Ask Me Anything: Episode 2

Here’s a transcript of the video: Welcome back to our second Ask Me Anything feature.The questions we didn’t get to the first time around, I’m going to try to answer now.This one comes from Steve Zack:I’d enjoy hearing Armistead recount a bit his experiences/memories/thoughts on being young and living in San Francisco in the heyday of gay pride and dating and sex and fun and friendship.Well, you kind of summed it up right there. But we’re going to do a longer feature where I talk about all these things. It really was a golden age — that little window before AIDS came, and when I was out of the closet. So we’ll do a separate video on that.This is from Richard Jones:“Will there be any more adventures from Mona and Wilfred?”No. Easy answer. I’m done with them. I’m done with the whole thing, actually.I built Mona of the Manor so it could fit into the middle of the whole series and answer those questions that people had about Mona, and I feel like we know what they are now.Frankly, I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can’t write anymore. It’s not that anything’s happening to me mentally, but I’m just burned out on it, and I don’t want to do it anymore.That’s why I’m here right now, talking to you over this machine. I have trouble typing, and I have trouble seeing. I have cataracts that have got to be worked on sometime very soon. And so that leaves me in close-up with Netflix.I wish I could help, but that’s the way it is.This one’s from Bill Moore from Columbia, PA:“Until Mona of the Manor it really seemed like you’d dropped Mona cold from Tales. Was she based on someone from your life? Was there a reason that Mona faded the way she did? What made you decide to give her a new chapter after all? Chloe Webb really nailed it for me. Did she personify Mona for you? Was there a reason she didn’t return as Mona in the second two series?Sorry for the Monapalooza!”Oh my God — my motives on Mona. I had no motives whatsoever. I didn’t mean to leave her out in the cold and was happy to bring her back in.Chloe Webb did a wonderful job. She created Mona in a way — the Mona that everybody remembers. She could be a pain in the ass, I must say that. I can’t give you specific reasons why she sometimes was, but we thought it was worth it to put up with her because she did such amazing stuff.I wish she’d come back. I really wanted Chloe back for the second series, but we just couldn’t work it out. For starters, she wanted more money than any of the other actors were paid. She felt she deserved that because of her position, having made a couple of movies. But we couldn’t accommodate that. We didn’t want to accommodate that.I begged her to work with us, but it just wasn’t going to happen. She was having a hard time in her life at that point, and it just didn’t happen. I missed having her there a lot — but that’s the deal with television. Actors come to you with all sorts of demands.Mona has always been one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite, because she embodies… well, she does so many things that I do. You can figure out what those are. I was really happy to have Mona come back for Mona of the Manor because there are so many things about her that remind me of me. I get to be cranky sometimes, as she does. That was fun.She’s always been one of my favorite characters, so thank you for asking about her.Here’s a more serious question from Pablo Simon in Manchester, UK:“Just wondering how you feel about the rise of the far-right in the UK?”Well, I think you can guess what my feelings are about Nigel Farage and company. It’s really disturbing — especially since it echoes things that are happening in the States, and I suppose worldwide. We may be in for a hard one.I hope Britain comes to its senses and doesn’t follow in the steps of the U.S. right now, but who knows? We have to keep fighting the good fight no matter what. So that’s my answer.And now from Philippe Metge:“Hello from a French fan!Just knowing what’s happening in your country, do you think the LGBTQ should fight harder, leave if they can or grit their teeth, arch their backs, hoping that it goes away fast! How do you keep humour and wits in such an atmosphere? Here in Europe we fear for all our gay friends in US to be honest!”Well, that’s lovely to hear from a French person. I do too. I fear for friends back home that are still there.You don’t get to escape it by moving to another country — it’s pretty much everywhere. We’re seeing it on the Tube. We keep up with things, in other words, and you can sweat the dangers and try not to let them rule you.Chris and I are doing political pieces precisely because we want our voice to still be heard. This is the only voice I have left, really — doing these Substack pieces and letting my thoughts be heard as an 81-year-old queer who fears for his brothers and sisters.We need to make our voices heard, and that’s what we’re trying to do in the little way we can. Everybody else out there can do the same.In the end, we have to just let it go. The reason it’s scary is that they’re trying to scare us — they’re trying to make us back down. And we cannot do that. We cannot cave in to that fear. Just make our voices heard whenever we can. Speak out. Act up. Whatever.This is from Michel Dumont in Thunder Bay — which I assume is Canada.He writes:“In the early 90s I found in Thunder Bay an autographed copy of Maybe the Moon at my local book store. I’ve always cherished this book but I’ve always wondered how a signed copy ended up way up north ? Did you have multiple signings and then distribute them? Your novels were in our gay and lesbian center where I volunteered as a phone line counselor in ‘86. Thanks for this chance to ask a question I’ve had for decades. Big gay mukwa hugs.”I don’t know how it got there. That’s the wonderful thing about books — they’re mobile. You can stay in a motel where somebody leaves it in a bedside table and pick it up and read it.Most likely, whenever I do a book signing, the bookstores ask me to sign extra copies. It must have been one of those books that made its way to Thunder Bay. I can’t even begin to theorize about it, and I won’t.So thank you, Michelle from Thunder Bay — and thank you to everyone else who’s tuned in. That’s such an old-fashioned term, isn’t it? “Tuned in.” I can’t help it.I talked to a reporter today. She asked me what “nelly” meant, and I said, “You don’t know what nelly means? It’s an effeminate gay man.” She said she’d never heard that. I asked her how old she was. Twenty-seven. So there’s our failure to communicate.But I like to think there’s enough in Tales for people to relate to that I don’t have to do that.Thank you for tuning in, and I’ll see you next time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe

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