Madge Weinstein
Encyclopedia
Madge Bertha Weinstein is a fictional Internet personality who maintains Yeast Radio, which has developed a cult following
and is among the 50 most-subscribed-to podcasts. Weinstein is the creation and alter ego of underground filmmaker Richard Bluestein
and was described by USA Today
as "representative of the type of over-the-top content that would never see the light of day at a mainstream media outlet".
Although Weinstein is a fictional character (and never admitted as such), the majority of opinions, social-political commentary and oblique characteristics of her personality are clearly reflective of Bluestein's own. In essence, Weinstein is both an extension and distortion of Bluestein's actual personality.
survivor and opinionated Jewish lesbian
activist, Vassar College
graduate, co-founder of the Lilith Fair
and a "woman of Luna." She is well known for her advocacy on a variety of women's issues including her long tenure as a spokeswoman on behalf of women suffering from vaginal yeast
. Weinstein is the daughter of Irving Weinstein, a funeral director and owner of Weinstein & Schlump Funeral Homes. She grew up in the Grand Concourse
in the borough of the Bronx in New York City
. In her youth, she once performed oral sex
on Nancy Reagan
, which she now regrets. She is also the former lover of Ethel Merman
(although she tends to exaggerate the details of their now infamous 1967 tryst during Ethel's daughter's funeral) and has had affairs with Martina Navratilova, Ellen DeGeneres
, k.d. lang
, Melissa Etheridge
and Rosie O'Donnell
. Weinstein is the self-professed "Margaret Mead
of podcasting" as she is an amateur cultural anthropologist who, in her free time, studies the sordid sexual activities of homosexual men. Weinstein was in a long term relationship with Gussie Iscowicz (the alter ego of Bluestein's late partner Juan Montealegre), an elderly hairdresser living in Miami, Florida
who suffered from Alzheimer's
. Weinstein resides in Chicago, Illinois with her Italian greyhound Trotski where she was the band manager of the riot grrl rock group "Goddess Riot Juice" for a number of years before they disbanded. She currently edits gay pornography for an urban audience.
, as well as features by underground filmmakers and miscellaneous visual content. Insane Films is one of the earliest videoblogs ever created, originating sometime in 2000 , but Madge Weinstein's fame grew largely from her indie podcast
Yeast Radio, which began in late November 2004 . Weinstein gained notoriety for her viral video
, Cooking With Madge: Lesbians On Acid, which featured a disheveled Madge and her unstable, ambiguously gendered friends attempting to cook "les beans" while high on LSD. A pioneer of the podcasting medium, Adam Curry
, helped promote the show in its early life. In late April 2005, Weinstein created an interesting counterpart to her original podcast in Yeast2, a free-form experimental channel in which anyone can contribute to "the strange, ugly, pretty macabra [sic] and surreal." Yeast 2 hasnt been Updated in years though.
In early July 2005, Weinstein became one of the first members of Adam Curry
's PodShow and was featured heavily in the program, which aired on Sirius Satellite Radio
from 6-10 p.m. EST on weekdays before the company's ties with the radio network were controversially severed on May 1, 2007. Weinstein's contract with PodShow ended in April 2008.
Around the same time, Madge Weinstein co-created Eat This Hot Show a collaborative podcast
featuring five notable members of the ever-growing "queercast" community: Weinstein, Ragan Fox, Wanda Wisdom, Fausto Fernos and his partner Marc Felion. However, Fausto and Marc were expelled from the show after ten episodes due to internal conflicts with fellow hosts, and the three featured a weekly guest in the episodes following. The show eventually dissipated in this format although in April 2008, the show was revived with Madge, Wanda and new co-host Auntie Vera Charles (although that too faded out after August 2009, only to be revived once more in July 2010). Madge Weinstein and Wanda Wisdom also co-created the online community, Qpodder.org, which collects gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered podcasts. Its sister site NellyGator.com allows listeners to subscribe to a single RSS feed containing all podcast episodes from the members of Qpodder. In mid-October 2005, Weinstein, a self-described "pioneering lesbian," began heavily promoting the medium of queer
videoblogging to coincide with the advent of the video iPod
. Her new endeavor Faggregator.com does to videoblogging what Nellygator did for podcasting, and features a single page which houses all the video material submitted by members of the Qpodder community.
