And The Next Thing You Know Suzie Sherman

And The Next Thing You Know PodcastEpisode 017: Susie Bright















































Susie Bright, all pink like ruby grapefruit!























Susie Bright, prolific author, editor, and sex-positive feminist pioneer, is on And The Next Thing You Know podcast!Susie and I got together to talk about our evolving relationships with alcohol. For a lot of us, the social isolation of the pandemic shifted our drinking habits. This was true for me, as well as for Susie and her partner Jon.My conversation with Susie about booze comes from a harm reduction perspective. Let’s be honest about how people choose to live and celebrate joy, and minimize the harm. In the era of early HIV/AIDS, Susie contributed to a more transparent cultural dialogue celebrating sex and sexuality, and helped us take the shame out of it. That’s how it’s done.Susie Bright’s list of credits and accomplishments is vast! She was the editor of On Our Backs magazine from 1984 to 1991, author of Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World, author and editor of scores of other books and erotica collections, and one of Hollywood’s first intimacy coordinators—before it was even a thing—on the set of Lana and Lily Wachowski’s film Bound. She continues to share her prolific work with the world as a film and culture critic, expert teacher of writing and publishing, and audio producer who brought Allison Bechtel’s groundbreaking Dykes To Watch Out For comics to life for Audible last year.Find Susie Bright at her bloghttps://susiebright.ink























References the Suz(s)ies talked about in the episode















































Me and a bespoke stack o’ books for Susie























Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up, Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCainSusie’s commentary on queer self-hatred in The Children’s Hour from the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, based on Vito Russo’s book. (YouTube link)Radical Desire: Making On Our Backs Magazine at the Cornell University archiveSusie Bright’s books at Bookshop Santa Cruz 

And The Next Thing You Know podcastEpisode 016: In Memory of Jenessa Schwartz - There's Blood In My Stool (Rebroadcast)















































The transcript for the new introduction is here.























My niece Jenessa Schwartz died on November 1, 2023, after living with a stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis since March, 2017. She was 41 years old.

This is a rebroadcast of our podcast conversation from 2019, with an updated introduction.

We talked in detail about the early days of her diagnosis, many of the various treatments she endured, and the effects of surgery and chemo on her spirits. We also talked about what it was like to discuss her cancer with her young kids, and how she embraced a new relationship amid this major transition in her life. Early onset colon cancer is on the rise. If you have any GI symptoms you’re suspicious about, at any age, talk to your doctor about getting a colonoscopy. And if you’re 45 or older, even with no symptoms, it’s time to schedule your first screening colonoscopy. If you detect colon cancer early, it’s very treatable. Get on that.

If you’d like to learn more about Jenessa, please read her truly wonderful blogs

My Colon Cancer: Semicolon, Not Full Stop

about her experience as a stage 4 cancer thriver

and Womb For Hire  about becoming a gestational surrogate.

There is also a lovely obituary written by Leslie Katz for J. The Jewish News of Northern California.We love you, Ness.





















































Suzie Shermanis the host and producer of And The Next Thing You Know. She's a podcaster, writer, content marketer, and ever-aspiring creative noodler.

And The Next Thing You Know podcastEpisode 015: Shawna Virago















































Photo by Lindsay Gauthier, courtesy of Shawna Virago























This is my conversation with Shawna Virago. Shawna is an indie punk/roots/folk musician and singer-songwriter, and the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival.

In this episode, we talk about coming up in the eclectic L.A. music scene in the 70s and 80s, seeing artists like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Bo Diddley, and gay punk rocker Tom Robinson live, and what it was like gigging at frat parties while trans.































Photo by Lydia Daniller, courtesy of Shawna Virago















We also talk about Shawna’s move to San Francisco, and Shawna’s surprising and nourishing meet-cute with longtime partner, the choreographer and Fresh Meat Productions Artistic Director, Sean Dorsey. Since the 1990s, Shawna and Sean have done some heavy lifting in the queer and trans communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond to create vibrant trans visibility, community, and culture.Read a lovely piece about Shawna and Sean in the Advocate.Musical interludes in this episode are from Shawna Virago’s “Eternity Street,” used with permission. Find Shawna at shawnavirago.com and support Shawna on Bandcamp.























Shawna Virago Metaphorically Punches Lou Reed in the Face: The Spotify Playlist























I made a playlist to accompany this episode! It’s got original songs from Shawna, along with a bunch of the artists we talk about in the episode, including Bo Diddley, the Chiffons, X, Bowie, T. Rex, Amanda Lear, Jayne County, and many more! The Spotify Playlist Is Here























Queer history, activists, authors, and institutions referenced in the episode

And The Next Thing You Know podcast 
Episode 014: Oliver Strimpel

























Oliver Strimpel in the field. Photo courtesy of Oliver and Harriet Strimpel



















In this episode of And The Next Thing You Know, I talk with the creator and host of the podcast Geology Bites, Oliver Strimpel.

