Adam MacLean: Hey Peepadoodles! Welcome to Find Your Light - a Post Shame podcast. I'm your host, Adam MacLean. Find Your Light is a show where we shine a light on shame and imagine a Post Shame world. In Act 1, we'll meet a Post Shame warrior. Someone who I think is up to something special and has a tool to teach us to help dismantle shame.

Then an Act 2, we'll play a little game of armchair quarterback by re-examining someone's public shaming through the lens of Post Shame. If they had had access to this tool before their downfall, do we think they could have come out a better leader and helped others dealing with something similar? We'll see.

And now on with the show,

Hey, Peepadoodles. Welcome to episode 3 of Find Your Light. This episode is part 2, Act 2 really of a wide ranging conversation with journalist Rich, Juzwiak in the first part of our interview, which you can hear in episode 2, just scroll back in that podcast feed.

Rich and I discuss everything PostShame, including his time at Gawker and his advice for using Twitter. It's a really rad conversation. So make sure to check it out. For this part 2 today. Rich and I look back at Anthony Wiener's Twitter scandal and the conversation was so meaty and thoughtful. I thought it deserved its own standalone episode.

So let's dive right. Here's part 2 of my conversation with Rich Juzwiak

And welcome back! So in Act 2, of Find Your Light, we imagine a PostShame world and we take a look at a public figure, who's had some kind of downfall or misstep or struggle, and you know, sports dudes do this all the time. Like the armchair quarterback, you know, like this is, this is how they should have played the game.

I really feel like imagining a PostShame world will happen when we start looking at people's stories and saying, this is what they could have done. So one of my favorite tragic figures is Anthony Weiner. Former Congressman who was Twitter messaging with some young women and sent a photo of his underwear with the outline of his penis, uh, visible.

And he accidentally tweeted it to his main feed instead of DM-ing. And. Boy. Oh boy, did I watch this story unfold and unravel so closely because he couldn't help himself and lied and then ran for mayor and then kept doing it. And it happened again. I'm going to talk about this story completely leaving out the fact that what

Anthony Wiener did go to prison for was he did transmit sexual imagery to a minor. He did not know she was a minor at the time. We won't go into the backstory on that, but let's just leave aside that yes, he did break a law and you know, he now is on a sexual offender list.

Rich Juzwiak: And that's also years later, right.

AM: That is years later.

RJ: I mean he went to jail years later, but he also sent that picture years later. This is like a

AM: Yes.

RJ: Right? It's not part of the initial wave that we're talking about.

AM: No. And bless his heart, this initial wave and the backlash from it, you would think he would give up his phone. Like it's so, he tripped over his own shoelaces.
Uh, that's like an underst. So when you hear the name, Anthony Weiner, do you think, like what a buffoon or do you think like what he could have been, how do you feel about Anthony Weiner.

RJ: I don't know. I mean, I do think that the most recent case taints the entire thing, just to kind of armchair therapy, him, uh, psychologize him.
He kept doing it. It was like, is that the kink? Is that the kink that it's bad, that it's wrong? You know what I mean? Like, is it even possible to imagine him getting in front of it to the point where like, it wasn't like a shame thing so that future transgressions wouldn't happen again? I don't know. I mean, I think like, especially like with matters of infidelity, because let's not forget that he was married at the time.
I think like some people definitely want to be. Beyond monogamy. And they don't feel like they're in a structure that will allow that. But I also think that other people enjoy the entire, everything that comes with cheating, especially, or including the lying, the deception. You know, I think, I think for some people, I think like shame is such that.
Sex doesn't feel right for some people, unless it's bad in some way you get sort of like addicted to the transgressive nature of it all. You know.

AM: If you've been raised in a restrictive environment, like there's so much at shorthand, you know, like Catholic guilt, like just being like, oh, well, no, I can only get off if it's super wrong and it's like, well, yeah, if you come up in a restrictive worldview where like it's all wrong, good luck.

RJ: Yeah. I mean, it's probably like a very clear neural pathway there. Shame and stimulation are just immeshed in a way.

AM: Right, and we're not here to yuck. Anyone's yum. No. Cause if your kink is humiliations, there are so many ways to do that and get that done.

RJ: Healthily and ethically, you know?

AM: Yeah. You just have to pay for it. De-crim sex works. I'm like cupping my hands around the microphone. Decrim sex work.

RJ: Yeah, exactly. Pay for it. Uh, find a partner who's down for what you want, what you need, what you think you need. And it's interesting to imagine a world in which Anthony Weiner said, yes, I did this.
Would that have made a difference? I don't know, but I think that like a lot of people wouldn't have forgiven him for ostensibly cheating on his wife.

