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Sanjaya may be gone from American Idol, but his career is far from over. We’re always on the lookout for hot trends that are just around the corner and we see this train coming from […]
Fausto Fernós is the host of iTunes’ #1 LGBT talk show, the Feast of Fun podcast, which he produces and hosts with his partner, Marc Felion.
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Fausto Fernós created the Feast of Fools in 1998 as wacky artists variety show in Chicago, Illinois. Feast of Fun grew out of an audio blog to promote the live show into the world’s most downloaded talk show aimed for gay people.
When he’s not blogging, recording or sleeping, Fausto can be found at the gym or appreciating the beauty found in nature.
Comments
I have to say that I fully agree with Fausto with regards to verb conjugation. Although French is my first language, I’ve had to go through French verb conjugation about 4-5 times through my school career. Not only is it tedious, but it’s so overly complicated that I’ve never been able to memorize it. I can write it out properly if I’m just writing out a paragraph or something, but if I’m asked to conjugate a specific verb in a specific format, just off the top of my head, there’s no way that I can remember it.
I have to disagree with Amanda, Enlish really is one of the easiest languages to learn.
Grammar is really is in contrast to languages say German, French or Spanish.
My first language was English since I went to Kindergarten,
then I had to talk German. In German, French etc you have for example different articles
in contrast to English where there only is “the”.
Great show by the way, I liked the theory about in closet muscians,
Jake Shears is very talented, you are right Fausto. And bands like the Scissor Sisters
do pave the way for gay muscians, I think it would be way harder for someone like “MIKA”
to openly start his career. But those gay artists aren’t as pop music’esque as Real POP stars like Ricky Martin or Justin Timebrlake who mostly attract teenage fans.
oh and just finished listening,
Berlin is not just up there with Amsterdam,
it’s even crazier regarding Fetish clubs, paties etc…
I remember when we saw Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia a couple of summers ago, and I was surprised by the kind of crowd he drew. Maybe we were just sitting in the wrong part of the lawn, but we were surrounded by trixies and boorish, loud straight guys (you know, like the crowd at Pride the last couple of years? ouch. only kinda kidding…).
He played “Gay Messiah”, which was not out on CD yet, and these drunk straight guys were booing and sticking their fingers down their throat and making gagging sounds. (Yes, I would like to think that they were demonstrating their fellatio techniques in deference to the subject matter of the lyrics, but I have a feeling that’s not quite what they were going for!)
It made me wonder — Was this a surprise to them, that Rufus Wainwright is gay? Or was it one of those, “not that there’s anything wrong with that… as long as he didn’t sing about giving a guy head” things?
Anyway… thanks, Amanda, for the cover of “I wish I was a lesbian” — I will have to track that down…
Which somehow circles back to the grammar issue. I have to say, I never had any lessons in English grammar in my public school education, a fact which completely astounds my girlfriend. All I know about English grammar, I learned in high school French classes, where I had to diagram sentences for the first time. I’m wondering if I missed out on anything good. Now I’m imagining a classroom of students repeating, “I wish I were a lesbian, you wish you were a lesbian, he wishes he were a lesbian…”
P.S. >> Just finished listening to the show, and I feel the need to justify my picture.
Multiple choice:
(A) I AM a bird! Geez, the assumptions people make. Although it does take a hell of a long time to tap this all out with my beak…
(B) I’m trying to start a new craze, for using the word “chickadee” to refer to a young lesbian instead of “baby dyke.”
(C) I’m logging in from work, and I don’t have any photos of myself on my computer here… Oh, except for that one my dad just emailed me, but it’s from when I was seven years old.
(D) All of the above.
By the way, I just tried changing my profile pic, but couldn’t get it to take. Do you guys have a help line? That would be an excellent way to raise funds…
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(This is my attempt at a Korean emoticon; I think it’s a shark. You know, coming straight at you. Or maybe it’s a baby dyke — I mean chickadee — with a faux-hawk and little sticky-out ears… Rorsharch emoticon!)
P.P.S. >>> Fausto, thank you for always pronouncing my name correctly! You don’t know how rare that is… (Thank god my name isn’t “Rutgers” — sorry, couldn’t resist!) Love you guys —
🙁 The emoticon didn’t go through because I used angled brackets and the computer thought they were code. wah.
here’s another one: an owl with a John Waters pencil-thin mustache and specs?
[O–O]
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“Every time you buy a shirt….
A drag queen gets her bling”
Oh dear god that one cracked me up. It also hit about a 9.8 on the pun-o-meter.
We were at that Ravinia concert. I think all the straights were there for Ben Folds or at
the bequest of theor girlfriends trying to get them some culture.
I think Rufus doesn’t really appear on straight guys radar and then when he starts
singing about a Gay Messiah I bet they freak out.
