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AE: You are something of a renaissance man — a musician, an actor, a comedian, a graphic designer and now a media mogul. How would you rank those talents in order of importance to you?
FF: My family comes from that liberal 1970s background where you had to be good at everything — math, science, art, writing, etc. It's all important. I don't know if you watch Star Trek but I'm kind of like a captain of a starship. You have to know how to build it, drive it, maintain it and keep the crew motivated and happy.

Having an intimate knowledge of every step in the process of putting out an album or creating a podcast helps because it makes you very in tune with this complex process. I want to learn about everything that is out there in the world and use it to influence my work as a musician, journalist, comedian, writer and entertainer. Some of my heroes are the renaissance men like Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson — men that were way ahead of their time. If you think about it, Thomas Jefferson was kind of breaking taboos by falling in love with Sally Hemmings. Although I assume she had no choice in the matter. Can you imagine what kind of world we'd be living in today if our political leaders were part-time scientists, philosophers and inventors? It baffles me that something like the American independence movement ever existed at all.

I think one of our major social ills today is that everyone is expected to put in 40 hours a week at a single job specializing in a single skill. I think the world would be a better place, and people would be happier if they looked out for opportunities to diversify themselves. I don't buy into the whole concept of spreading-yourself-too-thin bullshit. It's just a way of looking at compartmentalizing individuals in order to dismiss their efforts.

One thing American companies might want to look into is how Japanese corporations, from what I hear, switch their employees around in their jobs. One year they might be in management, the next year they might be working an assembly line. It's expected of them to know every detail from beginning to end of how cars are made, for example. I try to follow that philosophy myself personally, so I'm always trying out new things. I'm really getting into photography at the moment.

AE: Feast of Fools has now evolved into a podcast. Can you say something about that evolution?
FF: My friend and fabulous video artist Kerthy Fix said that I was a celebrity waiting for the technology to catch up with me. The great thing about RSS feeds, broadband and the rise of grassroots, youth-oriented internet culture is that it's allowed people like me to gain a mass, global audience that would never have heard of us otherwise. It's kind of odd to have been underground for so many years and all of a sudden thousands of people are appreciating my work. We're the mainstream of a whole new broadcasting medium. There isn't anyone else who gets a larger audience in terms of gays and lesbians or in comedy shows coming out of Chicago. It's kind of odd to be suddenly at the top of a mountain. Although it feels more like a volcano! Because it's growing quickly, and there is conflict and sparks flying everywhere.

The whole idea that anyone can reach a mass global audience scares the pants out of the fat cats at NPR, CBS, FOX, etc. I don't need to tell you the nasty looks I've gotten from them in person at conferences. One time I went to a local forum on podcasting, and they had featured all these really poorly produced, newly made podcasts. These shows had hardly gotten off the ground: no audience, no comments and no audio quality. It broke my heart, because in the audience were all these dedicated, hard-working podcasters, like me, who were completely being ignored by the organizers at this one specific event.

Every time we feature music from an emerging gay/lesbian musician, we help drive sales to their work over on iTunes/Amazon. It's great because we've completely circumvented the RIAA and the greedy music industry. I've helped sell thousands of dollars worth of a single artist's music that no one had ever heard of before. So the big wealthy record industry is following what people like me are doing very closely.

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