Michael Glitz is a journalist who has worked for many different publications, including The Advocate. In 2003 he interviewed both the Fab Five and the Daves (Dave Collins and Dave Metzler) for that magazine. Below is the transcript of his notes from the interview, posted by him on his website, MichaelGiltz.com. Although a lot of the interview of course appeared in the Advocate piece, there is still plenty of new material. I have not edited it except to add quote tags to easier distinguish who is speaking.

I’m five minutes late meeting the stars of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” at the Chelsea restaurant Elmo. Three of them are there already and two will show up shortly. First cliché: it takes FOREVER for things to get started. The Advocate has sent a photographer and makeup artist to the interview and each guy takes a turn getting ready and posing for some individual shots. It’s an hour and a half before we actually sit down and start the tape recorder.

But who cares? Chatting away with each other like old friends, they each individually seem to make sure I’m not bored or left alone, coming over to me to talk and ask the usual polite questions. When I walk up, Thom is talking to Carson, who just had a huge Sunday spread in the New York Post focusing on him alone and headlined “Queen of Mean.” Carson has received a little more attention than the others thanks to his quipy nature and I’d wondered if it might be a sore spot. But all the attention is too new for any of them to feel anything but overwhelmed. Thom is telling Carson how wonderful the piece looked, while assuring him the Post was wrong: Carson isn’t bitchy; he’s sharp, but he’s not bitchy or mean (Thom is right, actually). Ted shows up and jokes to me how annoying it is that everyone comes up to him and says they love the show and then asks if Kyan is single. (Ted is actually the only one of the five who is in a relationship.) Thom and Jai explain the origins of their funky name spellings and advise me how to hip up mine. (Mykel? Mykle?)

Ted spills a little something on his t-shirt and tries to clean up the stain with seltzer water. No problem for the Fab Five: an employee at Elmo gladly whips of his periwinkle blue Gap shirt so Ted can wear it for the photo shoot. Everyone insists the guy will have to work shirtless for the rest of the afternoon. Jai spots the shirt and asks Carson where he can get one in white for the party they’re attending tonight. Thom tells Kyan that one of his clients works at Clinique and that – not surprisingly – Clinique would like to send them all basically every product they’ve ever created in the hopes of being used on the show. They talk of a charity event they’re attending and one suggests they stand together for the first little bit to ensure plenty of photo ops for the gang. They’re doing Howard Stern on Wednesday. Entertainment Weekly is putting them on the cover. People Magazine – without going through the proper channels – has tracked down the parents of at least one of them trying to find out what they were like as kids. Happily, the Fab Fiver was able to stop their mom who was perfectly willing to email childhood photos. (He does NOT want any of his childhood photos out in the world – maybe one from his first 18 years is usable.) The others are warned about People magazine calling and trolling for pictures. The New York Times is following them around again. (Tomorrow, a front page story in the NYTimes will be “Gay-themed TV Gaining a Wider Audience.”) E! Entertainment Television wants to sic a camera crew on them for a day for an upcoming special. And more and more and more. Their phones never stop ringing. They have a meeting later in the afternoon and some of them have clients from their dayjobs to attend to. People walking down the street stop and stare. Some come into the restaurant to tell them how much they love the show. Other diners peek around corners confirming that, yes, it is them and some come over to offer their congratulations before leaving. This, by the way, is their day off.

Sitting down at round table in back.
Waitress: You’ve got some salads ready. Should I just bring them out?
Carson: Yeah, bring out the food, bring out the funk.
Michael: You can all stop being funny now and get serious [now that the tape is rolling; they’ve all been extremely friendly and charming]
Ted: [intoning] We find Gay Liberation an important thing.

While a photographer was shooting Ted right before we sat down, Carson said, “Stare into the light, Carol Ann!”
Ted: The photographer said, ‘Do they always call you Carol Ann?’
Thom: No she did not.
Ted: Yes.
Thom: No! Oh my God.

An employee walks up.
Ted: Do you need the shirt back now?
Employee: No, we’ll be alright. [Talks about working bar last summer in Fire Island shirtless but says he’s getting too old to get away with that anymore. They all poo-poo that.]
Thom: The supermarkets [at Fire Island] are so bizarre to me.
Carson: People have no shirt on.
Thom: People are walking around in a Speedo bathing suit with a little carry-cart.
Michael: I appreciate your taking the time right now.
General “oh Please” and “It’s an honor.”

Michael: Michael: I know it’s an awkward time right now and we’re all in a bit of shock and denial. [Pause] I thought Liza and David were going to stay together forever. [Everyone laughs.]
Jai: I just met her! I just met her!
Thom: I was devastated. I had a second of silence this weekend.
Ted: After sixteen blissful months.
Jai: You guys, I totally met her and she was so sweet and wonderful. She came to see “Zanna.” [His Off Broadway musical “Zanna Don’t” which got good reviews but just closed. A cast album was just recorded and there’s talk of a Broadway transfer.]
Michael: She came backstage. That was nice of her.
Jai: She did. That was very nice of her.
Ted: And Liza did too.
Thom: He ran out of medication and then she woke up and said, ‘Who are you? I want you and your boyfriend to leave right now.’

Michael: So how did you all hear about the numbers? Obviously the show is a massive success. Did somebody call you? Did you call each other?
Kyan: We were sitting in a conference room having a meeting about our next Straight Guy. Dave Metzler came in and gave us the good news. We were very excited.
Michael: And then you all screamed and jumped up on the tables.
Jai: I don’t think we knew what the numbers meant. I didn’t.
Ted: 6.9?
Thom: 6.9, what does that mean?
Ted: It’s all been very surreal, working in this weird little universe, mostly in New York, mostly in Chelsea. And I’m not sure it’s really hit home.
Michael: Today you see people peeking around the corner, stopping by to talk to you.
Kyan: When I was walking here, I was talking to my mother on the phone – she said to tell you guys hello – I was talking to her and a guy comes up and touches my arm. I’m like, ‘Hold on mom.’ He said, ‘I just wanted to let you know, I love the show, got a great tip from you last week.’
Ted: The people who are coming up to us on the street are as excited about the show as we are. Just seeing us get a show with real gay people on the air is exciting for all of us.
Michael: Even the shows with gay characters aren’t usually played by gay actors.
Ted: Right. Or so they tell us.
Carson: They like us; they really like us.