Bluestein experienced two personal losses in 2006. Juan Montealegre died on February 11, 2006, after a battle with cancer. Not long thereafter, on May 2, 2006, his 14-year-old dog Chauncey, a heavy fixture on the show in its early days including a memorable episode where Weinstein angrily cleaned up his feces, also died. On September 27, 2006, Richard Bluestein
announced on Yeast Radio that he was retiring the character Madge and taking over hosting duties himself due to creative concerns. Madge was reported to be in a hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she received adjustable gastric band
surgery for her ongoing weight problem. The surgery went horribly wrong, leaving her in a critical condition. Madge eventually recovered and returned to the show on November 7, 2006.
In early January 2008, with the threat of her expiring PodShow contract, Weinstein relaunched Yeast Radio as a live show, airing on her website from 10:00 CT on Fridays. The live format continued until the end of May 2008 when Weinstein decided to return to a more free-form, unscheduled format. In early 2009, Weinstein resumed streaming live shows sporadically. The 1000th episode of Yeast Radio was streamed live on February 12, 2010.
Weinstein's rebellious, queer punk ethics and her podcast's unconventional content, strong, coarse language and stream-of-consciousness structure have made her an endlessly controversial icon within the more conservative podcasting community. Her show serves as an ongoing protest against censorship, the commercialization of mainstream radio and the continued marginalization of gays and lesbians by the growing monoculture.
Weinstein has also interviewed political activist Cindy Sheehan
, Wigstock
founder Lady Bunny
, Democracy Now!
reporter Amy Goodman
, pioneer of the transgressive art movement Nick Zedd
, collaborative documentary filmmaker Kent Bye of The Echo Chamber Project, provocative multimedia performance artist and world cake-eating champion Shishaldin Hanlen and the experimental, underground filmmakers Usama Alshaibi
and Kristie Alshaibi. The show frequently features original compositions from Taylor E. Ross (described as Madge's "cunt doctor"), the mysterious "Mr. Zeeche" and Dave from the Chub Creek's Jobie Voshell podcast.
Because of her prominence within the community, Madge regularly features fellow queer podcasters on her show. In early episodes, Fausto Fernós of the Feast Of Fools podcast acted as the token "self-loathing minority" and Weinstein's own "Robin Queefers
" before their friendship dramatically ended. Performance art
ist Ragan Fox of the Fox & the City, Minneapolis-based drag queen Wanda Wisdom
of Lucky Bitch Radio, Los Angeles-based voice actor Auntie Vera Charles of Vera Speaks, strong proud black woman and aspiring rapper Lady Raptastic of the Lady Raptastic show, quirky post-op transsexual woman Rebecca Nay of the Tranny Wreck podcast and dominatrix Pizza Babe of the PizzaBabe Goes Global podcast have been main fixtures throughout the show's history and have appeared regularly. Madge's chemistry and banter with gothic performance poet
and feminist Rachel Kann of the Eat Bird podcast is very popular with listeners. Madge regularly makes jokes at her expense, nicknaming her "Rapechel", mocking her deep "masculine" voice and referring to her in male pronouns.
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
and is among the 50 most-subscribed-to podcasts. Weinstein is the creation and alter ego of underground filmmaker Richard Bluestein
Richard Bluestein
Richard Bluestein is an American entertainer and underground internet performance artist based in Chicago, Illinois...
and was described by USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
as "representative of the type of over-the-top content that would never see the light of day at a mainstream media outlet".
Although Weinstein is a fictional character (and never admitted as such), the majority of opinions, social-political commentary and oblique characteristics of her personality are clearly reflective of Bluestein's own. In essence, Weinstein is both an extension and distortion of Bluestein's actual personality.
Character history
Weinstein is an outspoken breast cancerBreast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
survivor and opinionated Jewish lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
activist, Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
graduate, co-founder of the Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It...
and a "woman of Luna." She is well known for her advocacy on a variety of women's issues including her long tenure as a spokeswoman on behalf of women suffering from vaginal yeast
Candidiasis
Thrush redirects here. For the hoof infection see Thrush .Candidiasis or thrush is a fungal infection of any of the Candida species , of which Candida albicans is the most common...