They say English is difficult to learn properly because there are so many more irregular verbs
than the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian). We also have many more words
than most other languages. In English, there is a word for everything. In other languages a certain word
may represent several very distinctly differnet things. Words such as “lead” which could have several
different meanings are very few and far between as compared to many differnet languages. English is very precise.
Another thing we do in English, which is difficult for non-English speakers is that we stress certian words to give them importance. It always funny to me when a foriegner speakers try to stress different words when they speaking and they just don’t get it right. They always try to pronounce each and every letter in the word as a way of stressing the importance of the word. For example: I want to give this to you. If I stress it, I say “I want to give this to ‘U'”- just a hard U sound, whereas foriegners pronounce it as a dipthong ” I want to give this to ‘U’ ‘EW'”
Germans and Scandinavians find English to be very easy since it’s grammar structure is Germanic in style-think “I give this to you” rather than in the Romance languages “I this to you give” and many of the words are the same or similar
to Germanic words. Also English is much simpler than German. Germans have al sorts of wierd verb conjugations and declensions(you don’t want to know what these are. Stay blissfully ignorant)
and they just pile words together to make new word and act as if its that’s a totally normal thing to do.Here’s one for your pleasure Donaydampfshiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenskajuetenschluesseloch, which of course is “The keyhole of the door of the cabin of the captain of a steamship company operating on the Danube.”
Another thing that is hard is the verb “to be.” We use it insesintly and it’s irregular to boot which adds to the confusion.Add that with our overuse of the word “the” and you have a lot of meaningless extras in our language. In China and in many other languages you just say “I go store,” not “I am going to the store” Look how many useless letters we throw in there(10).
This extra verbage also reminds me of when I worked in Germany and this Greek girl I worked with would hand you something and she would just say “Take.” I knew what she meant, that I should take what she was offering me but its just that we don’t use that verb much without a helper such as “this.” “Take this” is what she should have said, but is just “take” wrong? I don’t know, but I use it all the time now, just to watch people’s reactions.
Aaron Neville is another “high pitched” voice I don’t care to listen to sing….
I still haven’t learned Yup’ik, which is one of my goals in life…
http://members.aol.com/glincoln45/Yugtun.htm
But I DO know “village English” (which is just what people call the way some Native Alaskans, who learned English as their second language, speak English). And it’s funny, they do say “I go store”! In English, I mean. I don’t know how to say that in any Eskimo languages. (Wondering now if Eskimo languages stemmed from Chinese at some point…)
I worked with Native kids for 2 summers as a camp counselor back home; they were all high schoolers, most of them from small villages. And they ALL wanted to go to the mall, since they were in the Big City (population 60,000 — but it was big in comparison). All summer long, “I wanna go store” “I wanna go store.” So it’s funny that you used that as an example, Marc!
Durn, my emoticon didn’t go through… I used pointy brackets and I think the computer interpreted it as code. oops. 🙁 Back to boring old sideways emoticons…
Aha! Seven year old me.
You know, I may be wrong…could be that the Lesbian song is Loudon Wainwright…sorry for the confusion…
Fausto, I love your impersonations of Ed Wynn, Charles Nelson Reilly, et al. You always crack me up. I have a ten year old nephew that is so GAY we joke that he must be the love child of Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. I believe the openly gay Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz was played by the heterosexual alcoholic Bert Lahr.
You’re right Amanda…how sad am I? I came online to correct it LOL!!!! Loudon Wainwright wrote I Wish I Was A Lesbian 🙂 xx
Pepper, you are correct. Bert Lahr did play the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. And while we’re on the subject, did you ever notice how fey the Tin Man is? Just watch the scene where they first meet the giant flaming head of The Wizard and they way he minces “We were walking down the yellow brick road…”. It’s a scream.
Am I the only one who’s noticed that Chris Garneau is totally copping the style of Stina Nordenstam, who’s song “Little Star” appeared in the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet. If you have that soundtrack, dig it up, listen to the beauty of Little Star and then hear how Chris Garneau is pretty much doing the same schtik. He does do it well, though. 🙂
Amanda, I know you were going for Melissa Etheridge but I think it came out more like Stevie Nicks on a bad day. But your musical ringtone was absolutely brilliant. Lindsay Buckingham would be proud. 🙂
I believe the concept of English being a tough language to master for people who already speak another language is that the English verbatum has soooo many homophones (Not not gay cells, that’s words that sound the same but have different meanings).