Michael: So you haven’t had a chance to have any inter-fighting yet.
Ted: Actually we just despise each other.
Jai: The success is really relative –
Carson pretends to jab something at Ted.
Carson: [fake sincere] I am so sorry.
Ted: You son of a bitch!
Carson: Hold on, let me get my fork. [pretends to jab at him again]
Ted: Carson did stab me with a corkscrew.
Carson: I did.
Ted: He says it was my fault but I believe it was intentional. He stabbed me with a corkscrew. Blood ran down my face. Fortunately we got it all on film.
Carson: …there was blood streaming down his face. It was totally WWF. Ted’s like, ‘Is that blood?’ I was like—
Ted: Just a little bit.
Carson: Yeah, just a smidge. It was pouring down his head.
Thom: Then we ran into the kitchen and we’re like, ‘Carson’s a bitch!’
Ted: Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of platelets.
Kyan: He’s a clotter.
Michael: You’re not a bleeder?
Ted: No, I’m a clotter, not a bleeder.

Michael: What about the first numbers? Those were for the NBC debut. What about the first time on Bravo?
Thom: We had champagne.
Jai: Everyone in the office got to.
Carson: We thought it was like figure skating. 3.4?! That must have been from the Ukranian judge.
Ted: It was so exciting because we’ve been so busy. We’re only seeing each other. We don’t have time to do anything else except make the thing. To hear that there is an outside world at all was stunning.
Michael: A friendly outside world.
Ted: Yeah, a real friendly outside world. They banned us in Tulsa, though. Did you hear?
Michael: Two cities, I think.
Carson: Birmingham?
Ted: It really hurts to be excluded by such a fabulous city.
Carson: I’m going to make a t-shirt that says, ‘Banned in Tulsa.’
Ted: Seriously, our peeps in Tulsa must be bummed out. I hope they’re calling up the network, saying ‘I want my Queer Eye.’
Thom: What happened? They’re just not getting it?
Ted: The Tulsa affiliate declined to run us. [Actually, they aired it at 2:30 a.m.]
Carson: Do you know what they showed in our place? “Coach.” That hurts.
Ted: Free Tulsa! That should be our campaign. We love our peeps in Tulsa.
Thom: I bet for the peeps in Tulsa it will be a good thing for them to request it.
Carson: That would be great for the peeps in Tulsa to tell the network, ‘We’re a little bit above and beyond that and we’d like to see ‘Queer Eye’ too.

Michael: And obviously, there’s nothing to object to, other than the fact that you are gay. There’s nothing explicit. “Friends” is more sexually explicit and out there. “Will & Grace” has Grace in a threesome.
Ted: Well, we did braise a jockstrap, you have to admit.
Carson: That’s good times.
Thom: But jockstraps do not qualify as sex. I know that surprises you.
Kyan: Besides, what’s so unnatural about that? You find a dirty jockstrap. What do you do? Of course you boil it.
Carson: Make it clean and puritanical.
Thom: Amish.
Kyan: Our Quakers love us. We’re big with the Quakers. It’s all about cleanliness.
Ted: Yeah, we’re huge amongst the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Carson: Those of them that have cable, yes.
Michael: Which is very few.
Kyan: Both of them.

Michael: But obviously even before the ratings for Bravo, you could see that NBC was really pushing the show. You saw the teaser ads and the posters and the two-page spread in Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.
Carson: That was a wow.
Thom: That was a wow.
Ted: A billboard in Times Square. Billboards on Sunset Boulevard.
Michael: Is that when you started to realize, oh boy, this could –
Jai: I don’t feel it yet. Maybe because I’ve only been in one of the episodes that’s been shown. But most people say, ‘I saw you in ‘Zanna’ and I love your new TV show. For me, it’s not like, I’m not getting the wow, people are starting to recognize me.
Carson: You’ve already been desensitized.
Jai: Yeah, I’m used to it. It’s weird but our lives haven’t changed really. Our day-to-day is exactly the same. We still live in the same apartments.
Michael: Season two.
Someone: You didn’t move yet?
Carson: We’ve got to get a penthouse. I was talking to my mother and she’s like, ‘So you’re doing the cover of ‘Entertainment Weekly.’ How much do they pay for that?’ I was like, ‘You don’t get paid for things like that.
Michael: You’ll have to go to Britain for that.
Jai: [joking] I’m auditioning for ‘Springer – the Musical.’
Thom: I think the most bizarre thing for me is that understanding that NBC was putting a lot behind it. And understanding also that the demographic they were going for was women and gay men or gays in general. It made sense to me. And I thought it was going to be…because I had seen the product, I knew it was a good product, I was very confident it was going to do well within a certain demographic goal. But I had no concept it would be interesting to young high school kids.
Ted: High school straight boys, we’ve done well with across the board.
Kyan: The girls love us.

Customers who had been peeping around the corner stop to offer congratulations (they’d seen Jai in ‘Zanna Don’t’ twice and love the show).
Jai: I’m clearly the odd man out since they glance at me and I don’t fit in so I try and joke, ‘I write all their jokes.’ They don’t understand me. That’s how it is.
Carson: What’s really funny is what Thom said. Just from the novelty, we would have gotten the gay community. But when you have a thirteen year old girl or a 40 year old pharmacist in Pennsylvania [Carson is from Allentown, Pennsylvania] at K-Mart or somebody’s dad.
Thom: What about the little kid in the yarmulke on and the orange shorts.
Carson: We were shooting and this little twelve year old fashion plate and says, ‘Carson, I just wanted to meet you. I really enjoy your work. You’re inspirational.’ He’s telling me everything he has on. The designers. He had a yarmulke on and I said, ‘You go Baruch Atah Adonai! Keep stylin’.’ It was so cute.
Ted: Is Nicole Farhi his idol?
Carson: Maybe.
Thom: The other thing that’s amazing about that is the mother and father who don’t mind. Who are allowing them. I never thought of myself as being someone who would be able to do that for a kid. Being a gay person and being interested and doing well and accomplishing goals in terms of my profession, which is good for all of us, but this can really help.
Ted: It’s beyond what any of us ever expected.
Thom: I expected nothing like this.
Carson: The little make-over show that could.

Michael: And yet, we all secretly feel, ‘I could be great on ‘The Real World.’ Why could I not be on ‘The Real World?’
Jai: We’re so not ‘The Real World.’
Michael: Or some other reality show. [I’m speaking more to just how everyone thinks they deserve their fifteen minutes and would be great on camera and everyone would love and respect them and see how funny and amusing they are. Or is that just me?] Everyone thinks, ‘Oh I could be a star if I was just on something.’
Jai: I never thought that.
Kyan: I think that’s pretty common.
Michael: [to Jai] As an actor? As an actor you demand to be a star. You have to be a star.
Kyan: I don’t know that necessarily everyone would want to do it. But I think everyone has the thought, ‘I could do that. That would be cake.’
Carson: When I saw them eating those reindeer eyeballs on ‘Fear Factor,” I was like eww.
Thom: When they offered me the position on the show, I said to them, ‘Well, I know I’ll be able to do really great things with the products and the interiors. That’s something I’m very confident about because it’s something I’m very passionate about.
Carson: But I’m not eating any lamb testicles.
Thom: Exactly. But I’m not eating ONE lamb testicle.

