I'm not going to comment on the Archerradio critique. It was a critique. That's what it was. People can listen to it and they can agree with it or not. It's their choice.

I will comment on is your use of Madge Weinstein's Yeastradio interview with the filmmaker Usama Alshaibi and his poor experience with Fausto. I wish I had heard the whole interview with Usama when it was first podcasted on Yeastradio (I did listen to part of it, but Imissed the Fausto reference). I'm sorry for that. I would have very much liked to have continued the discussion of women's role in the
Middle East and corrected any misunderstandings on the part of Usama as to our intent.

I'm glad Usama was able to use us as an example. I don't think he was being mean, I think he was being insightful. i hope his copmments further our understanding.

As a writer for The Feast Of Fools' "A Taste of Milk and Honey," which depicted Fausto falling in love with a radical Muslim who wanted to blow up the world (well kind of), I helped develop the characters and the plot.

During the development of the show, Fausto purchased costumes for the female roles. He came home with Hajibs (sp?) saying "I couldn't get Burkas so these will have to do. We'll have to get scarves that match to make them look more like burkas." Who the hell is going to import burkas from Afghanistan on our budget?

During the writing of the show, which happened right after 9/11 and during the Invasion of Afghanistan, the writers (Fausto Fernos, Marc Felion, and Michael Oliphant) discussed among other things: My Palestinian friend's mother who went, by choice, from miniskirt and western clothing to traditional garb after the Israeli invasion of her
homeland; the donning, by choice, of veil's in Iran by revolutionary women opposed to the corrupt U.S. backed Shah of Iran; and the sensibility of wearing veils by both men and women in an environment where the sun is harsh and brutal. We were not ignorant of the role the veil has in the Middle East.

When we had the women throw off their veils, we meant it more like a "Mary Tyler Moore Moment" than anything else. At the begining of the Mary Tyler Moore Show she throws her hat into the air as the singer sings "You're going to make it after all." It was, to us, a statement of personal liberation. Perhaps Usama and the rest of the Middle East should familiarize themselves with American TV. culture so they can
get the reference before they get their panties in a grind. Naw forget it, they are better off without TV. TV sucks! Was Usama offended by it? I don't know. Would members of his family be offended? Most Likely. Would Usama's family be likely members of the audience? I don't think so. Did we know this show would be offensive? Of course, it's The Feast of Fools.

I do know that Usama approached Fausto about his concern right after the show. Perhaps Fausto did not give Usama his full attention. But, please understand, it is very difficult putting on a live show. We are up for days with little sleep and the aftermath is quite overwhelming. The cleanup, the money, the pictures, the interchange with people,
dealing with the cast ...etc. It's a lot of work. Any of you who do live theater know what I am talking about. I'm guessing that it's easier for a filmmaker to discuss his/her work after a showing of his/her work because the adrenalin rush just isn't the same. They are often separated by weeks or months from the actual work that is produced. This gives them an analytical edge that a live performer does not have, especially when it is only one show, like The Feast Of Fools.

Lastly, I want to say that it is comedy and that it is not to be taken seriously. I mean after all, one of our central characters was a genie that was turned into a leprechaun by a re-animated greedy hillbilly drag diva. The genie ended up going to Baghdad to open up a gay bar! That's the kind of stuff we like to do. And we will continue doing it.
We will keep you informed of our next live show, which will probably be our Faerie Merrie XXX-MAS show.

Art is supposed to stir conversation and emotions. This is what has happened here. I am since spoken to Fausto and Marc and resolved this situation. I was more flattered that FOF or ETHS would cover my show then the context on which they covered it. No one ever really said a nice thing about Howard Stern or Lenny Bruce either but they sure did get publicity and became famous.

I reiterate what I said on my most recent podcast: If you can't handle critisizim than this is not the profession/hobby for you. If you are expressing opinions no matter how radical they may seem, you must be ready for others to have different ones than yours.

The fact that FOF and ETHS has got everyone stirring about this is brilliant. No appology is necessary. If we had to appologize every time we offended someone than we could never do a podcast. If you want to be censored go broadcast on an FCC regulated station. If you want to podcast, read the fucking first amendment and stop whining.

Love you all. Now lets go PodCast!

Marshal Click
Gayborhood Radio ---- Feeling good in the "Gayborhood"
www.gayborhoodradio.com

No matter what happened, we're steering away from what we're here to do, and taking valuable time from people who take on living their lives while producing a regular podcast. There's tetrabytes of great content to discuss, and we have a comparatively lively discussion about this?

I know Fausto would ever mean any harm, and has been very quick with apologies in the past. I suggest he does that so we can all move on, but I also suggest that offended parties confront any problems with others' content directly with the podcaster(s) before spreading upset among the community.

Finally, the more we keep up this "elite" thing, the more that notion will be perpetuated and reinforced. Does it really help things if we keep that up?

And I Am Unanimous In That! http://mizezslocombe.blogspot.com

There is no need for infighting. If you want to blame someone for this, blame me. I'm the one the produced and edited that show. As I read on the show, my instructions said to give a positive OR negative review of a queercast. So that means it was my fault. I thought it would be helpful for entire q-munnity to engage in some intelligent critiques of each other. It was my assumption that by putting ourselves out there in the form as a publicly available podcast, we are allowing others to criticism our work. I think it's healthy to do so. I don't know of any successful artist including myself who has never had to suffer humiliating reviews that made him want to forget the whole thing. With this new medium, it may be the case that people are exposing themselves to artistic critique for the first time unknowingly. This can be a dreadful experience.