. Weinstein is the daughter of Irving Weinstein, a funeral director and owner of Weinstein & Schlump Funeral Homes. She grew up in the Grand Concourse
Grand Concourse (Bronx)
The Grand Concourse is a major thoroughfare in the borough of the Bronx in New York City...
in the borough of the Bronx in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In her youth, she once performed oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
on Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
, which she now regrets. She is also the former lover of Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
(although she tends to exaggerate the details of their now infamous 1967 tryst during Ethel's daughter's funeral) and has had affairs with Martina Navratilova, Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres is an American stand-up comedienne, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was also a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season....
, k.d. lang
K.D. Lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
, Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals...
and Rosie O'Donnell
Rosie O'Donnell
Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...
. Weinstein is the self-professed "Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
of podcasting" as she is an amateur cultural anthropologist who, in her free time, studies the sordid sexual activities of homosexual men. Weinstein was in a long term relationship with Gussie Iscowicz (the alter ego of Bluestein's late partner Juan Montealegre), an elderly hairdresser living in Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
who suffered from Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. Weinstein resides in Chicago, Illinois with her Italian greyhound Trotski where she was the band manager of the riot grrl rock group "Goddess Riot Juice" for a number of years before they disbanded. She currently edits gay pornography for an urban audience.
Biography
Weinstein co-manages the sister site, Insane Films, which features personal video blogs of Madge's alter ego, Richard BluesteinRichard Bluestein
Richard Bluestein is an American entertainer and underground internet performance artist based in Chicago, Illinois...
, as well as features by underground filmmakers and miscellaneous visual content. Insane Films is one of the earliest videoblogs ever created, originating sometime in 2000 , but Madge Weinstein's fame grew largely from her indie podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
Yeast Radio, which began in late November 2004 . Weinstein gained notoriety for her viral video
Viral video
A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
, Cooking With Madge: Lesbians On Acid, which featured a disheveled Madge and her unstable, ambiguously gendered friends attempting to cook "les beans" while high on LSD. A pioneer of the podcasting medium, Adam Curry
Adam Curry
Adam Clark Curry is a broadcasting and Internet personality well known for his stint from 1987 to 1994 as a video jockey on the music video channel MTV. In the mid-1990s, Curry was a World Wide Web entrepreneur and one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer a Web site...
, helped promote the show in its early life. In late April 2005, Weinstein created an interesting counterpart to her original podcast in Yeast2, a free-form experimental channel in which anyone can contribute to "the strange, ugly, pretty macabra [sic] and surreal." Yeast 2 hasnt been Updated in years though.
In early July 2005, Weinstein became one of the first members of Adam Curry
Adam Curry
Adam Clark Curry is a broadcasting and Internet personality well known for his stint from 1987 to 1994 as a video jockey on the music video channel MTV. In the mid-1990s, Curry was a World Wide Web entrepreneur and one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer a Web site...
's PodShow and was featured heavily in the program, which aired on Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
from 6-10 p.m. EST on weekdays before the company's ties with the radio network were controversially severed on May 1, 2007. Weinstein's contract with PodShow ended in April 2008.
Around the same time, Madge Weinstein co-created Eat This Hot Show a collaborative podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
featuring five notable members of the ever-growing "queercast" community: Weinstein, Ragan Fox, Wanda Wisdom, Fausto Fernos and his partner Marc Felion. However, Fausto and Marc were expelled from the show after ten episodes due to internal conflicts with fellow hosts, and the three featured a weekly guest in the episodes following. The show eventually dissipated in this format although in April 2008, the show was revived with Madge, Wanda and new co-host Auntie Vera Charles (although that too faded out after August 2009, only to be revived once more in July 2010). Madge Weinstein and Wanda Wisdom also co-created the online community, Qpodder.org, which collects gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered podcasts. Its sister site NellyGator.com allows listeners to subscribe to a single RSS feed containing all podcast episodes from the members of Qpodder. In mid-October 2005, Weinstein, a self-described "pioneering lesbian," began heavily promoting the medium of queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
videoblogging to coincide with the advent of the video iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
. Her new endeavor Faggregator.com does to videoblogging what Nellygator did for podcasting, and features a single page which houses all the video material submitted by members of the Qpodder community.