Michael: But you have no camera experience.
Thom: I said, I can’t promise you what my relationship with the camera will be and how I’m going to come off. That’s my fear. So when I first started, the first show we did together prior to Jai, they said, ‘Oh my God, you were so comfortable in front of the camera.’ I was so nervous.
Ted: You didn’t seem nervous at all.
Thom: Are you nervous? Are you nervous? I thought it would be fun to be on something like ‘The Real World.’ How much fun that would be. But am I qualified to do it? I don’t know. Some people say some models don’t look that great in real life but they just have a really great relationship with the camera. That’s something you just don’t know until you’re in that situation.
Carson: I love all the people coming up to me in the park and saying, ‘Wow, you’re much shorter in real life!’ Well, thanks! Thanks! ‘You look shorter and younger!’ Okay, well, that’s fifty-fifty. I’ll take that.

Michael: I assume most of you hadn’t been in front of the camera before. How did they help you?
Ted: They didn’t help us at all.
Thom: [at same time] They didn’t help us at all.
Ted: No help. They threw us right into the pool and let us freeze.
Kyan: The first time we watched an episode, I think all of us were like, ‘Okay, I have to have my nose done.’
Michael: What did you learn or just getting comfortable as you do it?
Kyan: I don’t know that I’ve made an evaluation and adjusted that or changed anything. I think that all I can really do is be myself and try to make a connection with the Straight Guy and have a genuine truthful connection and just speak my truth to him about things that I know about. That’s how I work.
Ted: They’ve made it pretty comfortable. Most of us are not – we’re not acting, we’re not performing and the people we’re working with are so amazing. We were all hired because of who we are. And so we don’t have to live up to any higher standards than that. We just have to be ourselves.
Carson: Ted has slept with the entire production staff.
Ted: Well, there’s that. But I’m not that worried about screwing up because first of all, they have plenty of tape. Tape is cheap. They just keep rolling and rolling and rolling. You show up and be yourself and try to be as funny and useful as you can.
Carson: Ted and I had an advantage because we did the pilot. That was the real learning curve. But from the get-go, they might move you [mimes physically moving a person a few inches forward or back] like this so you’re not in the way, in the closet—
Ted: Blocking the shot.
Carson: So you’re not blocking the shot. But other than that, they just set you free. I just forget the cameras are there and that’s the best way to be. It is a reality show and once you’re doing your spiel and you’re talking about clothing or whatever your passion is, you’re so focused on that moment. This shirt’s amazing and I’m thinking about the Straight Guy and what he needs.
Thom: They’ve also gone to great lengths to make sure we’re not overly conscious of the cameras and that whole situation. Also, one of the things that really makes it work, because we’re not really TV people and we’re all from very different backgrounds, so there’s no competition with what we’re doing and we’re also very close to the camera people, the set and the crew, and we have a lot of fun with them. So even though we’re working, we’re kind of with a big group of friends where we can laugh at each other and ourselves. The first day when I didn’t know who was behind the camera and I saw the cameras and the lights, all I could see were the cameras. Now when I see a camera, all I see is Michael [not me, just the camera guy]. Even with the sound guy, when we have our mikes on, we’re always like [mimes talking into mike to joke with crew]. We’re playing with them so it’s very casual.
Carson: It is playful. That’s a good word.
Thom: Anything that we know about each other, we jab at each other, like Punky Brewster—
Carson: We’re like a bunch of kittens with string, really.
Jai: That’s my nickname: Punky Brewster.
Michael: It’s better than Carol Ann.
Ted: We’re able to do this because the crew – not to sound all earnest or anything – but it’s an environment where you can let loose and be yourself and go crazy because it has to be natural or it doesn’t look good on camera.
Carson: It is a reality show.

Michael: Is it a well-dressed crew? Have you guys spruced them up?
Carson: We totally have!
Kyan: They are all over it. They ask, ‘That product in the hair, how is that supposed to work? One day Carson and I had done some manscaping on one of the straight guys.
Carson: Contouring.
Kyan: Clippered down his body hair just a little bit. It wasn’t a full-on shave. Just a little.
Carson: Man-topiary.
Thom: He was so freaked out.
Ted: He was so freaked out, he was like a deer in headlights.
Kyan: Poor Rob [a crewmember] shows up one day – he has a hairline up to here [puts hands up to neck] -- totally shaved off. He’s like, ‘I don’t know what happened. I was trying to manscape and I took it too far.’ It’s okay. It’ll grow back.
Ted: They’re using the vocabulary too. Manscaping, shuzzing.
Kyan: Carson caught our sound guy with Rob—
Carson: And they were shuzzing each other.
Kyan: With his fingers in his hair. And Carson said, ‘You know what? I’m very uncomfortable with the fact that you were running your fingers through his hair for the past thirty minutes.
Carson: They’ll call me before a premiere party. ‘Hi, I’m at the store. Should I go for the short-sleeved shirt.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, if you go two feet to your left, there’s going to be a pink and green one. Move over to that area of the store.’ Seriously calling me to get fashion tips while they’re in the store.
Thom: We had a party here downstairs. I was hanging out with a group [from the crew] and they were like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve never stressed out so much about what we were going to wear in our life. We were calling each other and asking, ‘What are you going to wear?’ These are like sound guys –
Ted: Lighting guys, utility grips.
Thom: Dave Metzler, I think I was telling you guys, he walked into a situation where he overheard them talking about, ‘Well, you should probably roll your sleeves up.’ ‘I don’t know, it looked like they were a little higher.’
Ted: Dude, those stripes are not going to make it.
Carson: They’re all turning into the cast of ‘Heathers’ on us.
Kyan: Last night, I was getting ready with David Metzler, one of our straight producers.
Michael: I interviewed him and Dave Collins.
Ted: [joking] Metzler is the gay one; Collins is the straight man.
Kyan: So Dave is like, I’m in the bathroom shuzzing my hair and Dave’s running around putting on clothes and he comes up to the hall and says, ‘Honey, is the Park an open-toe kind of place?’
Carson: No, he did not!
Kyan: Is open-toe okay for the park? It’s fine. Then I stopped. Did you just ask me if open-toe is okay for the park? He’s like, ‘Oh my God. I did.’
Carson: When straight guys start using phrases like “open toe,” we know we’re changing the world one sandal at a time.
Michael: I interviewed Dave Metzler and at the end he was joking and I said, ‘Yeah, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to wear.’ And he said, ‘Welcome to my world.’
Ted: We are recruiting.

