Poptarts

Janelle James is a bi-coastal comedian who you may know from The Comedy Lineup on Netflix, Late Night with Seth Meyers, or from Crashing on HBO. She’s toured with Chris Rock and Amy Schumer and she’s now the boss lady of The Janelle James Comedy Festival, which is returning to Brooklyn for its second year December 5 through 7 at The Bell House and will feature big names including Ilana Glazer, the Lucas Brothers and Jaboukie Young-White. Her debut comedy album, Black and Mild is available on all major streaming networks and she’s currently a writer on Black Monday on Showtime. On this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she spills the T on what goes on behind-the-scenes at standup clubs today. (And she also describes what it was like to make out with Lenny Kravitz...oooOOOoooOOO!!!)

Penny Arcade is a true downtown N.Y.C. performance legend! She began her career as a teen actor in the 1960s at the avant-garde Playhouse of the Ridiculous, at the La Mama theater, and as one of Andy Warhol’s factory superstars before establishing herself as queen of the underground performance art scene. As a writer/director/ performer, feminism, intellectualism, and rebellion have always been at the forefront of her groundbreaking shows, which include Bitch Dyke FagHag Whore, Love Sex and Sanity, and Bad Reputation. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she gives us a hilarious and poignant look inside her five decades on the fabulous fringes of fame.

Taxidermy—it’s an art form that requires practitioners to be sculptors, biologists, and naturalists all at once. The blood-and-guts aspects of preserving animals for display have traditionally made taxidermy a male-dominated space. But women are making a mark in the field like never before. Helping us discuss the topic on this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast is documentary filmmaker Erin Derham, whose new film, Stuffed, takes a deep dive into the state of the art.

Michelle Tea has been a beloved author in feminist literary circles for over 20 years. Her books for grown-ups include Modern Tarot, Valencia, and Black Wave, she’s got a YA fantasy trilogy that includes Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, Girl at the Bottom of the Sea, and Castle on the River Vistula, and she’s now penning gorgeous astrology books for little ones. She’s written for Harper’s, The Believer, Artforum, Cosmopolitan, Lenny Letter, and Buzzfeed, she created Drag Queen Story Hour, and she founded the online parenting journal Mutha Magazine in 2013 after she and her wife welcomed a son. She is an Aquarius with a Leo rising and a Sagittarius moon and in this episode of BUST’s Poptarts Podcast, she opens up about queer parenting, politics, polyamory, and more!

Staceyann Chin is a poet, actor, performing artist, and activist. Her 2009 memoir The Other Side of Paradise received critical acclaim, she was a co-writer and in the original cast of Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, and she’s written and performed four one-woman shows off-Broadway. She proudly identifies as Caribbean, Black, Asian, lesbian, a woman, and a resident of New York City, as well as a Jamaican national. And the first full-length collection of her poems, Crossfire: A Litany for Survival is out now. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she takes us inside her extraordinary immigrant’s journey and gives a performance of her work that will give you all the feminist chills.

For decades, Sophia Chang worked behind-the-scenes helping famous men advance their careers as a record exec, producer, and manager, including for the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, GZA, and ODB, A Tribe Called Quest, Raphael Saadiq, and D’Angelo. Her relationship with the Wu-Tang Clan led her to a transformational journey studying Shaolin kung-fu. And now, in her new Audible Original memoir, The Baddest Bitch In The Room, she shares all the lessons she learned in the trenches of the music business and reveals how she finally put her own talents center stage. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast she teaches us all how to boost our own inner bad bitch to make our dreams come true.

Spend any time on social media and it will become abundantly clear that cats are a global obsession. But what is it about them that makes them pop cultural catnip? Why are women so deeply infatuated with felines and what does their popularity say about us as a culture? Helping us sort it all out on this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast is Kristen Sollée. Kristen is a writer, curator, and educator whose latest book, Cat Call: Reclaiming the Feral Feminine—is all about cat archetypes in culture, myth, and magic. Meow!

Have you ever thought about starting your own podcast? Millions of amateur broadcasters around the world already have! But it’s not easy to succeed. Which is why this episode’s guest, Kristen Meinzer—author of the new book, So You Want To Start A Podcast: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story and Building a Community That Will Listen—is here to show us all the ropes. Kristen is a friend of BUST and a true expert on this subject, so listen up and take notes!

Margaret Cho does it all. She’s a true stand-up comedy pioneer, an actor, an author, a singer/songwriter, a podcaster, a designer, an activist, and an all-around inspiration to outsiders everywhere. Rolling Stone named her one of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time and she’s been a friend of BUST since way back in 2000 when she graced the cover of our “Travel” issue. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts Podcast, she reads Louis C.K. to filth, revisits her kerfuffle with Tilda Swinton, and discusses her status as a “bi-con” (iconic bisexual, natch). Miss it at your peril!

The Moth’s artistic director Catherine Burns has helped present thousands of true stories told live on stage without notes by both big time writers and regular folks with a knack for engaging audiences. More than 500 Moth events are produced each year in more than 30 cities, The Moth podcast is downloaded more than 61 million times a year, and the Moth Radio Hour is broadcast on over 500 radio stations worldwide. There are also three Moth books—all edited by Catherine Burns—and in this episode of Poptarts, she shares all her insider secrets to great storytelling!