AM: So that's interesting that back to what we were talking about a little bit ago, that when you share your PostShame story, you have to absolutely know that it's not for everyone.
I dream of a world where, because he was such an effective, loud, angry, democratic Congressman, and I'm like, you've got so much chutzpah, like stick to it, right. This one gaff you made. Not only come clean, be like, I've talked to Houma about it. Yeah. I know that this is my kink. I know that the sneaking around, around it is what gets me off.
Right. And we're working on that. Like, that's something that's happening. You can ask for privacy on that. Actually you can say like, yeah, me and my wife were like talking about that. Please don't ask for updates on that. I think he could have said, I'm a person who uses Twitter. I'm a person who likes when people slide into my DMS and are, you know, cause he was like always getting all these compliments or people being like, I love your work.
And then he's like, great, here's an underwear shot. Um, you know, that was his gig. I think there was a way for him to get past it. Maybe this whole thing is like me being like Anthony, it could have been, you could've been. You could have been.

RJ: I, I don't know. I mean, definitely there is. Uh, part of the multi-verse in which that happened.
But like I said, I don't know anything enough right now. Yes. I don't know that he wanted to, you know, I think the pattern of behavior suggests that there was something so compelling about it, but I mean, because imagine like it's one thing to get caught cheating, you know, as a civilian to have it be that big first wave is like, he admits six women.
No fewer then, So it had to have been more than that, you know? And so

AM: That's like when lindsay Lohan was on Oprah. Oprah said, you know, how many times have you done cocaine? And she was like, I don't know, maybe five or six. And I was like, oh girl, come on, come on. And I'm not shaming cocaine use or Lindsay Lohan, but like still, it was, she's wearing that beautiful orange dress. And she was just lying to Oprah's face.

RJ: That's really an iconic moment, but exactly that. So. To have that happen and the in suing embarrassment. And then to do it again.

AM: To do it again and again, am I too hopeful to think that if he had been Post Shame about the first instance, that that reckoning is what breaks the neural pathways I'm licensed in nothing.
So like, I absolutely cannot, you know, I have no psychological training, you know, to say this, but God, it just strikes me as like, if you could get clear with that, if you could get solid with what your kinks are, what your desires are. What your relationship status is and how, how you two are going to cope with this.
It feels like that would just like stymie the desire to keep clowning around in that way.

RJ: Right. You would at least hope like psychology, not withstanding that, like the relationship then, you know, the agreement, whatever. You'd figure out a way, if you, if you intend on staying in this relationship, which they did for many years after that, they would somehow adjust.
And it wouldn't be just seen as like, oh, I fucked up one. It would just be like, no, this is like, there there's, there's some kind of need here that we can go about me achieving in an ethical way if you're down and maybe she wasn't down. I mean, uh, you know, a lot of people are not down, but, so, so I don't know, but like I said, the pattern makes me feel like maybe there was some excitement in being bad and it led to him going to prison.

AM: Yeah. Cause it really got him in trouble. Post Shame only works if the thing is stopping right. Or if your stance of leadership in that area is so dramatic and you're, and you're willing to stay in the conversation that you admit, I'm a person who gets off on sending, you know, this kind of like bad naughty material.
And I'm working on that. Can this be accepted because as terminology around sex addiction becomes more prevalent. Do we think we could have a sex addicted politician, you know, already everyone's like, well, all politicians have some kind of like narcissism in their personal makeup. So there's probably a ton of sex addicted politicians.
Can we have a politician who's Post Shame about that and says, it's something I'm thinking about something I'm working on. Something I talked to my partner or partners about, and I wonder if we could deal with a Post Shame, sex addicted politician.

RJ: I mean, maybe, I don't know, like, you know, obviously you touched on it, but the notion of sex addiction is, is very controversial.
You know, it's not a DSM diagnosis. There is obviously,

AM: I mean, but the DSM, yeah, the DSM is not our north star, but it's not in there yet.

RJ: But it goes to show. That there is some sort of controversy within the medical community, at least. And there are certainly problematic sexual behavior. People can throw their lives away as a result of their investment in sex and their need for that kind of stuff.

AM: I guess the definition of addiction is that if this repeated behavior does you injury? Exactly, you can totally be sex addicted. We saw the controversy actually close.

RJ: Yes. That said, I don't know that politicians can be openly flawed in that way to say like, I'm a sex addict and I'm just going to keep doing it. I would think like the major revolution would be somebody who could say I'm in a non-monogamous, you know, I'm in an ethical non-monogamous relationship. Like that to me.

