You’re a long-time San Francisco resident. What are some of your favorite spots in the city and what keeps you here?
MT: There is no place better to live if you are queer, or a writer, or a queer writer. The queer culture here has the sensibility I relate to, as does the literary culture. It’s very community-oriented and work-oriented rather than career-oriented! Also, I have been curating literary culture events here for almost 20 years, so to go anywhere and begin anew would be insane! San Francisco and I have a mutually supportive relationship. I LOVE the Luggage Store, their space on Market that keeps getting bigger and better, and their magical Tenderloin National Forest is my #1 favorite spot in San Francisco. I love the San Francisco Zen Center — I love to meditate there, and go and listen to mind-blowing dharma talks, and they host really smart art events and cook delicious food! Oddball Film and Video Archive hosts cool, quirky film events AND it’s where the old 17 Reasons Why sign lives, which is amazing to see! I love to buy books at Dog Eared Books and soak up literary history vibes at City Lights. And queer history vibes at the GLBT Historical Society archives! And anything can happen vibes at YBCA’s Big Idea night parties! And I am a new big fan of the Academy of Sciences and their fun Thursday night events that are only $12 and are kid-free!
Judging by your work, you seem to have seen and experienced a lot of crazy things in your life. What is the last thing that managed to shock you?
MT: I just had a really bad shock of a performer smoking and being sort of offensive without a greater meaning at the Zen Center (whom I invited, not the Zen Center! My bad!). Sometimes I do think nothing can shock me, so it’s nice to know I do have limits and boundaries, and I don’t like art that is offensive and insulting without a greater purpose; I think it is mean-spirited and cruel and there is already so much cruelty and unkindness in the world. I got shocked in a beautiful way when the performer Kirk Read did a performance art cover of a Yoko Ono piece at a RADAR event involving his own excrement. It was totally deep and poignant and touching and affirmed my love of art that shocks you into seeing something with a wider heart than you previously had.
Who did you look up to as a queer icon, while you were growing up?
MT: In childhood/teenager-hood, I wasn’t queer, but still had mad queer love for John Waters, who inspired me to be a total wild freaky artist. And Pee Wee Herman instilled a certain childlike queer sensibility in me without me even knowing it. Andy Warhol. David Bowie. The movie Times Square. The effeminate Goth subculture which provided me with so many homosexual boyfriends. A bit younger, I was lucky to have gender-benders like Boy George and Annie Lennox coming at me mainstream. I I ferreted out artists like Soft Cell, and older Berlin — Terri Nun was the first artist I ever heard talk about being bisexual, or masturbating, in an interview! The ’80s were fun!
You’re on stage at a karaoke bar. What are you singing?
MT: “Stand Back,” “Edge of Seventeen,” “Gypsy,” “If Anyone Falls.” Anything by Stevie Nicks, whose voice is dehydrated, as is mine, and whose trembles while holding a note, as does mine.
What’s one book everyone should be required to read and why?
MT: Everyone should be required to read James Baldwin’s Another Country. It is such a masterpiece, and he is such a hero of American literature, of Black literature, of queer literature. It is so intricate and insightful and heartbreaking in it’s portrayal of the ways in which racism impacts and destroys people and their ability to connect with one another and themselves. It’s such an important book, and he is such a genius; it is a pleasure to read.
If you could invite 3 people (dead/alive/fictional) to your dinner party, who would they be and why?
MT: John Waters, Daniel Handler and Oscar Wilde. And I would just serve them food and delight in their incredible banter.
If you could live inside one movie, which would it be and why?
MT: This is tricky because many of my favorite movies are brutal and I want to live inside a happy movie. I guess I’d have to say Amelie. Then I could be having constant French magic! Otherwise, Legend so I could hang out with unicorns and fairies and wear floaty dresses and either be a good person and cavort with young Tom Cruise who is all cute and Peter Pan-ish in it, or be bad and get a goth makeover from Tim Curry who is all evil and sexy with big horns on his head.
If you could visit any other time period and place in history, which would it be and what would you do there?
MT: I would go back to the East village in the late ’70s and start a band and be part of that amazing movement that happened there and hopefully not OD on drugs before I got famous. Or I would go to Paris in the ’20s when everyone was having such a super lezzed out lezzie time and making crazy art and being dramatic about each other. That would be fun.
