. There used to be a sex sling in the upstairs backroom at the Phoenix. I never felt bold enough to get in, but I always appreciated that it was there. And then one slut trip down there, I noticed it was gone. The bar still had the backroom. I still had a fabulous night, but it turns out that the sling was removed after one of these routine compliance checks. And the owner, Clint Taylor, wasn’t cited or anything, just politely nudged that it crossed the line. So really, these hearings probably would not have happened without those first reports on Rawhide around the time of Southern Decadence. And while yes, that’s sad for Rawhide, the owner did not help himself in this situation.
Frank: What made matters worse in the Rawhide situation was that Tom and his attorney tried to argue everything, even tried to dispute the video evidence. One of the managers claimed that the pornography was not really porn, that they were art films. I mean, just ridiculous.
Alexander: There was this kind of resistance to the facts that Tom Wood displayed in his ATC hearings. It’s as if there was a goal of disputing everything, so that the bar would not have to change. But realistically, that was never on the table. After the hearing, Rawhide was fined. They had to close the whole bar for a week, and then when they reopened, they could not allow sex in the bar or play porn on the screens. And that’s why the lights went up in backrooms in the city.
[Music]
Alexander: Well, actually, as of this point in the story, only one backroom would be changed, and as you heard in the beginning, that is so not the case. I remember hearing about Rawhide losing its backroom whenever it first happened, and I was angry. I remember being so irritable for the entire day, starting arguments with almost anybody and just being pissed at the ATC and the state and NOPD and just like any law enforcement I could think of, because this felt like an attack on us. However, the ATC has said publicly that they are not trying to weed out gay bars. Same goes for the city council. So while it was sad we lost Rawhide, it should not have cost us all the spaces we had left or start some witch hunt. There were not reports against the Phoenix made by individuals prior to Rawhide’s case, and based on that, the Phoenix would have remained untouched and unbothered. It’s the idea of that that did not sit well with Tom Wood. Upon accepting the fate of his own bar, losing argument after argument in his hearing, he decided that he was not going to be the only one going down. Tom Wood and his attorney reported to the ATC that the Phoenix Bar had an upstairs backroom where they allowed and encouraged public sex, essentially outing the space on public record.
Frank: The ATC confirmed on more than one occasion that it was Tom Wood and his attorney that filed the complaint against the Phoenix.
Alexander: And we know that for certain?
Frank: We know that for certain, yes.
Alexander: You can call him a rat, a snitch, whatever, but a lot of people in the community thought and still think what Tom Wood is is a traitor. So in a way, at first, Tom seems like the victim of these cis women or some homophobic state government pressure, but that could not be further from the truth. Tom Wood has since publicly taken credit for reporting the Phoenix, saying quote, “When I realized they were giving the green light for the Phoenix to take our business and my employees’ jobs, I cried foul. I am responsible for the employment of almost 100 people and will always do what’s best to protect them as we have for almost five decades.” End quote. While a history of law suits between Tom Wood and his employees would beg to differ he’s doing what’s best to protect them, the you break it down, the argument is, if I can’t have this, no one can, and we all know how mature that sounds. Because of Tom Wood’s actions, the ATC investigated and then shut down the Phoenix’s backroom. The bar stayed open, but it’s not the same. It won’t ever be. And I don’t really know what to do about it.
Frank: What I find curious is that most of the people who have reacted to the report are not so much upset about the gender discrimination. They’re more upset about what Tom did to the Phoenix.
Alexander: Right.
Frank: Which you could argue is a pretty shitty thing to do, but you could argue that from a purely business, capitalistic standpoint, it was understandable what he did. I think it was foolish on his part. I don’t think he anticipated—or maybe he just didn’t give a shit about the public reaction.
Alexander: It’s not just that one bar caused the fall of the other. It’s that Tom Wood is also in the queer community. Whether he likes the culture of it or not, he’s an out gay man and gay business owner, and his actions took away our last option for a social-sexual public space, which is a defining marker for the queer community of New Orleans. What does it say about us if one of our own took that last space away, and how do we, if ever, reconcile that? On the flip side of that is the argument that it’s actually the women who pushed into Rawhide who caused this problem, or simply that women, regardless of if they are queer are not, in kinky gay bars caused this mess. When this was all first coming out, many people were sitting somewhere between blaming Tom and blaming the women.