AM: Dream up this multi-verse Le let me be that candidate someday. Like I need to get all those boyfriend's first.

RJ: I give it maybe a few generations. If we're still around as a species. I don't know.

AM: I've got way more hope for it in our lifetime.

RJ: I mean, I hope so, but you know, the earth is burning, so,

AM: Oh right. You really had to bring it there. Well, this is like.

RJ: Well it's never far from the forefront of my mind.

AM: This is like a, I have some friends that are like Adam , can you please have a conversation where you don't bring up our former president, like, please try to like, not make it so that like, our culture is still convulsing from that, um, election.
And I, you know, I always bring it up, but Hey, Trump was president and the world is indeed on fire.
RJ: That's true. That's true. Uh, in, in an unethical way though. Clearly whatever is going on in his life is unethical. It's like across the board.

AM: Which one? Trump?

RJ: Trump, I mean, who knows what his and Melania's arrangement is, but I would assume.

AM: That's the thing, I'm not fascinated by that at all, because it is such a dumpster fire.
I chose Anthony Wiener, as this like opportunity for Post Shame, because I think he was a good enough guy who stood for some great policies and was such a, uh, like had such a lioness stick, you know, way of he's just great on TV. And while we have TV politicians, I was glad to have him doing it. So I believed in him and I, you know, wished he could have done better.
Someone like Trump. I'm just like, okay, well there's like, there's like mental problems.

RJ: Yeah. Any number of issues happening with him. And it's never going to get resolved.

AM: Well, thank you so much for helping me dream up the multi-verse and really like, kind of figure out and reckon with building a PostShame world. I have a final question for you, right?
So Post Shame is a lot about redemption, you know, writing your own story, you know, ups and downs and lives and, uh, divas. They become divas, I believe because they've had some giant struggle that they've gotten over. Right. So who is your diva?
RJ: I have so many that it's hard to say. I mean, like, I think like my, the most obvious go-to for me is Mariah Carey. Although I've been a little bit irritated with her lately. I mean, Yeah. I mean.

AM: If you're a real lamb, you would be like committed.

RJ: Yes. but lambs, you know, we've been through so much that we know how, how flawed she is. That's like what, that's a good thing about the fandom that like, she has flopped so hard, so many times that you kind of get used to it and.
Well, when you watch her perform, it's like, how is she going to hit the notes? Is she not? You get used to that as well. There's no sort of illusion as to her perfection where I think that some other people still hold that illusion. I think you could argue that Beyonce is like still perfect. I mean, the thing about the beat, I'm not, well, I'm not like a card carrying member of the beehive, but the thing about the beehive is that there, right.
You know, a hundred percent, everybody else you can kind of like poke holes in, but not Beyonce, but I, I, you know, I think the platonic ideal for me, 360 a hundred percent is Whitney Houston. Um, just like, I mean, cause even, cause I was, I was actually thinking about this on the train.

AM: It shows how good of a gay and a fan you are, that you were just riding the train and you're just like Whitney Houston.

RJ: You know, I was thinking about different sort of like iconic powerhouse, divas doing their reality TV thing, which to like, like, you know, like Mariah, for example, but Toni Braxton as well. But like Whitney was the train wreck to end all, you know, like everything she did was good, even train wrecking. She did it perfectly, you know.

AM: But show me the receipts Diane.

RJ: Exactly. That's another thing too. Like, I mean, that is like, Hilarious obviously, but also a great point. Like where are you getting this information? Like where do you get that figure? You know? Yeah. Great point. Yeah. I mean, like to me, I think Whitney's death robbed us of what was going to be an amazing old lady.
She would have just been entertaining into her nineties, just wait for Whitney to show up. So it's, it's the talent, but it's also her quickness and, and her. You know, I, her pure of heart as well, there was something about Whitney where she wasn't insecure. Like if you look at like Aretha Franklin and her relationship to other singers, it was, there was like so much contempt Arethra, like kind of hated everybody kind of like Joanie.
There are very few people that Aretha was allied with, you know, Arethra is arguably the best of all times. So is Whitney. But Whitney never went, Whitney was always putting people on. Whitney would sing with Mary J Blige who had like, you know, a fifth of her range, you know, but she loved Mary J Blige. How could you not love Mary J Blige?
Whitney saw a real, you know, real recognize real. So. There's just something, there's just something about like her spirit too . That she was obviously like a kind engaged person that suffered no kind of Foolery.

AM: No. But she also, but that was her tragic flaw. Was she like, let so many people into her circle and loved so big. And stood by her man. Yeah. And, um, yeah, I you're, you're really making me feel how much we were robbed. Uh, if we could have had Whitney, as long as we had someone like Aretha, it would be a totally different world.

