Madge Weinstein
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| Yeast Radio | |
 Madge Weinstein, as photographed by Jason Smith, with poster design by Fausto Fernós.
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| Hosting | Madge Weinstein (Richard Bluestein) |
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| Updates | Daily (mostly) |
| Debut | December 2004 |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Website | http://yeastradio.com |
Madge Bertha Weinstein (born March 30, 1949) is a fictional Internet personality who maintains Yeast Radio, which has developed a cult following and is among the 50 most-subscribed-to podcasts [1]. 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"[2].
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 [3].
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[edit] Character History
Weinstein is an outspoken breast cancer 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 managed the grrl band, "Goddess Riot Juice."
[edit] Biography
Weinstein co-manages the sister site, Insane Films, which features personal video blogs of Madge's alter ego, Richard Bluestein, 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."
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 1st 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 as revived with Madge, Wanda and new co-host Auntie Vera Charles. 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 6, 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 11 a.m. CT on weekdays. The live format continued until the end of May 2008 when Weinstein decided to return to a more free-form, unscheduled format.
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 [4]. 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 [5].
[edit] Notable Guests
Weinstein features a variety of crude and eccentric characters on her show. Some frequent contributors:
- Norm Augustinus, the eccentric and unstable cult icon who performs humorous anecdotes and contributes absurdist prank calls on the show.
- Brian Boothby, a lovable but mentally challenged man, who lives in America, obsessed with going on a date with Madge Weinstein. He also runs a Yeast Radio Fan Club.
- Auntie Vera Charles, a sweet and gentle but technologically inept 50 something gay voice actor living in Los Angeles who Madge constantly abuses.
- 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 Jones (who she views as her stalker and her "only competition"), her "lesbian lover" Oprah Winfrey and her "close friends" Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.
- Cher, the glamorous and unhinged singer, actress, part time yoga teacher and close friend of Madge. Talks constantly and proudly about her lesbian daughter "Chazzie".
- Dace, a handicapped teenager with a bizarre inverted penis condition which when erect allegedly grows seven inches.
- Jihadist Jerry, an Iranian terrorist with extremist leftist leanings who threatens American politicians and pop culture starlets. He refers to himself in third person and speaks in broken English.
- Victoria LaMarr, a schizophrenic transgendered crack whore with multiple personalities who appeared in Weinstein's infamous Lesbians On Acid trilogy. She went on to play a larger part in the Feast of Fools podcast.
- Ali Mahajani, also known as Ali My Vagina, an Indian man who enjoys mutaliating and sticking unusual objects in his urethra. 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, a kind hearted, morbidly obese boy living in Tennessee whom Madge constantly abuses.
- Cheryl 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. She has a croaky, frightening voice, the results of lung cancer. She speaks candidly about her vagina, bodily fluids and the children at the daycare centre that she runs. She also tans obsessively to the point that her skin has become very leathery. She is the alter ego of a mystery man known as "Puffy Blubber Cunt". She is said to sleep in a tanning bed in Mr. Blubber Cunt's closet.
- Roger Smalls, an obsessive and socially inept British man who regularly leaves strange voicemail messages on Weinstein's hotline.
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 ended. Performance artist Ragan Fox of the Fox & the City, Minneapolis-based drag queen Wanda Wisdom of Lucky Bitch Radio, quirky post-op transsexual woman Rebecca Nay of the Tranny Wreck podcast and dominatrix Pizza Babe of the PizzaBabe Goes Global podcast are main fixtures and appear 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.
[edit] References
- ^ USA Today (2005). "Radio to MP3 degree: podcasting". Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ USA Today (2005). "Radio to MP3 degree: podcasting". Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ Richard Bluestein (2006). "Yeast 2: My response to Adam’s response to Madge’s rant. ". Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ The Register (2005). "Harvard Man in lesbian mix-up wants satire clearly labeled".. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- ^ Richard Bluestein (2006). "Yeast 2: My response to Adam’s response to Madge’s rant. ". Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