Bluestein experienced two personal losses in 2006. Juan Montealegre died on February 11, 2006, after a battle with cancer. Not long thereafter, on May 2, 2006, his 14-year-old dog Chauncey, a heavy fixture on the show in its early days including a memorable episode where Weinstein angrily cleaned up his feces, also died. On September 27, 2006, Richard Bluestein
Richard Bluestein
Richard Bluestein is an American entertainer and underground internet performance artist based in Chicago, Illinois...
announced on Yeast Radio that he was retiring the character Madge and taking over hosting duties himself due to creative concerns. Madge was reported to be in a hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she received adjustable gastric band
Adjustable gastric band
A laparoscopic adjustable gastric band, commonly referred to as a lap band, is an inflatable silicone device that is placed around the top portion of the stomach, via laparoscopic surgery, in order to treat obesity...
surgery for her ongoing weight problem. The surgery went horribly wrong, leaving her in a critical condition. Madge eventually recovered and returned to the show on November 7, 2006.
In early January 2008, with the threat of her expiring PodShow contract, Weinstein relaunched Yeast Radio as a live show, airing on her website from 10:00 CT on Fridays. The live format continued until the end of May 2008 when Weinstein decided to return to a more free-form, unscheduled format. In early 2009, Weinstein resumed streaming live shows sporadically. The 1000th episode of Yeast Radio was streamed live on February 12, 2010.
Weinstein's rebellious, queer punk ethics and her podcast's unconventional content, strong, coarse language and stream-of-consciousness structure have made her an endlessly controversial icon within the more conservative podcasting community. Her show serves as an ongoing protest against censorship, the commercialization of mainstream radio and the continued marginalization of gays and lesbians by the growing monoculture.
Notable Guests
Weinstein features a variety of crude and eccentric characters on her show. Some frequent contributors:- Berbacia Clemons, a Los Angeles-based "big, black, bloated, bisexual, bipolar, overweight blesbian blacktress" who sporadically guests on the show to "peel open the pussy lips of Hollywood", allowing the audience to have a "peek inside". She is often delusional and obsesses over certain celebrities, in particular former talk show host Star JonesStar JonesStar Jones is an American lawyer, journalist, writer, and television personality. She is known for her role as a co-host of the ABC weekday morning talk show The View...
(who she views as her stalker and her "only competition"), her "lesbian lover" Oprah WinfreyOprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
and her "close friends" Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
and Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth TaylorDame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
. - CherCherCher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
, the glamorous and unhinged singer, actress, part time yoga teacher and close friend of Madge. Talks constantly and proudly about her transgendered son "Chazzie". - Dace, a handicapped teenager with a bizarre inverted penis condition which when erect allegedly grows seven inches.
- Hagatha von Taterbugs, a gleefully disgusting HIV positive drag queen with borderline personality disorder who hangs out in public restrooms and drinks urine/fecal matter. Her trashy exploits and long history of atrocities have shocked and astounded even Madge and Cheryl. Cheryl despises Hagatha and undercuts her at every turn.
- Victoria LaMarr, a schizophrenic transgendered crack whore with multiple personalities who appeared heavily in Weinstein's infamous Lesbians On Acid trilogy and in early episodes of Yeast Radio. She went on to play a larger part in the Feast of FoolsFeast of Fools (podcast)The Feast of Fun podcast is a Chicago, Illinois-based talk show hosted by Fausto Fernós and Marc Felion that showcases celebrity guests, artists, musicians, actors, and members of the GLBT community and those who support them...
podcast. - Ali Mahajani, also known as Ali My Vagina, an Indian man who enjoys mutaliating and sticking unusual objects in his urethraUrethraIn anatomy, the urethra is a tube that connects the urinary bladder to the genitals for the removal of fluids out of the body. In males, the urethra travels through the penis, and carries semen as well as urine...
. He is estranged from his amputee wife after a complication with stump to uretha sexual intercourse. He soon went on to play a large role in Cheryl's Whorehole podcast and is part of the That Is Real Good Tech podcast with Rob Average Penis. - Andy Melton, later known as Schrockbella Mortenstein, a housebound gay twenty-something with the unique predicament of hyper morbid obesity. From his father's house in Tennessee, he formerly hosted the podcast "Andy Not Andrew" and has most recently launched the program "Sissy Fried" under the pseudonym, Declan Channing.