RJ: And one thing I really get from Whitney's narrative is that like, you can get used to anything.
She was so sick of fame and performing by the end of her career. So you can get used to being like the best in the world. One of the, the greatest vocalists that earth has ever seen and just, yeah, exactly. Like, oh, I'm so sick of it. You know, you watch being Bobby Brown and people are approaching her and she's like, please leave me alone.
You know? So you, the human mind is so adaptable and this is the whole novelty thing, you know, this is how you stay stimulated through novelty, changing it up.

AM: You have really brought us. Rich, this was so great. Thank you so much for doing this interview and bringing us full circle. And I love that we can talk about everything from Anthony Wiener to Whitney Houston. This is just so great.

RJ: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

AM: Thank you so much for coming on.
Y'all isn't Rich, just smart and lovely. I think I'll be mulling over some of his insights for a long while. On a personal note. Can I do a little story time here? It's my podcast, right? I can do whatever I want. Two things about the voice Whitney Houston that came to mind while I was working on this episode. So Whitney Houston occupies a unique place in everyone's minds.
I guess she was arguably the greatest of all time and her enthusiasm when she was performing, it feels like it's kind of now in my DNA. I don't know how many people in my generation kind of feel that maybe it's a gay thing. And she's just like part of like the gay diva zeitgeists. But when I was in junior high and high school, I was on the gymnastics team.
It was kind of at the closest thing to like dance performance. I was dancing at the time too, but gymnastics had the combo effect of being, you know, at school. It was a team sport kind of you, you trained with everyone, but I guess you competed more as an individual. But also, you know, there was the boys in spandex element of things.
I definitely wasn't out and I wasn't a sexual being yet, but I knew I was gay anyway, anyway, Whitney Houston, so at my school, when we would host a home meet or they meet the tournament's gymnastics, it was a meet, gymnastics meet. My coach would get out the cassette tape player. It was also a record player, but there was a cassette tape element.
And I'm really dating myself here cause this is, this story's from the mid nineties and for the national Anthem before the meet, he would play the audio cassette tape of Whitney Houston at the 1991 super bowl performing the Star-Spangled banner. Now, if you haven't gone back and rewatched this recently on YouTube, I mean the YouTube video of it is perfect.
It is a masterpiece she's, she's wearing a windbreaker and a headband, and there's like this palpable national war time support for our troops vibe. They, they pan to the crowd. This was before like a post nine 11, like patriotism, George H W Bush was still President. Operation desert storm was a thing. So this national Anthem was like loaded, Anyway, so this tape, it was a cassette single, so side A was Whitney singing and side B was just the instrumental and funny story.
If the coach put in the tape wrong and it was just the instrumental and we realized there was no voice coming, he would have to stop the tape, take it out, flip it around, rewind it, and then started again. I can't believe I'm this person now who, but like the kids in the Spotify era, we'll never know this struggle.
It's pure comedy. In retrospect, someone somewhere, write it into a scene of something from the mid nineties please. Anyway. So this is how we'd start. Every single gymnastics meets standing in a line handover heart, looking at this giant flag, hanging over the basketball hoop at the end of the gym. Anyway, I don't know how to describe it.
Other than this experience was fully camp like the vibe of high school boy gymnast and their coaches. And their reluctant fathers in the bleachers watching. Um, and then like, there's this juxtaposition because Whitney Houston is singing. Basically like took God with this gigantic voice. And again, this is a cassette tape.
It's like a worn out tape, you know, being amplified through these tinny speakers. But her voice is like so loud and big and the orchestra is so loud and big. And can you imagine my little struggle, like picture like 15, 16 year old little Adam. That I wasn't allowed to lip-sync it while it was happening.
Like, it was really difficult to just stand there with my hand over my heart and listen, it's a stirring performance. I can only describe it as like huge and I, hearing Rich talk about Whitney Houston and her being a diva and like her being taken from us too soon. Like that is where Whitney Houston occupies me.
It's like in my heart. So here's the question in 2022, like, am I allowed to get in drag and just do the Star Spangled Banner? Like Whitney Houston Star-Spangled banner. It would really like, it would feel very cathartic for me to complete this whole journey. Maybe at the, Find Your Light Party in drag. I will, I will do this performance if anyone thinks that's like problematic though.
I mean, there could be some things to consider. You got to do it right. You got to do it right. But I just want everyone to know that if you do see a video of me doing the Star Spangled Banner in drag, it is because I am like lovingly trying to just conjure Whitney Houston, who I love. So, so, so much, so, okay.