You know all this talk about gay musicians and no one’s bothered to mention Will Young? I mean we wouldn’t even have American Idol if we didn’t have the UK’s Pop Idol.. Will came out even before he won the contest and he still manages to get movie roles and hold down number one singles…but then again it’s Britian
Okay, this may be completely random but about three forths of the way in the show you were talking about Amanda being a pure blood Jew. And then you said something like “shut up about pure bloods, this isn’t muggle cast”. Anyway muggle cast was the first podcast I started listening to, but I stopped because you guys were just so much better. Now I missed about 20 shows (they update weekly) but after hearing you mention them I want to start listening to them again, after FOF ofcourse.
Just so you know when the FOF won the people choice award, muggle cast was there recieving another award. And on the show they had to comment on the scene fausto and marc made. But don’t worry it was only good things.
I’ll have to go listen to that one. Do you remember the episode?
I’ve been thinking about asking one of the cast members to come on the
show to talk about what to expect from the book. Is there a gay friendly one?
Guys thank you so much for you community I’m having so much fun and find good friends! So much better than myspace!
I also loved the last show!
Well I think one of the cast members is gay, but they are all like 17-18 years old and none of them have come out openly. I have no idea which episode it was that they talked about you, I think you were refered to as two guys. And as for having one on the show, unless you or fausto or one of the FOF members have actually read the book it may not be the best thing to talk about, because you will have a guy talking his ass off and you guys just quite in the back ground. However I think it would be funny to hear one of them talk about who they think are gay from the book.
I’ve read all the books and seen all the movies. I’d love to chat with one of them about their experience doing the show and why they love Harry Potter so much. I’d really like it if one of them would come out of the closet on our show. Because really, can you be that into Harry and not be a little gay?
Every boyfriend I have ever had (thats an age bracket of about 17-21) have all been into Harry Potter big time. He is that kind of hero that doesn’t want to be a hero but has to. Like Dorthy in the wizard of OZ, she doesn’t want to kill the witch, she just has to. And every gay boy can identify with a young boy, alway knowing he was a little different but then at 11 finding out what that special secret was and going to a magical land. Every gay boy wants to be harry potter. And if you have ever read harry potter fanfiction you will know how naughty some gay boys can get when it comes to Harry.
I like you Jonathon. Right on!
best…show…ever…okay…maybe not…but you touched on my favorite topics: language and Rufus! Good work everyone that contributed. LOL.
Oh Amanda, you’re 2 halfs funny! I love the Feast Of Fools and its funky gay way!
Spanish is extremely easy!!! English is harder to prunounce and conjugate (did I spell that right?)
I AM POSSITIVELY, COMPLETELY, ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH CHRIS GARNEAU!!! Amazing voice, cute as hell!
Feast of Fools and Chris Garneau, 2 halfs of the same gay cake!
Marc, your comment about it being in people’s contracts to not come out of the closet is true in Ricky Martin’s case. My best friend’s ex works in the LA music industry, and he at one time worked for Sony and got close to their big name reps. He asked about Ricky Martin and they told him that he’s contractually restricted from coming out of the closet so long as he’s with Sony.
[…] Get those mohawks ready people, going high is going to be big. (more…) […]
Random correction.
I was listening to a backlog of podcasts and recently came to this one.
That “I wish I were a lesbian” song. Amanda said it was by Rufus Wainwright. It’s actually by Loudon Wainwright III. 😛
I promise I’ll comment on a more recent show soon, hehe. 🙂
Behind The Candelabra….The RIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT way !!!
How to go from Gordon to Glitter Man !!!
Michael Douglas IS Liberace….. WILL BE…. after MATT-ADORE flamenco’s to Lee’s Malaguena !!!
Hugh Jackman as the very young Liberace ?….. Why not for the prequel ? !!!!!!!
Robin Williams as Liberace’s manager, Seymour Heller ? YYEEEEEEEEEEEEESS DYNAMIGHTY !!!!!!!
Kathy Bates as Liberace’s mom, Frances ? SSOOOOOOOOOO INTENSELY INTERESTING !!!!!!!
Kirk Douglas as Liberace’s father, Salvatore ?….WHY THE HELL NOT ? !!!!!!!
Gary Sinise as Liberace’s brother, George ? SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK !!!!!!!
Sally Field as George’s wife, Dora ? ( the other Ms in Ms Doubtfire)!!!!!!!
Kurt Russell as Elvis Prersley ?…..I almost thought he WAS…Elvis !!!!!!
George Clooney as Jack Benny ?……He could be as deliriously funny too !!!!!!!
Matt Damon IS Scott Thorson….Matt could even do “The Elton John Story”…. if he ever wanted to!!!!!
YYEEEEEEEEEEEESSS , it’s Elvis Presley, (not prersley) with or without his famous lip curl !!!!!!!!!
Imagine……………
A shirtless Matt-Adore…
poolside by moonlight…
twirling a red silk shirt…around
his motorcycle helmet-for-bull…
doing a mock ballet…to
Liberace playing Malaguena !!!