- Cheryl Trig Merkowski, a self-described beautiful, paedophilic 25 year old woman, smoker and owner of three fourths of a lung. Though she makes a point to introduce herself as such, it seems clear that she is much older than she lets on. Cheryl speaks candidly and obsessively about her prolapsed vaginaVaginaThe vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
, bodily fluids, black people and the children at the daycare centre that she runs. She has a croaky, frightening voice, the results of lung cancerLung cancerLung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. She also tans obsessively to the point that her skin has become very leathery. Recently, she began working under Oprah WinfreyOprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
(who she has a bizarre, masochistic relationship with) and is currently caught up in a global conspiracy of celebrities pooping their panties. Originally only appearing on the show sporadically she has grown to become a full-fledged co-host. - Roger Smalls, an obsessive and socially inept British man who regularly leaves strange voicemail messages on Weinstein's hotline.
- Debra Wilkerson, an elderly, insane Christian woman who thinks Madge and Cheryl need to "get saved". She had a complete mental breakdown after the television show The Facts Of Life was cancelled and talks endlessly about "Natalie", "Jo" and the "GURLS".
Weinstein has also interviewed political activist Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Sheehan
Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...
, Wigstock
Wigstock
Wigstock was an annual outdoor drag festival that began in the 1980s in New York's East Village that took place on Labor Day. Traditionally the festival would act as the unofficial end to the summer for the gay community of New York City...
founder Lady Bunny
Lady Bunny
The Lady Bunny is an American drag queen originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has lived in New York since the 1980s. She is the founder of the annual Wigstock event and is well-known as a nightclub DJ, promoter and celebrity...
, Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
reporter Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
, pioneer of the transgressive art movement Nick Zedd
Nick Zedd
Nick Zedd is an American filmmaker and author based in New York City. He coined the term Cinema of Transgression in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded filmmakers and artists using shock value and black humor in their work...
, collaborative documentary filmmaker Kent Bye of The Echo Chamber Project, provocative multimedia performance artist and world cake-eating champion Shishaldin Hanlen and the experimental, underground filmmakers Usama Alshaibi
Usama Alshaibi
Usama Alshaibi is an Iraqi-American independent filmmaker and visual artist.Starting in early 2004, Alshaibi worked on a documentary on his homeland, and its current situation, titled Nice Bombs...
and Kristie Alshaibi. The show frequently features original compositions from Taylor E. Ross (described as Madge's "cunt doctor"), the mysterious "Mr. Zeeche" and Dave from the Chub Creek's Jobie Voshell podcast.
Because of her prominence within the community, Madge regularly features fellow queer podcasters on her show. In early episodes, Fausto Fernós of the Feast Of Fools podcast acted as the token "self-loathing minority" and Weinstein's own "Robin Queefers
Robin Quivers
Robin Ophelia Quivers is an American radio personality, most notable for being the long-running news anchor and co-host of The Howard Stern Show. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Quivers graduated from the University of Maryland with a major in nursing. In 1975, she joined the United States Air Force...
" before their friendship dramatically ended. Performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
ist Ragan Fox of the Fox & the City, Minneapolis-based drag queen Wanda Wisdom
Wanda Wisdom
Wanda Wisdom is the female impersonation persona of Bradley Traynor . She is a drag queen entertainer and a podcaster from Minneapolis, Minnesota.- Career :...
of Lucky Bitch Radio, Los Angeles-based voice actor Auntie Vera Charles of Vera Speaks, strong proud black woman and aspiring rapper Lady Raptastic of the Lady Raptastic show, quirky post-op transsexual woman Rebecca Nay of the Tranny Wreck podcast and dominatrix Pizza Babe of the PizzaBabe Goes Global podcast have been main fixtures throughout the show's history and have appeared regularly. Madge's chemistry and banter with gothic performance poet
Performance poetry
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution.-History:...
and feminist Rachel Kann of the Eat Bird podcast is very popular with listeners. Madge regularly makes jokes at her expense, nicknaming her "Rapechel", mocking her deep "masculine" voice and referring to her in male pronouns.