Now quick a second memory. In 2009, it was the early days of YouTube and viral videos. And there was this micro trend of gays on vacation doing like little skit videos to pop songs and putting them up on YouTube. There's a famous one or, you know, it's pretty famous. I mean, it has a millions, and millions of views.
There was a group of gay guys in fire island. That's summer of 2009, who made party in the FIP to Miley Cyrus's party in the USA, which by the way, was written by Jesse J and makes so much more sense when you consider it was supposed to be sung by a British girl, hopping off a plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan.
Again like that song. It's a Jesse J song. It'll always be a Jesse J song to me. Anyway. So I happened to be in Asbury Park, New Jersey, another gay, you know, vacation enclave with some buddies, labor day weekend that year at the end of that summer, and the group wanted to make a video. And one of the boys was insisted that we make it to Whitney's newly released song that had just come out Million Dollar Bill.
And now we all know Whitney dies two and a half years later after this story. And at this point in her career, she wasn't exactly making her best work. And I wasn't sure if I was in love with the song per se, but the group coalesced around it and we set out to make our video. Critical to this story, sorry, is that I had just had appendicitis and had my appendix out and I'm not kidding here, like six days prior.
And I was fully on painkillers and still had stitches. And this group of boys were all super fit hotties. And so everyone was all shirts off and muscles everywhere. And when it came to kind of figuring out the video and casting it. I was given the role of Whitney so that I could keep my shirt on essentially, but also strangely in order to read as Whitney, for some reason, I decided that I needed to wear a headscarf as though I was like capturing the essence of Whitney in the body guard.
In retrospect, this makes absolutely no sense. Like there are so many pots on the stove with that, that telling anyway, do you remember all those scenes with Kevin Costner and the body guard where she's like, has her head wrapped in a scarf? And she's like looking over her shoulder and she like has sunglasses or like piers over them or something.
Anyway, it was very that. So we make this parody video and again, I'm the only one wearing a shirt and a headscarf for some reason. And when we did a scene where I'm like covered in money, you know, it's just singles. They're not million dollar bills. It's, it's so odd. Anyway, we put the video on YouTube and it went viral.
And I have been standing in gay bars where they have played this music video. And I've seen the video on the screen while I'm in the bar. And it's so surreal again, this, this was like a trend for a hot second. So fun fact, guess what? This video is still up. Million dollar bills still exists and it's on my YouTube channel and I can't take it down, but the video I just checked has 243,000 views.
It wasn't monetized. It can't be monetized. Sony music like flagged the video right away. I think Alicia keys who wrote it probably gets the royalties for all the streams. And anyway, it's still, it gets views and it still gets comment. It's big in Spanish speaking countries. For some reason, I don't know why and all the comments are, but basically like he's so tall.
Like they're all just like, he's so tall. And I just looked through it and it turns out I deleted every single mean and homophobic content, like all throughout 2000, the rest of 2009 in 2010 to 2011, every time I got a notification that there was a comment on that video, I checked to make sure if it was nice.
And I deleted every single mean comment. So it's kind of like a nice little happy corner of the internet. It's just this moment from this little story. And I'm so grateful to Rich for saying that Whitney is his diva because just him saying that and having this conversation has given me this trip down memory lane.
And I guess she's my diva too. I mean, I think about Brittany Spears a lot. I think about Britney Spears in the context of Post Shame a lot. And she means a lot to me. But what about Whitney? Whitney's so special and what would Whitney Houston have done with Post Shame. If she had been able to grow old, would she has ended up being able to live out loud in the end to be free of the shame of an oppressive religion and upbringing and would she may be, have been allowed to come out.
And if addiction hadn't taken her. Gosh, what would she be like in 2022? If she were allowed to be out and proud and praised even longer. God, I wish I, I wish he was still around so that I could interview her. And I bet she'd have tons to say about just growing older and not giving a fuck and just being amazing.
Anyway, I'd like to think Whitney Houston would be a Post Shame warrior too.
Thank you so much for listening today. Special. Thanks to our guest. Rich Juzwiak. He is on Twitter @richjuz.
Find Your Light is made by brand designers Veta and Saloni.
Our social media manager is Jose Rodriguez Solis. Who's online @cacidoe
and our editor and the music composer is Zach Wachter.
Have I mentioned how much I love our theme music.
I love our theme music.
Until next time. No matter how you're feeling up, feeling down, just feeling sideways, just look for the light, turn towards the light and just take a minute and Find Your Light.
Get it. We'll see you next week for more gorgeousness.
I love y'all. Bye.