Ep. 288: The Gay Bit #19 - How the Interviews Started

Happy Friday! This week's Gay Bit is a personal one — Zach digs into the real, decades-long backstory of how he became an interviewer, long before "podcast host" was ever the plan.

It starts in childhood, filming home movies on VCR cameras and later mini-DVD cameras, a habit inherited from his father, who Zach describes as the family historian. Those tapes — now digitized — capture a teenage Zach already doing mock interviews with friends, including one memorable bit where he played Barbara Walters interviewing a very reluctant, very shy friend.

From there, Zach revisits his high school prank-call era as "Barbara Midnight," a fake radio DJ character he used (with a group of friends on three-way landline calls) to run a fake singing contest promising $500 to anyone who could belt out a few lines of their favorite artist. Most of it was harmless fun — until one call to a woman who genuinely believed she'd won money for her kids' Christmas presents left the group too guilty to keep going for months.

The episode's centerpiece is Zach's story of Phoenix, a bar in NYC's Lower East Side where he and his friend group — including his now-husband Andrew — spent years of nights out. Zach describes literally pulling strangers into a side room, sitting them down, and running impromptu, unscripted "talk shows" for an audience of friends, often turning the questions into an on-the-spot matchmaking game. He reflects on how many of those pairings turned into real connections, and how the instinct to find "interesting people who aren't selling anything" still drives how he books guests today.

He closes with two future dreams: a live local AM/FM radio show — potentially exploring this with AM host Philip Anthony — and a proper in-person studio setup, styled after shows like Amy Poehler's, instead of remote interviews from his home studio. Along the way, he gives his husband credit (reluctantly) for his podcasting notes, and jokes about wanting to be the next Oprah — money included.

Podcast song by SIXFOOT 5: https://www.sixfoot5prod.com

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sixfoot-5/1551774977

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5rHMzoU0G0fLhaBsrQiOOY?si=laSZ5hiKTYubJJyhrzf2JQ

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