Through the late 80s and early 90s, graffiti goddess Claudia “Claw Money” Gold was leaving her signature, a paw with three claws, all over New York City and you can still find her iconic tags all around the Lower East Side. After making her mark with graffiti, she became the fashion editor at Swindle Magazine and then broke out as a fashion designer in 2002, launching her own signature clothing line that later led to Claw Money collaborations with Calvin Klein, Marc Ecko, Rag & Bone, and Nike. Her gear has a huge celebrity following, including one-name-wonders like MIA, Kanye, and Rihanna. She’s an outlaw and a trendsetter and in this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, she lets us into her secret world of spray paint.

If you were a feminist and a fan of hard rock in the 90s, you are probably still obsessed with Donita Sparks. Donita formed the band L7 in L.A .with her friend Suzi Gardner in 1985 and through various lineups, they toured the world with heavy, head-banging bravado for the next 16 years. During that time, they released five furious albums, including the amazing Bricks Are Heavy. And when the band broke up in 2001, punk girls everywhere shed bitter tears. But in 2014, Donita and Suzi, along with longtime bandmates Jennifer Finch and Demetra Plakas, got the band back together and they are currently rocking out harder than ever. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, Donita gets real about music biz sexism, rocking for choice, and the “code of the road.”

Carolyn Castiglia and Shalewa Sharpe are standup comedians in NYC and co-hosts of the monthly comedy show Laying It Down with Carolyn & Shalewa—a glamorously exhausted showcase of life after 40 featuring standup from the city's finest talents, performed at Madame X in Soho. Carolyn has appeared on VH1, MTV, Comedy Central, and all over the New York club scene. And Shalewa has performed on HBO’s 2 Dope Queens and Comedy Central’s “The New Negroes,” she has a new comedy album out this year on Little Lamb Recordings, and she also performs and hosts all over New York City. In this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, the two powerhouses open up about how doing standup over 40 has effected their careers, their relationships, and their hopes and dreams for the future.

POSE returns to FX on June 11 and we are OBSESSED. Helping us to talk about this amazing show on this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast is Our Lady J! She is currently a writer and producer on Pose and was previously writing and producing on Amazon’s groundbreaking show Transparent. Before becoming the first out trans writer to be hired in a television writers’ room, she made a name for herself as a pop and classical pianist, working with Sia and the American Ballet Theatre and was the first out trans woman to perform at Carnegie Hall. Our Lady J is a true trailblazer and we were so honored to have her here with us at BUST HQ!

The U.S. government has somehow become the world’s worst reality show. And with a jillion democrats vying for the 2020 nomination, following it all can be dizzying. Helping us tackle this crazy topic on this episode of Poptarts, are comedian Lizzie Stewart and campaign staffer and political strategist Arden Walentowski. Together, Lizzie and Arden are the hosts of Let’s Get Civical, a funny and very feminist podcast that unpacks government structures in a way we can all understand and that makes us all more informed citizens as a result.

Karen Finley started out performing feminist monologues full of vitriol and fury in the punk clubs of the Bay Area in the late 70s. By the 80s, she’d moved to New York where she was a regular at legendary performance venues like Danceteria. And then in 1990, she became a household name as part of the NEA FOUR—a group of four performance artists whose National Endowment for the Arts funding was revoked because conservative Senator Jesse Helms had a hissy fit about decency. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1998 in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley and Karen Finley became an icon of the struggle for free speech. She’s a professor of Art and Public Policy at New York University and in this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast she unleashes on the current administrations and provides creative guidance for feminists trying to keep our heads up in the time of Trump.

Jenna Wortham is a technology reporter and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. She co-hosts the New York Times podcast Still Processing with Wesley Morris, and just before her rise to fame at the Times, she was one of BUST’s superstar freelancers, interviewing Diablo Cody, Solange Knowles, and Sarah Silverman for us all in 2008 alone. We are so thrilled by her success and in this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast, we chat with her about Black excellence in pop culture, the importance of self-care while covering the news, what it means to cancel our heroes, and more.

Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson are the hosts of the super popular Guys We F****d: The Anti Slut-Shaming Podcast, and they co-wrote the companion book F****D: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That’s Screwed in 2017. Corinne and Krystyna have also been performing since 2011 as the comedy duo Sorry About Last Night, and they have made it their mission to make the world a more sex-positive place. In this candid interview on BUST’s Poptarts podcast we talk about trying to have healthy boundaries when talking about sex is your job, creating the perfect online dating profile, why they are now both having the best sex of their lives, and more.

Karley Sciortino is the creator and host of the hit Viceland show "Slutever," now in its second season. On the show, Karley navigates the world of sex, love, hookups, open-relationships, sex parties, sex work, sexual technology, and more in a way that is brave, surprising, and very feminist. She’s also the co-writer of the new comedy series "Now Apocalypse" on Starz, she wrote a book called "Slutever: Dispatches from a Secxually Autonomous Woman in a Post-Shame World," and she writes a sex and relationship column for Vogue.com. On this episode of BUST’s Poptarts podcast Sciortino reveals what her mom’s reaction was to her becoming a sexspert, what it’s like to work for Vice, and how she maintains her high feminist standards while covering the sex industry.

This episode is all about girl groups! And joining us to tackle this tasty topic is one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject. DJ Sheila B hosts "Sophisticated Boom Boom" on WFMU, an amazing radio show that celebrates female-fronted pop from the past, present, and future, and from all over the globe. She’s brought her legendary record collection to girl pop dance parties from New York to London to Tokyo, was recently featured in the book, "Dust & Grooves," about hardcore vinyl collectors, and she’s also a longtime friend of BUST magazine!