Michael: Before you’d done the show, had you ever – I mean, obviously you had met straight people but perhaps you didn’t know they were straight. Had you ever really met any straight people?
Carson: I’d never actually spoken to a straight person before.
Jai: [has a look of concern on his face not realizing I was joking]: Are you kidding?
Kyan: Actually my mother and father were straight.
Michael: [To Jai] Yes, I was kidding.
Ted: It’s a shocking discovery for a lot of us, but there is a world outside of Chelsea. Some of my best friends are straight. And there’s nothing wrong with them.
Carson: As long as they act gay in public, I’m fine with it.
Ted: As long as they don’t talk about it and shove it in my face, I really don’t mind.
Kyan: I enjoy my relationship with straight men. It’s very nurturing. It feeds me. It feeds my soul.
Ted: And they teach you how to bowl.
Carson: Or about athletes.
Kyan: It’s very validating to hang out with straight guys and be accepted by them. So many of us, we were not accepted when we were younger by straight persons in high school.
Carson: We’re all people persons living in New York. It’s such a melting pot of gays and straights and black and white and Chinese and everybody. If I may quote Missy Elliott, “White boy, black boy, Chinese, Puerto Rican boy.” So many different types of people here that when you’ve lived here for long, you develop a whole group of friends that is not about straight and gay but who’s cool and into…

Michael: But do they always listen to your tips? Now guys are a lot more open but when you were younger they won’t listen to you and they don’t want to hear.
Jai: The best thing about this show is that Carson doesn’t dress these guys to look gay –
Michael: No, of course.
Jai: It’s just to make men look better for themselves, so if you take it from that angle, who doesn’t want to look better for themselves. It’s not trying to make them look like us. And once they get over that. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re not trying to make me look like the guy walking down Eighth Avenue; you’re trying to make me look better as me.’ Once they embrace that, it’s amazing to see how much they open up which is why the last day of shooting they’re kind of sentimental and choked up to see us go because suddenly they’ve been able to share so much more of themselves with men than they ever have before and now they have to say goodbye. You develop that bond.
Ted: That’s one of the things that I think makes it different from every other show. Every show has a different story. Each guy has a totally different narrative arc. And everything we do for him is specifically tailored to him and what can be done to take him and make him better. Hence the name “make-better show.”

Michael: The other thing that works about the show is sort of the opposite of what the [New York] Post wrote. They said, ‘mean’ which is absolutely what the show is not. You may tease them –
Thom: It’s very supportive.
Carson: In the end, we’re really rooting for the straight guy.
Kyan: If it’s tough love in humor –
Thom: It’s not something we specifically do to the straight guy. We do it with each other.
Michael: But if you look at like “What Not To Wear,” they’re very bitchy. They’re very funny –
Carson: [joking] ‘What Not to Wear?’ Never heard of it. What is it?
Michael: It’s a British make-over show.
Carson: Not familiar. Sounds horrible.
Michael: And that’s why this show for me…and I’m wondering if they talked to you about the tone or was it just the casting?
Ted: It’s something that evolved. But I think it was probably important to Dave and Dave all along that the show had a heart to it. I don’t think we thought about it because it just sort of came naturally. Because we’re people who have experience in these five areas and so when you ask us to come into somebody’s life and try to help them out, we’re going to sincerely do that. It’s a natural evolution. I think that’s why the show appeals to such a cross-section of people.
Jai: Ted, I think you hit the nail on the head by saying it’s the people. Certainly that interview process was about finding people who weren’t catty and jaded and bitchy. They didn’t want that vibe because they knew we had to be ourselves.
Ted: So the show is just like the service journalism you see in magazines like yours or in “Esquire.” We have to be funny. And we certainly try to be funny. But at the heart of the show there has to be genuinely useful content, actual information.
Thom: But also that’s what I do. When I’m with my clients in a very different situation doing a very different type of design, however it’s the same thing. Sometimes their ideas, you have to be very diplomatic about it and have fun with it and make it entertaining and have them enjoy the process. It’s the same thing that we’re doing on the show.
Carson: We’re really in a missionary position.

Ted:Your career as a designer would be very interesting if you walked into all of your prospective clients’ [homes] and said, ‘Oh my God, this place is HORRIBLE!’
Carson: The candor of the show, I think Dave and Dave always knew they wanted to have that kind of timbre. And then in casting it, they found people who were like that who genuinely wanted to help people.
Ted: This has been one of the great surprises of the show. Dave Collins is a missionary and when he was describing the show and how he wanted it to have almost a spiritual vibe to it, I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, whatever.’ I just thought it was going to be silly and fun and kooky. And it was a real revelation for us to see that caring vibe actually happen. It’s happened with all twelve that we’ve done. Every single guy has been really sorry to see us go.
Carson: Except for the one that beat me up.
Thom: Exactly.
Ted: You had it coming.

Michael: It takes about four days to shoot an episode?
Kyan: Three and a half days.
Ted: And then about six years to edit down.

Michael: Do any of you get help? Especially you [pointing to Thom] because my God, you’ve got a lot of work to do in the house.
Thom: I do, actually I have a department, an art department. After we’re done with our initial de-straightening – which is when we go into someone’s home and rip everything apart – I have a big meeting with them in the space and we pick the colors and really fine tune exactly what it is we’re going to do, what it is we’re going to keep, what we put in storage for them. We don’t really throw anything out.
Carson: We don’t throw it away; we tuck it away.
Thom: Exactly.
Ted: And sell it on E-bay.
Thom: So, yeah, I have an art department. I go in and there are certain things I will do. We decide I will paint the bathroom or I’ll do this. There are usually four to six things that I’ll do and I’ll come in for a day and they’ll film it. And they show me doing some of these things to make sure that I’m connected to it.
Carson: It’s important too that it’s a lean, mean little staff. It’s not like we have hundreds of people. It’s a very hard-working, small staff.
Thom: It’s a very hard-working, small staff and I’m usually there with them till very late and very early in the morning.
Ted: The show is an incredible amount of work for a lot of people. It’s really kind of complicated. It’s amazing that it functions at all.