If you’re curious about what drives plate tectonics, or about the composition of rocks and the amazing amount of information they contain about Earth’s prehistoric climates, if you’ve ever wondered what shapes a mountain ridge, or a  canyon, Geology Bites is a podcast for the geoscience informed and the just curious alike!In the episode, we talk about the path Oliver has taken from his childhood in India, marveling in the Himalayas, to his PhD work in astrophysics studying galaxy clusters.























Oliver then worked at the Science Museum in London, and parlayed that work to his move to the United States in the 1980s to direct the Computer Museum in Boston. Oliver’s career path then took a sharp turn to patent law, and we talk about how the language of patents is kind of like poetry, and helps with podcast editing, as it turns out. Through it all, Oliver is driven by genuine curiosity and joy in learning about how the cosmos works, and the ingenuity humans use to understand it.

Find Oliver’s podcast Geology Bites at geologybites.com or in your podcast app.























Continuity and correction























A note on the timing of this episode and some corrections: At the beginning of the episode, Oliver says he started his podcast “last July” and that really means July of 2020, because it was already July of 2021 when we sat down together to talk. Later on, Oliver mentions that he’s about to publish episode number 37, which was his conversation with guest, Steve D’Hondt, about 100-million-year-old bacterial colonies living in the abyssal clay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.























That episode of Geology Bites was also posted back in July of 2021. Geology Bites is soon to break 60 episodes. I am posting this episode of And The Next Thing You Know several months after Oliver and I sat down to talk, so the time registry between our conversation and this episode are out of sync. My apologies for the continuity confusion.One more correction, also at the beginning of the episode, Oliver guesses that Nanga Parbat is about the “fifth or sixth” highest peak in the world; it is in fact, the ninth highest peak.

















































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And The Next Thing You Know podcastEpisode 013: Kati Douglas

































Kati Douglas



















Early childhood educator and photographer Kati Douglas and I talk about her career in the education field and what her first few years in leadership were like. We talk about what it’s like to deal with white supremacy as a biracial Black mom of Black kids with a Black partner. We also talk about how her struggle with postpartum depression catalyzed a radical career path change, and how she puts equity and justice at the center of all her work.































You can find Kati’s absolutely gorgeous photography atxilophotography.com and @xilophotography on instagram.























Themes we discuss in the episode























Early childhood education, leadership in education,  San Francisco, Oakland, post-partum depression, self-care, mental health, parenting, photography, career path, career transitions, relationships, Black Lives Matter, institutional oppression in education, Black experience in parenting, making art, grief.























References we talked about in the episode























The wonderful Buen Dia Family School, serving preschoolers in the Mission in San Francisco. Kati’s principal at Flynn Elementary in San Francisco was Dr. Karling Aguilera-Fort, now a superintendent of schools in Southern California.We talk in the episode about the acquittal of Treyvon Martin’s murderer, and about the murder of George Floyd, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Learn BLM herstory here.























Patron Shout!























Thank you to ALL my patrons for making this podcast happen, and for making it better! And a special shout out, as always, to my Failure and Redemption level patrons: Noah, Melissa, Marck, Lisa, Kurt, Kristina, Jen, Jeannie, Heather, Elyse, Liz, Eidell, Bonnie, Barry, and Amy, and to my Serendipity level patrons: Steve and Cyndi, Micharelle, Laurie, Kristi, Dorian, Brittany and Jodi.You, too, can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/nextthingpod. Patrons now get billed only when I release an episode, so you won’t even get billed monthly! Set it and forget it, and I’ll give you a heads-up before you get charged. This is a one-person operation, and it’s made better with your support. Thank you.

And The Next Thing You Know podcastEpisode 012: Dana Morrigan, epic karaoke host















































Photo of Dana Morrigan by Tristan Crane, from their series Here Portraits.























Today, I talk with Dana Morrigan, wonderful human, wry wit, queer nonbinary transfeminine spoken word artist, writer, performer, and epic karaoke host! It’s about her quest for self-knowledge across many parts of her life: in her cultural affiliations, in her work, in her relationships, in her gender and sexuality, in finding her creative callings. And the through-line is really that the process of finding ourselves is lifelong, and, if you’re doing it right, you can help other people find themselves, too.







Themes we talked about in the podcast























We talked about: growing up in the Catskills of the ‘60s and ‘70s; identifying with cultural outlaws like Tiny Tim and Harpo Marx, and identifying with genderfluid and sexually free hippie culture; we talked comedy and improv; performance; writing, both creatively and professionally; copywriting; the demands of academia; heteronormative relationship expectations; gender and sexual discovery; finding the language to better understand oneself; the lifelong project of integrating one’s sense of self and belonging; finding and creating community; queer and trans performance; queer open mic; karaoke…and so many other things!























Find Dana!























Keep up with Dana’s karaoke, spoken word, and other creative projects on her social channels!  Karaoke With Dana on Facebook@KaraokeWithDana on Instagram and @KaraokeWithDana on Twitter























Dana's performance history























One of the main open mic events Dana performed at was The SF Queer Open Mic. They no longer hold events, but you can still find the community and archive online.Dana also participated in the Fresh Meat Festival of Trans and Queer Performance.























Cultural references