If anyone knows about having conflicts with Fausto it's me. We had a long period of not speaking recently. I am the first one to tell him if I think he was out of line. However, I do not think he was. I feel that his criticism had an underlying loving spirit to it. At the same time, I do feel that I worded the question wrong. I should have suggested the review could have been either a positive review or constructive criticism. Was Fausto's review constructive? Not really, but it was humorous. Archer advertises his show as being ordinary. Fausto accused his talk about wine of being boring.

I would imagine that Fausto didn't mean this literally, but rather thought it would be a good way to get a laugh and that Archer would find it amusing. I added the laugh tracks myself. The participants had absolutely no control over where their laughs could appear any more than anyone reading this post would. I could have sampled anyone's laugh just as easily.

Anyway, please lighten up everyone. This is supposed to be fun. You can call me elite or whatever but I work my ass off for this shit and you all know that I share the spotlight.

I should also add that Fausto’s review of Archer caused me to re-subscribe to the show after I heard about the naked men.

I am a firm beliver in the phrase, "actions speak louder than words."

When I was sick in the hospital, Fausto and Marc were two of a very small group of friends visit me - every day. They did the same for VMar. In this culture we get very hung up on what comes out of people's mouths, but that is just one form of expression. What is much more important is what people do.

Thoughts and philosophy are nice, but action is what makes things happen.

There shouldn't be any calls for action or castcotts (boycott). Some of us feel more charged about this than others. Just as we are all free to give our opinion. Tigger and Nathan are right...we all have opinions. However, how we choose to voice those opinions is the point I was trying to make.

We have all listened to Feast of Fools and it's their style of presentation. Fausto and Marc have had some brilliant content and some content I could care less to listen to. And when that is the case...I fast forward. Its not a bad mark against them, I'm sure people do it to my show when I start talking about my looney family. It's the freedom of choice, its my way of expressing that I have a choice to listen or not listen.

Archer did an amazing job holding himself together and not attacking Fausto directly. And we should follow that lead... Fausto is who he is and there are times where he get's a little energized and that's fine.

Most of you understand the situation and will all take your own steps to dealing with this. I neither advocate or support any one action to take. We all do what we have to, to make it through this. Voice out if you need to or stay silent. Either way...do it poignently.

Very well written, Scott.

After reading this today I went back and resubscribed to Eat This Hot Show, so I could see what all the fuss was about. I heard what Fausto had to say, and while I do agree that it is within his right to say whatever he likes, I found it disappointing (though, not suprising) that he chose to voice his opinion in such a mean spirited and cruel way.

However, just as I have come to expect Fausto to behave in such a manner, I have also come to expect unending help and support from the qPodder community in general. You have given me tons of help with getting my feed straightened out, John Ong is generously helping me with graphics for my show, Madge has given me tech support and so much encouragement to get podcasting. Then there is Wanda whose positive spirit radiates throughout this community.

That's what I mean when I say that nothing has changed. Fausto's schtick is to be abrasive and cruel, and it works for him and his audience. Part of what goes along with that style is that people are inevitably going to be hurt, or pissed off by the things he says. The result for me is that I re-unsubscribed to Eat This Hot Show after listening to the first few minutes of it. Then, I listened to Archer's response and was so impressed with the dignity, restraint and respect with which he responded to Fausto that I added him to my list of subscriptions at once.

I hope that as I learn more about podcasting, I am able to give back to this community what has been so freely given to me.

Thanks for everything guys,
Mikey

First, I am very happy to know that I am not the only one that feels this way. I sent a letter to Fausto yesterday, and his response was "I can say whatever I want." While he's right, he can, ...we can also join together to discourage it from happening again.

Negativity and elitism are on-going problems with this person, and I've outlined it in a special podcast in my programming (without comment of my own) on The Daily Hough. Listen to the rant from Fausto, then listen to Archerr respond questioning why such a thing would happen to him, then listen to filmmaker Usama Alshaibi remind us of his poor experience with Fausto. It doesn't need my words because it's alarming on its own. If it’s not enough, listen to LuckyBitchRadio (#92) to hear the King of Fools rant over a Chinese dinner.

We have a community like QPodder to come together for support and to better our craft by learning from each other. To be attacked by an elitist member of our own community is downright treasonous. His actions are not just against Archer Radio, but are felt by all of us because it could have happened to any of us. He was given the opportunity to help someone, and chose to hurt us all instead. He felt that “assassination

People are entitled to their own opinion, whether it is good or bad in others eyes. Although I strongly disagree with Fausto's comments about Archer Radio, he is entitled to his opinion and should be allowed to express it. That is what podcasting is all about, the ability to express ones ideas, thoughts and opinions freely and openly without censor or fear of it. It might not always be done in the best of taste, and sometimes people can get their feelings hurt along the way, but the freedom to truely express ourselves is the grease that oils this machine. It is hard to defend freedom of speech in a case like this, but is'nt it better than the alternative?

What I thought was most odd and inconsistent about that particular segment of ETHS was the following:

The "Archerr Question" was the only topic question in which there could be positive or negative response. Other questions were set up to elicit a positive or negative comment from the begining (ie. Name a positive..., Name a negative..., etc). When Fausto started the segment, he essentially gave a negative review, only from then on, for you (the listener) to hear other fellow ETHS members give very positive reviews of other shows. It only made the Archer Radio (negative) review stick out that much more in the end. Balanced questioning and/or editing seemed to be lacking at this point. Also, some better fact checking with regards to reporting about others shows needs to be addressed.