Michael: Let’s talk about swag. We had Clinique calling offering, ‘What do you want?’ You’re going to be deluged with stuff.
Thom: That was actually one of my clients that I’ve done her house and she runs Clinique in North America. She loves the show and her mother loves the show. She’s calling me, saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m dying to meet Kyan because I’d like to give him anything he wants.’
Kyan: [loves Clinique of course]: But we will not work with a company or a line we don’t feel—
Michael: Have you been able to reject anything?
Kyan: Yes.
Ted: Sure.
Kyan: Absolutely. Just because something is in the office doesn’t mean we’ll use it. Just because someone sent us something and I know it’s there doesn’t mean I’m going to use it. I’ve had our product placement person saying, ‘You know, we have that…’ and I'm like, ‘No, that’s not right for this situation. You need to call so-and-so and try to get that. And if that doesn’t work out you can also do this. But not that.’
Carson: Remember when they wanted to use K-Y Jelly as a hair product?
Kyan: Exactly.
Carson: And you’re like, no!
Kyan: I don’t know if we should say the name of the company –
Carson: Okay.
Kyan: But we recently got a call for Carson from this line that wanted to dress all of us for the rest of the season.
Carson: Oh, yeah.
Kyan: We’re like…um, no.
Jai: It was a t-shirt and jeans kind of company.
Ted: When Carson’s dressing us in designers like Roberto Cavalli.
Carson: Etro and Marc Jacobs.
Ted: The rest of the show kind of needs to adhere to that high standard.

Michael: Do you get to keep the clothes? [chorus of “no”s]
Carson: Bits and pieces.
Michael: Second season! You’ve got to change your contract.
Kyan: Second season! [high fives me] It’s all about the second season.
Ted: Some amazing people are working with us.
Carson: There’s an interesting side to that. Getting the clothing, not only to dress the Fab Five and really my wardrobe person and I really had to call in a lot of favors because nobody knew what the show was about and nobody had seen anything and people like Marc Jacobs and Roberto Cavalli and Etro really went out on a limb and they said, ‘Yeah, we trust you. I know Carson and I know his taste level and we’re comfortable with the show and yeah, here.’ Just opened their doors and said, ‘Take what you want. Shoot it and bring it back. We appreciate the pr.
Michael: Now they are the smartest people in the world.
Carson: They were the smartest people in the world. Now we have people that said, ‘No, we’re really not comfortable; that’s not really our thing; that’s not really where we want to be.” They are now calling back, saying, ‘We changed our policy!” You know what, we didn’t change ours.
Michael: This is our chance for revenge.
Carson: No. Revenge is a bad word, even though I love it sometimes being a Scorpio, but um, we’re embracing them, we’ll work with you. But if there’s a company that’s not appropriate, we won’t use it.
Thom: For me, it’s really the demographic of the straight guy. There are certain companies in a Straight Guy meeting that I’ll say, ‘I don’t think that’s right to use,” while for someone else, we might use it. I’m not blacklisting anyone who didn’t want to work with us; even people who didn’t want to work with us before. You know what? As a business owner, I totally understand it. If someone called me and said, ‘We have a show about lesbian women who are going to go – ‘ I might have gone, um, okay, I don’t know about that. I’ll get back to you. These people are looking for branding. The fact that the show is a success is thrilling and I’m so happy and the people who said no to me and my department before and are now interested, it’s a little sad they weren’t before.
Ted: We were an unknown quantity. Now they see what it is and now they see that it’s cool. But we’ll still always have a soft spot in our hearts for Etro.
Carson: We sure will.
Ted: Because they were there for show number one.
Jai: Also, our product placement person, she would save the title of the show until after she had explained the whole show. Now she can actually say, the first thing is, ‘I’m calling from ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.’
Kyan: She’d make phone calls and you’d hear her pitch and she’d be going around and around it.
Thom: It was really funny to listen to her because she would call and be dancing around the subject.
Ted: Something we don’t realize, being in the gay community. There are a lot of people in the rest of the world that aren’t even familiar with the word queer being a positive word for us now. And being an inclusive word. We’ve had to explain that to so many straight reporters.

Michael: They think it’s derogatory. And not just straight people. The Advocate will still get letters from some people saying, ‘Why do you have to use the word ‘queer?’ Sometimes I use it just so I don’t have to say, ‘Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender.’
Carson: GBLT. Sounds like a sandwich, doesn’t it?
Michael: That’s an amazing thing, to think of all the sponsors now saying, ‘Oh, we want to be on ‘Queer Eye!’
Carson: Can I just make one point? That every episode is really tailor-made to the straight guy’s needs. Even if we don’t have product placement, we have a budget to go out and buy something. We really want to make it right for the guy. We’re never saying, ‘Oh, let’s use this because we have it.
Thom: Whatever we don’t have, we’ll be able to go out and get. We try to use as much product placement as possible because it gives us a lot more flexibility, certainly in my department it gives me a lot more flexibility to build things or redo things. If we need a sink, I can get it for them.
Kyan: It’s also about longevity with the guy. As far as the grooming goes, if I’m introducing someone to skin care, I really hope they’ll take what I’ve given them and use that for a long time. And if somebody doesn’t have a lot of money and isn’t going to go spend a lot of money on skin care, I would rather find a great product line that’s maybe a little less expensive that they would actually go out and spend the money on, rather than pulling a resource that’s great but super expensive just because it’s there.
Carson: There’s a fine line between bad skin and bad credit. It’s a hard choice.
Kyan: Always go for bad credit.
Ted: And thrifty is such an ugly word but sometimes we have to practice it.
Carson: Bad credit you can clear up. Bad skin leaves scars.
Michael: What show are you on right now?
Ted: Twelve. We just finished up number twelve.
Michael: Now you’ve got seven more to do right away. [They begin filming after Labor Day. The network ordered an additional seven.] What did you find on episode twelve? You changed and you grew. Or were you just in the zone?
Carson: I kind of feel the same way that we did on Day One.
Thom: I think so too.
Carson: We’re really…all of us here worked really hard and really focused on the guy and when we’re shooting it’s all about the straight guy.
Kyan: That’s why number twelve is the same as number one. Because it’s a different person and all of us are really feeding off that energy with him.
Jai: That’s probably not true for me. Twelve for me was so much easier because culture is not what I do for a living. For me, it includes all the things of what I’m passionate about but the range and possibilities are so wide, it’s a little bit of everything. Now I’ve gotten a little more accustomed to really asking the right questions. At first, I didn’t know what to ask to find out what they lacking culturally. But I’m not going to send someone to the opera if that’s not what they’re interested in. That’s ridiculous.
Carson: In the beginning, he was just asking them how much they weighed.
Ted: It really has evolved. We have to go into this guy’s life and take his temperature and try and figure out where he is before we can start prescribing stuff for him to do or wear. They don’t all want the foie gras. Which was delicious by the way.
Thom: I have a bad problem of stepping into—
Ted: Eating all my food before the Straight Guy gets a chance.
Thom: And it was delicious.
Ted: Thank you, Thom.
Thom: It was really great. Everything Ted makes is wonderful.
Michael: Oh, there was no question. We knew she just hadn’t ever tasted it before. It was perfectly understandable.
Ted: On the one hand, we’re getting better at it. The show has evolved as we’ve gone along. But it’s also true that each guy is a total surprise for us. They don’t let us know anything about them. We do get a little bit of a dossier on what he’s like. But they want our reaction to be real. So we don’t get to see inside of the apartment until the first day of shooting. And it’s a fresh hell each time.

