In this episode, August returns to Rumi Missabu — Cockette, runaway, and legend — in a raw, intimate conversation recorded less than three months before Rumi’s death on April 2, 2024. Born in Hollywood and self-exiled from official life for decades, Rumi helped found the Cockettes, San Francisco’s glitter-drenched, anarchic performance collective that shattered gender and theatrical norms at the height of gay liberation. What follows isn’t an interview but a phone call: unfiltered, obscene, hilarious, and very much alive.
Rumi talks about being a groupie, sex and celebrity, proximity to genius, and life lived entirely on his own terms — including stories that could only come from him. The episode closes with Rumi’s notorious single “White Slavery” and an invitation to keep his legacy moving forward, including Rumipalooza on January 22 at Bureau of General Services–Queer Division in NYC. This is queer history as it actually sounded — unruly, unforgettable, and impossible to sanitize.