Since Frank’s story, we’ve learned something that tips the scales a bit more. Have you been wondering why these women even went to Rawhide that night during Southern Decadence? Rawhide was hosting an all-gender inclusive event with a local leather group as they had been doing for years. So imagine being invited, getting ready, finding parking in the damn French Quarter, and then being turned away like, you got it fucked up, when really it was Tom Wood’s management at the bar that must have had some miscommunication between the doorman and the staff. But even if it was a regular night, who says that someone can’t be in a queer space? I find myself struggling with that. I struggled with it before all this shit started. I mentioned it to Frank.
Frank: Even though I didn’t frequent those spaces, I’m all for them. I support them. But if I were operating one, my attitude would be that if you’re a woman or a trans or a non-binary or pansexual or whatever, you’re welcome. And if someone has a problem with it, that’s that person’s problem.
Alexander: See, I’m the same way, and I don’t know if that’s like some sort of crazy, utopian bull shit, but here I am, like we are obviously in different generations, and we have the same thought, raised entirely differently, you know?
Frank: Well, one must be consistent.
[Music]
Alexander: Back before the hearings and the drama, a huge part of me getting ready to go to the Phoenix for a mini slutcation was pacing in front of a mirror, debating if it was okay for me to wear makeup, or if that would make me too weird to get fucked. And if I did choose to wear makeup, I’d have to hype myself up about it, over and over again and say, no, I can be here. It doesn’t mean I’m a hypocrite. I am just trying to have a good time. See, I’m non-binary. I am not a gay man. I was comfortable being a boy when I was young, but then when it came to becoming a man, I got stuck. It felt so wrong and weird and just bad. And one day, I heard about this non-binary business, and they/them pronouns, and it was like someone was singing it to me. That was what I wanted. It’s what I needed to find to get out of this nowhere place about my gender. Even though the rooms are just regular, mini bars now, I still wonder if backrooms of the Phoenix and Rawhide were just for quote gay men and not for queer people, and like, would I have gotten stopped one day, too? I would never have reported or tried to take the shit down, but I can’t shake a compassion for these women that were invited and then turned away.
[Music]
Lally: The Phoenix happens at 3:00 a.m., after everybody has had plenty to drink and they’re feeling particularly slutty and want to have fun. I mean, I think it’s great. There is a large group wanting to include themselves in queer culture, who don’t necessarily fit that bill, but it does seem that there are like some cis women who want access to bars that aren’t their spaces.
Alexander: This is my friend Lally [phonetic 00:24:27]. He’s queer and works in the service industry here in the city. I figured he’d be my best bet to hammer out some conflicting feelings I’ve had about this story. Like, should I be upset that these spaces are gone? Were they even for me? Like, I realize I feel a way now that they’re gone, but why? When I don’t know if they were worth keeping, because I say I want to burn the binary to the ground, and both of these bars in my mind took the binary shit very seriously.
Lally: I mean, of course it’s not legal to ban anyone from any place, so they walk in, there are leather events and stuff, and I understand the inclusivity or the need for it, but there are other venues for that. This has always been a safe space for male-identifying people.
Alexander: I feel like gay men also are like trying to claim that some things are theirs that are just not, you know?
Lally: That’s perfectly valid.
Alexander: You know, saying that the Phoenix is a gay bar instead of like a queer kink bar, and that non-binary people, transfem people, and other midway folks are just considered not there in the beginning when they totally are.
Lally: So I don’t think it’s so much saying that gay men feel entitled to it. I think that this was something built for gay men, and as our city has grown and become more diverse, and there’s been larger acceptance into changing gender norms, I think then you open up the book to kind of see how can we be more inclusive? Everything I’ve read is that there is a woman who wants into this space and is angry that they’re not able to. That’s not thinking about a large portion of the Phoenix’s clientele, for example, being closeted older gay men. If we were to push that train of thought, these spaces wouldn’t exist anymore. If everybody’s supposed be included everywhere, then what’s the point of having a gay bar? It’s just a bar at that point. And there are plenty just bars. I mean, you have an entire street in this city that is just bars.
I had initially thought that it was just the city attacking, unprovoked, and that wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, it happened with the strip clubs. We’re talking about the city—you know, it’s affecting queer people, but it’s also affecting that larger group that I was talking about, our sex workers, our fems, we’re all being targeted.
Alexander: What Lally is getting at here is officials trying to make New Orleans more family-friendly. Recently, the ATC has cracked down on 15 straight-oriented strip clubs in the French Quarter, but this is not a new thing historically. What’s never happened before is the unprecedented mixing and broadening of gender norms within these historic spaces. I wanted to get some understanding of what women and fems turned away from places like Rawhide and the Phoenix backroom might have felt, and if I am right in thinking that these bars are not strictly gay bars but queer bars. So to help me out, Lally introduced me to a friend of his.