Michael: Are you sometimes surprised about how they live?
Ted: Oh my God, it’s horrifying. People are so filthy.
Thom: They’re so disconnected from their environment.
Kyan: Totally unconscious. The week before last, I actually carved the Straight Guy’s name in the bottom of his tub with a knife. That was an all-time low for me.
Ted: That was pretty foul.
Thom: It’s very fraternity house when you can do that.
Kyan: Very frat house.
Carson: It’s amazing how people can neglect certain aspects of their life. They’ll focus on their career or their kids or their girlfriend or whatever and they’ll need certain parts out. Some guys don’t have filthy homes. They have really tragic clothes. Some guys have nice clothes but are really neglectful of their skin. Because there are five of us and we all have our own areas, we really bring balance to their lives.
Ted: Certain things just get away from them. They’re too busy with their kids, too busy with work. Whatever.
Thom: Talking about number twelve, the only thing that I did differently, this guy was new to New York and so was his girlfriend. They were kind of down on New York and they missed where they were from.
Michael: Where were they from?
Carson: California.
Michael: What part?
Ted: Southern California.
Thom: So I used really kind of vibrant color in her apartment to kick them in the pants a little bit and say, ‘If you’re so depressed, I hope this will help out.’
Ted: And that color would cheer anyone up.
Carson: Very psychotherapeutic. Ted made them [mumbled a color] smoothies, too.
Thom: I don’t know if I would have been confident enough to do that on the first or second or third episode. And also at this point, I think I’m at a point where I certainly want the people who live in these spaces to come home and be really, really excited about what they have. And also, I really want to believe in what I’m giving them. But at the same time, I also have a little bit of confidence that if they don’t love it at first, I can encourage them that there was a real legitimate reason and it’s truly a good idea and aesthetically pleasing and you may not agree immediately. You have to live with it a little bit. That may the one thing I did differently on number twelve.
Ted: I think we also have complete confidence that we have a license to come on the first day to come to your house and tear it to pieces and no one is going to hurt us.

Michael: At first you were worried about being too rude.
Ted: We’re not polite anymore. It’s like a SWAT team. We did a Sicilian cop who lived on Staten Island who was a little uncomfortable around us at the beginning. You could tell he wasn’t used to having five gay men sort of fondle him.
Jai: I kind of liked him because I walked in and he was like, ‘Zanna! Yo, what’s up! Zanna.’ I was like, I have an in, I have an in.
Ted: He had seen Jai’s show. But I don’t think he’d spent a lot of time hanging around gay men. And he was clearly nervous at the beginning. That was one of the coolest episodes for me because you could see him totally get comfortable with us in the very first few hours. By the end, we’re like his best friends.
Carson: I was licking his arm at Lord & Taylor.
Ted: Yeah.
Carson: They edited it out. Can you believe it?
Kyan: They edited it out?
Carson: Yeah.
Ted: No way.
Carson: The lick that changed the world has been edited.

Michael: Have you ever thought like you used a joke or did something and thought oh, they’ll save me [in editing]. [Chorus of yeses.]
Thom: Apparently there was one day, I don’t know if you all know this, but apparently there was one day where –
Carson: Straight guys were crying.
Thom: -- I was at a store in New York and we talking about the guy’s sofa which had stains all over it and I made a reference to an abortion clinic. Then that same day—
Carson: Oh, I did.
Thom: -- that same day I made a reference to the same thing and then someone else did. There were three abortion clinic jokes that day.
Ted: Yes, which is always a crowd pleaser.
Thom: They’re like, you guys are channeling each other. The moment I said it, I said, ‘As if this is ever going to make it in.’
Kyan: They cut my total rap session, my Missy Elliott rap session.
Ted: That was one of the highlights of the Butch session. At least you didn’t mention abortion on live radio like I did.
Thom: Oh yeah, that wasn’t good.
Carson: Oops.
Thom: I did it again.
Ted: Next week on a very special ‘Queer Eye,’ we talk politics and religion the whole show. Won’t that be great?

Michael: And of course you could be doing gay guys as well.
Thom: The gays can be pretty tragic too.
Kyan: I think a lot of gays are watching the show and getting tips. The guy on Fire Island who stopped me on the street, they were all gay people saying, ‘I love your show, I love the tips. What should I do?’
Ted: The converse of that is there are also people who are going to disagree with it which is also fun.
Michael: But you’re always right.
Ted: Well, we’re always right. Of course. But still.
Jai: A lot of guys say, ‘When are you going to do ‘Queer Eye for the Gay Guy’?
Michael: That’s not as funny.
Jai: I’m like, ‘Well, you never know.’
Ted: We could walk into a boys’ strip club and say, ‘What are you doing in that gold lame thong? It’s all wrong for you.’
Carson: I was out at Fire Island dancing at this tea dance. This guy’s like, ‘Oh my God, what do you think?’ And all he had on was an Abercrombie & Fitch bathing suit. He goes ‘Shuzze me!’ I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ And I went, oh! And I flipped his waistband over so we could see his cuts on – you know that man muscle right there?
Michael: I’ve heard about them, yeah.
Carson: I just flipped it and all my friends are like, ‘Oh, you really turned it out. You’re good!’
Ted: It was a ten percent makeover.
Carson: It was. Drive-by shuzzing.

Michael: One thing is obviously the Pete Best member of the group. Brian. Did you know from the beginning that they were still looking for someone? Was it a surprise when they said we’re going to bring in someone knew.
Ted: I’m not sure what you’re asking about.
Carson: Brian? Blair.
Ted: Oh, oh.
Thom: I don’t think we really knew. It wasn’t something they talked to us about. It was producers and directors and networks and publicists.
Ted: I think they decided to take the category in a different direction.
Jai: Suddenly there was this kid sitting in a meeting on a Monday morning.
Ted: When they met this one –
Thom: Right, it was something we had absolutely no clue about up until the moment. He was announced about an hour before he showed up.
Ted: He’s so awful, I don’t know how he got the job.
Kyan: On that first day of shooting we knew we had our match.
Ted: We had our little brother. We’ve been tickling him ever since.
Thom: Punky as we like to call him.
Carson: We drop him off at school on the Denali.
Ted: He gets beat up a lot.
Jai: I do.
Thom: Usually by me.
Jai: Usually by Thom. He’s the biggest, the bully. [car noise]
Ted: Oh my God, how are you ever going to hear this?

