If it’s not a medieval festival of debauchery, it’s close. It’s the podcast that originates weekdays from the Chicago living room of Fausto Fernós and Marc Felion. Feast of Fools is the Internet phenomenon based on the live stage show of the same name that ultimately takes its title from an essay by Radical Faeries founder Harry Hay.
Don’t worry, technophobes, you don’t need an iPod to listen to the show. All you need is the ability to download, and play mp3 files; the show is free.
Feast of Fools, alternately know as Gay Fun Show or simply FoF, is a mélange of celebrity interviews, news commentary, author chats, cocktail recipes, grooming advice, political forum, new artist musical interludes, gift opening, and letter reading; it’s a general pop culture clearinghouse.
The show has won Best GLBT Podcast from the People’s Choice Podcast Awards and Best Podcast from the Gay Bloggies. As the most widely downloaded gay podcast, its availability has brought LGBT-themed programming to listeners in cities, towns, and rural areas across the country and around the world.
Host Fausto Fernós is an Eartha Kitt-stalking, blue-haired (and blue-soul- patched), quasi-former Boricua drag performer who once graced public access television as Faustina. Factoid: Fernós learned how to eat fire from the Lesbian Avengers.
His partner in life and podcasting is Marc Felion, who spends time fielding emails that label him as Chris Noth’s “ting-a-ling” doppelganger, updating the show’s myspace page, and salivating over Czech porn star Pavel Novotny.
When Sal-E (Salvador Esparza) is not busy working at Milio’s Hair Salon, or designing, fashioning, and wearing highly artistic costumes and makeup creations, he regularly lends his beautiful voice to the Feast of Fools podcast.
Miss Ronnie Vanna is the BMW (not-so-Big Mexican Woman) on the show—a sonorous Latina with an appetite for six-footers.
Podcast denizen Amanda Steinstein is a vocal cross between Fran Drescher and Janice from Friends—but smarter and funnier. Other regulars are Gregg Shapiro, César Torres, Victoria Lamarr, and on and on.
The list of celebrity guests is a long one that includes Margaret Cho, Teri Garr, American Idol finalist Jim Verraros, John Waters, and State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz. On episode 205, Kathy Griffin defined “D-list” for us from the back of her anti-La Leche League limousine. And George Takei discussed his “coming out” to the press, the Star Trek legacy, and being gay in Hollywood, and lent advice to Clay “Quarter Turns” Aiken.
Fausto, Marc, and the gang also do “meet ‘n’ greets” where they gather with their listeners. In addition to Chicago venues, the show has traveled to New York and Texas, and laid down the 400th podcast at Micky’s nightclub in West Hollywood in October.
Speaking of things at nightclubs, the show often treats listeners to unique cocktail recipes like the tainted creampuff, the bleeding white Russian, and the caramel apple martini. There are also useful tips for parents, like the fact that if your boy child wants the Carol Channing ventriloquist doll from the JCPenney Catalog, there is a 99.9% chance you’ve got a gay.
The show carries an [EXPLICIT> tag, and is therefore NSFW (not safe for work). One project of FoF that is helping make the world safer is its red T-shirt campaign. The guys have been selling red Feast of Fools T-shirts where 5% of the proceeds go to the World Fund for AIDS (and tuberculosis and malaria).
I suggest you start your listening with the Feast of Fools archives, using older shows as primers. Go back a few months to catch up on the show’s recent history. Then tune in regularly