El: My name, for these purposes, is El Camino, and I am a sex worker of New Orleans. I have come from the West Coast, and I have been here for five years, and I work in the Bourbon Street Vucray [phonetic 00:28:01] French Quarter. I am queer, for the most part actually very reclusive queer.
Alexander: I have to say, I did not get what I expected with El. Going in, I thought I’d have an instant ally that was going to be like yeah, fuck these gender lines, but it became pretty clear that I was going to get challenged.
Going back to what happened at Rawhide where four women who had been in the bar before for a similar event with the Crescent City Leathermen, being denied entry, how does that make you feel living in the city?
El: Well, I’ve always personally perceived both Rawhide and Phoenix as being male-dominant spaces, which I see nothing problematic about. It’s very familiar terrain to me. The dichotomy doesn’t offend me. It seems like a natural way, actually, of preserving a culture that’s been long-lived, and it doesn’t feel segregating. It just feels safe. So when I heard about that, it didn’t surprise me. I mean, if someone today was like, oh, we weren’t granted entrance to these venues for these events, I’d be like, well, no kidding. It wouldn’t be offensive to me personally.
Alexander: All of this is really starting to ring true and feel more at my grasp, but there’s still that barrier to entry based on gender that’s bugging me. Maybe not even gender, but that these walls are in place at all.
El: The Phoenix and Rawhide, you’re having to establish who can and cannot enter, who are the threshold keepers and why. I feel that any queer party, especially if it’s designated as being more masc-oriented or more fem-oriented, those threshold keepers have to be very discerning, so even within those spaces, I don’t feel fully safe, necessarily.
Alexander: I have a knee-jerk reaction to those discerning thresholds or the threshold keepers, where I scream like, fuck you, I’m non-binary. Fuck you, fuck you. That’s not going to work going into my 30s, and I just have to figure that out.
El: Yeah. It really takes conversations like this to thresh it out as well, because if we don’t have these conversations, then it’s just going to all dissipate. It’s all going to fall apart.
[Music]
Alexander: The queer community of New Orleans has had a real wedge placed firmly between us by these events, and it will take years to undo this without a political miracle, which are far and few between in the Pelican State. Right now, but Rawhide and the Phoenix are fully functioning bars, just with much better lights and no sex. They exist as more acceptable versions of themselves. Both have seen an impact on their business form this. I mean that in a sense of foot traffic and money but also in the way of how these places feel and the conversations that would happen there. These spaces won’t ever be what they were. We’re in the mainstream now. There’s no going back.
Frank: If we want mainstream acceptance, this kind of comes with the territory. There was a time where gay bars served a very specific function. In other words, they met a need. Back in the ‘50s, ‘60s, you had to go to a gay bar to meet other gay men, unless you wanted to cruise the bathrooms at the department stores on Canal Street during your lunch hour. I don’t know what the future of those bars are. I don’t know if we’re even going to have gay bars in another 10 or 15 years.
Alexander: Where do you think the Phoenix is going to go from here?
Frank: I think the Phoenix is going to be fine. The Phoenix has a very loyal following. It’s a great neighborhood bar.
Alexander: And Rawhide?
Frank: Not so sure. The nature of Rawhide has already changed. They’ve already lost a lot of their regular local patrons. I think a lot of their out-of-town patrons who may not even be aware of what’s going on or be quite surprised will bring their patronage elsewhere when they find out. Unless the Rawhide can adapt and rebrand itself, which I don’t see much of an effort, it may be living on borrowed time.
Alexander: While I understand what Frank is saying, I think it’s unfair to single out Rawhide as having its nature changed. To see what I mean, let’s go back to the bar. [Club music] Here I am standing in the Phoenix. It’s a Friday night in spring at midnight, and it doesn’t feel right. This room is not what I’ve known it to be for years. I mean, my pants are around my waist and my phone is in my hand for starters. Being in here, seeing what it’s like now firsthand, I can’t stand here any longer. It’s just—[Sighs] I decide to go downstairs.
[Background bar noises] Wow, these are so much easier to see.
Downstairs is pretty busy, so that doesn’t seem to have changed. I don’t see anybody I know, though. And no messages, okay. I step into the add-on sex shop, which is essentially a walk-in closet full of lube, poppers, and singlets. When the backroom was still open, I swear, I forgot lube at home like every time, so I’ll always be thankful.