Michael: Did it sort of keep you on your toes, saying, hey…you think, oh, I got picked. I beat out 400 other people.
Ted: We could be fired at any moment!
Thom: You know what they did? It did happen. It happened over the weekend. It had nothing to do with us. They sat us down and told us and they were very cool about it and spoke very highly of Blair. We all did. He’s a nice guy.
Michael: But you never know until you get in front of a camera.
Thom: They sat us down and explained to us. It’s not something that’s going to happen again.
Michael: This isn’t ‘Survivor.’
Carson: You just can’t tell until you see that person’s interaction with everybody and it just wasn’t right.
Thom: It could have easily have been me.
Carson: Well, actually, it’s funny you should bring that up….
Thom: I was hired on a Thursday and started on a Monday.
Ted: Carson and I have been working really hard to get you off the cast. I think we’ve almost succeeded.
Thom: I was hired on a Thursday and started shooting on a Monday at like six o’clock. When you hire someone to work for your company, there’s a three month trial period where you see how it goes. With a television show you figure the first two episodes are probably going to be trial period.

Michael: Did you have a week or two of going, ‘Am I okay? Am I okay?’
Thom: Absolutely. A week or two? My God, I’m still going through it. I am. I swear to God.
Michael: I’m on the poster; I’m on the poster.
Ted: The great thing about this when you’re not acting is that you almost can’t make a mistake because we were all hired to be the people we are. So all you’ve got to do is try and be natural, show up and do your thing and be as funny –
Carson: Keep putting the operation off.
Ted: And it’s going to be fine. There’s a freedom to that and a liberating quality to that that’s really amazing. The only one that’s kind of difficult for is this guy [Jai] because he’s used to working with a script so it’s a whole new area.
Jai: It’s not like, it’s something…I never thought if I was going to be on a television show it was going to be something that wasn’t scripted.
Carson: He always thought he was going to be the next Blossom.
Jai: Totally. But I never thought it would be something like this and it’s weird to get notoriety for this kind of program but I couldn’t be more proud to be affiliated because this is a great show. I think it’s a great show because it has a lot of heart and the people really do care and form strong relationships not only with each other but with the people we’re working for and the people we’re trying to help. I think that comes across and I think that’s why it reaches across so many levels.

Michael: You all took a leap of faith doing the show too. It’s a fun, weird thing but you never know what it’s going to be like. It could be ‘Paradise Hotel.’ It could be ‘Survivor.’
Thom: I literally, I’m thrilled people are receiving it the way they are. I was worried this was going to be something I would go upstate and get potatoes thrown at me from the crazy neighbor.
Ted: Of course, Thom, you haven’t been upstate since we started so you may very well get potatoes thrown at you.
Thom: No, they are so cool about it. And also, I know with all of our families. There’s a lot of like, there are your parents and then your extended family and you’re wondering what it’s going to be received like and for the most part from everything I’ve heard it’s been very positive and a very good thing.
Carson: It’s a very efficient way of coming out, too. [lots of laughter]

Jai: Didn’t The Advocate do something on gay actors in Hollywood?
Michael: I’m sure they’ve done things like that.
Jai: That was a huge concern certainly for my representation. Now everyone knows. Not that they didn’t know before but now it’s open, open, open, open.
Ted: Oh well, Jai. So much for ‘Blue Lagoon III.’
Jai: I’d been on ‘All My Children’ and I had a child on the show, I’d been a dad, so for me it was it’s not that it’s going to happen again, playing straight roles but—
Michael: It’s a big decision.

Ted: This is such an exciting time in gay America. So much has happened. Before we had any idea of what’s going to happen to this show, we get the Supremes, we get Canada—
Carson: The Supremes are getting back together?
Michael: Actually, that was the first thing that popped into my mind too.
Ted: You knew what I mean by the Supremes.
Carson: The Supremes are GAY?
Ted: We’re actually getting to the point where an actor like Jai might someday might not have to worry about getting a romantic lead role even though he’s gay. We can actually imagine that. And you know what? That’s never going to happen until actors like Jai are out in Hollywood. It’s astonishing to me that there are like three openly gay actors in Hollywood. I understand it’s difficult, but there’s people like you [Jai] that are going to make it possible for the next generation.
Jai: I’ve met a lot of actors who are in leading roles who are gay in movies and stuff and I understand why they can’t come out—
Michael: Or why they don’t want to.
Jai: I understand the kind of mindset after meeting some of the bigger agencies I’ve been introduced to, finding the agents attitudes towards gay people in acting –
Michael: Like CAA.
Jai: It’s very intimidating for an actor. But for me, my goal is just to get hooked onto a really great show that is scripted that let me do my thing.
Carson: You know where they’re very welcoming to gay actors? Falcon Video.
Ted: It’s true. They’re so open.
Jai: I’m a huge fan. I’m not a big fan of Bel-Ami, but Falcon, if you want me [picks up tape recorder and whispers], ‘Call me.’
Ted: It’s true. No discrimination happening there.

Michael: There has to be a backlash. You’re being so successful and you’ll be on all these covers. We had Cindy Adams yesterday or the day before saying –
Carson: What did Cindy say?
Michael: Cindy had some guy comment on Kevin Costner’s fiance’s engagement ring and she said he was one of those Nellie types who would have fit right in on Bravo’s ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.’ I’m like, what gay guy would pay attention to Kevin Costner’s fiancé, but that’s just me. But Nellie types?
Carson: We always get the stuff about us engendering every gay stereotype. And one thing, hi, it’s a reality show. We’re not cartoonish and we’re not pretending to be super-gay or super-straight or whatever. We’re just being ourselves and I’m not going to make any excuses for who I am and I don’t think any of these guys are either.
Jai: It’s rude, because you’re commenting on who we are as people. We’re not playing a role.
Kyan: Just to play devil’s advocate, even if we are embracing a stereotype that gay guys are effeminate or whatever, so what? A gay guy can be effeminate. It’s okay. If somebody has a problem with it, they need to lighten up, and they need to open up their mind.
Jai: Avenue Q. Everyone’s a little bit racist and we laugh because they’re all based in truth.
Thom: It really has no bearing on me. Actually in the article this weekend [in the New York Post], I can’t believe they say Carson has a bitchy tone because I don’t think he has a bitchy tongue. I think he has a sharp tongue, which is a very different thing. I think that’s more derogatory than someone saying that we are effeminate. I’m representing myself as myself, the same person I am with my friends and my family. If people find me to be effeminate, then whatever. My brother Jules who is straight has all the same interests and people think he’s gay and he has a wife and two kids.
Ted: A lot of gay people have a wife and two kids.
Jai: [in a high-pitched Nellie voice] I don’t understand. We’re totally in this business for fun. I don’t know why they’re picking on us.
Ted: So far, the response has been so staggeringly positive and if it turns out that there are going to be a couple people who don’t like the show, whatever. That’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. As far as backlash, you know what? Bring it on. We’re okay, we can take it. We’re not going to be worried about negativity. We’re going to keep doing our thing and doing the best job we can and I think let people respond the way they want to respond.
Carson: And the only thing that’s upsetting is when somebody writes in an article that they didn’t even want to watch it. Hi. Prejudice. Pre-judging something before you’ve ever even seen it.