Hi.
Man: Hi. Need help with anything?
Alexander: No, I’m good, thanks.
Man: Okay, honey.
Alexander: I walk around, looking aimlessly. Huh, those are pretty colors. On a Friday night, this little room used to be full of people gabbing, flirting, and just having time to be with likeminded people in a climate where it feels like everybody disagrees. And that’s what I think feels most wrong about this. Even with the flaws of these bars, they allowed people to talk to each other through words and touch in a super honest way. Last year, I actually came into this room on a Friday night with my recorder running, just getting B-roll for some story at the time. I had no idea I’d be capturing the last of that magical air, but regardless of how history shook out, let me show you exactly what we’ve lost.
[Tape rewinds]
Jacob: I was like randomly looking through Tumblr—
Alexander: That’s my friend Jacob behind the counter, being extra as fuck with an orbit of pigs all around him, including me. Someone comes in.
Jacob: Hi John. Hiya.
John: Hello.
Jacob: This is Alexander.
John: Hello, Alexander. Nice to meet you.
Alexander: What’s your name?
John: I’m John.
Alexander: John. Cool.
Jacob: Did you get fucked yet?
John: No, I’ve not gotten fucked yet.
Jacob: Oh, I’m sorry.
John: It’s too early.
Alexander: You sound angry about it.
John: Well, yas. I just kept pulled outside to have cigarettes.
Jacob: Well, the guy that came in then, isn’t that the one with the great dick that fucked you?
John: Yes, yes. Oh, he’ll be fucking me later. We already discussed that.
Jacob: So, I was telling him about how you, me, and John and like a bunch of people just hang out here every Friday night, and we talk about all of our like escapades, what we do and everything, and he was like, I was love to record that. It sounds fucking incredible, and I was like, come. Like just sex shop—
Alexander: Is that what you were typing tonight? You were like, we have an interview.
Jacob: Yes!
John: I’m going up. I’m going to get a beer.
Alexander: Jacob said he and him a lot about me just then, and I swear I’ve told him my pronouns before. I didn’t want to make things weird, because I thought that John guy was pretty hot, and I didn’t want to seem like a drag, but referring to me by my proper pronouns is one of those small but so important things, because it means you see me. So I went for it.
Also, I don’t think I ever told this. My pronouns are they and them.
Jacob: Yes, I know.
Alexander: Oh, okay, cool. Cool, cool.
Jacob: Yes.
Alexander: Cool, cool. Didn’t know if I’d ever mentioned it or not. Gender pure.
John: So are you like non-binary?
Alexander: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah. Somewhere in between there. Whenever I got into typically all-male spaces, I get really—
[Tape fast-forwards]
Alexander: But that’s all gone now. I can cherish that recording, but that’s all it is. And I’ve had my fill of heartache, so I think it’s time to go home.
Thank you.
Man: Sure thing, darling. Be safe.
Alexander: Yeah. I’m going to call it. I make it halfway across the bar when my stomach lurches. Shit, I haven’t eaten in hours. Well, just because I didn’t get fucked doesn’t mean I can’t swing by Melba’s for grits and bacon. Breaking traditions. I walk outside, cigarette at the ready. But then I swear—swear I heard something.
[Cat noises] Oh my God.
Well, at least someone’s getting action tonight, baby! Ah!
[Music]
Charlie: All right, friends and family, thank you again for joining us this week on Tales of Your City. This show is produced by Netflix with Pineapple Street Media. Our music is by Hansdale Hsu. You can find us every Monday wherever you find your podcasts. The Big Hard was brought to you by the following team. Producer, reporter, sound designer, Alexander Charles Adams. Assistant sound designer, Alexander Danner. Interviewees, Frank Perez, B-Lally [phonetic 00:38:50], and El Camino. The bartenders were played by Paul Mitzgavich [phonetic 00:38:54], James Olivia [phonetic 00:38:55], and Alexander Danner. Music by Dedooni [phonetic 00:38:59], Commodity, Blue Topaz, Oh the City, Loverin [phonetic 00:39:03], and Martin Land [phonetic 00:39:04] from Epidemic Sound. Special thanks to Alya Pobani [phonetic 00:39:06] and Ned Donevan [phonetic 00:39:09]. If you have enjoyed what you’ve heard, spread the joy and tell a family member, whether biological or chosen. Also don’t forget to rate us and subscribe to Tales of Your City on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whoever you get your podcasts, and you can watch me on Netflix’s original series Tales of the City, now streaming.
[Music]