Michael: Personally, I was surprised [about the effeminate stereotype charge] because it’s not like you’re all Jack on ‘Will & Grace.’
Ted: There goes my Boy Scout gig.
Jai: However, I would like to be on ‘Will & Grace’ at one point in my future.
Michael: Absolutely. It’s just because you’re gay and you’re talking about their hair. It’s not like you’re [high-pitched Nellie]…
Ted: There are good gay stereotypes and bad gay stereotypes and if you want to say we’re fantastically dressed with perfect hair and can cook a mean risotto, okay. That’s a lot better than saying we’re promiscuous and on drugs.
Kyan: This whole stereotype issue may force the gay community to look at our own homophobia.
Carson: Exactly.
Kyan: I’m all for guys being butch and guys being men. I identify with that and appreciate that. But if I’m going to stab my gay brother in the back who isn’t butch and who maybe acts a little bit more effeminate, what good is that?
Thom: It’s part of the deal. I have straight friends who are more effeminate than my gay friends.
Kyan: If being gay is only okay if you’re straight-acting, why are we letting them set the standard?
Carson: We’re being homophobic.
Ted: Being gay is such a huge diverse mix of types of people. Let’s not forget it’s the drag queens who started the whole liberation movement in the first place. We have to honor those—
Carson: Snaps for the drag queens who paved the way. [he snaps and they all join in].
Ted: Snaps for Stonewall.
Carson: Snapping. Furious snapping.

Michael: Do you think some of the show’s success is relax, sure we know about clothes and hair.
Carson: We’re being ourselves. And there’s nothing more liberating and more confidence building and also more flattering than being yourself. If you listen to the feedback and say, ‘You’re too this or you’re too that.’ I’m beautiful damnit, if I may quote Bette Midler in Uncanny Alliance. You know what? God made us all to be a certain way and there’s nothing wrong with it and the only time it’s bad is when you’re not being yourself. That’s the worst thing you could do.
Ted: I think people like the fact the five of us are…I actually think we don’t really fit types that much. We’re all very different from one another and very sort of regular. I think we’re fabulous in a way, but I think we’re regular in a way.
Carson: We’re very accessible. Everybody knows someone like us. We’re gay guys who have certain talents.
Michael: And now apparently you’re very accessible at Splash because now everybody knows you go there.
Carson: See, I don’t even go there. She made that up. [referencing New York Post story]

Michael: Now you know there’s that 12 year old kid growing up watching you on TV. What were you watching growing up?
Carson: I Dream of Jeannie.
Thom: Dukes of Hazzard.
Ted: Dukes of Hazzard was a favorite.
Kyan: Wonder Woman. Six Million Dollar Man.
Ted: We all loved James at Fifteen.
Thom: The Bionic Man.
Michael: Not the Bionic Woman?
Thom: I loved the Bionic Woman, but I only watched her because she was part of the Bionic world.
Ted: Batman and Robin had a VERY strong appeal to me.
Thom: But it wasn’t a gay thing at all.
Ted: Speak for yourself.
Carson: Six Million Dollar Man was. I remember when he appeared in the June 1976 issue of Dynamite magazine.
Thom: Oh! Remember Dynamite?
Carson: I was so in love with him and I was all of four and I knew I had a crush on him. On Lee Majors.
Kyan: I had a big crush on him and Lynda Carter as well. I thought she was the shit.
Ted: Oh, by the way. We should also point out to the Boy Scouts of America that several of us are very high-ranking Boy Scouts. I’m a Life Scout.
Kyan: I’m a Life Scout as well.
Thom: I was a Boy Scout. I had my architecture badge, thank you very much.
Ted: The Boy Scouts made us gay. The Boy Scouts made us gay. Thank you.
Thom: I had a great time. I loved the Boy Scouts. And I was a Boy Scout with like four of my best friends. One of which still lives in New York.
Kyan: I have something to say about that. I remember being a Boy Scout and probably I was thirteen or fourteen years old. I remember my Scout Master relaying a story to my father about some other person who was a leader in the Boy Scouts who had been arrested. Maybe not arrested, but the phrase that he used was, ‘Yeah, some faggot Scout Master blah blah blah.’ I remember being a kid and hearing that and being like, ‘Oh fuck. That’s not good. That’s me.’ So unfortunately, that was a difficult experience.

Carson: When that little kid came up to me at The Lounge and was totally proud of his clothes and put together and at ease with himself. I don’t know about you guys, but for many many years I was trying to hide everything and not like, you know, I wanted to be a fashion designer but oh my god my parents will freak out and think I’m gay. I can’t do that. So I went and I got a degree in business? Wrong answer.
Michael: At least you can keep an eye on the books.
Carson: I wasted so much time before I actually became comfortable with myself and said, ‘No, I want to be involved with fashion because that’s what I love.’ If we’re showing little kids that you can be an interior designer or you can be—
Thom: I almost went into architecture because I didn’t want to study interior design.
Ted: Did it seem too gay?
Thom: I didn’t want my parents to be embarrassed. Finally, I was with my mom one day and I said, ‘I think I’m going to study interior design,’ and she said, ‘Great. That’s totally cool.’ It was a relief.’
Ted: We’re not about taking ourselves seriously or anything. But inevitably any tv show that has real gay people on it, that’s an opportunity for some young kid.
Carson: I want to be one of the first real gay people on TV.
Michael: Real World. Survivor.
Carson: Pedro Zamora. Remember from Real World?
Thom: But it wasn’t about them as gay people. It was about them as a contestant, which is somewhat limiting in terms of who they are.
Ted: The thing is, yes, we’re gay but the stuff we’re doing is about our professions. The message that sends is, ‘Well yeah, they’re gay. But they’re also really good at what they do. They’re teaching me something and there’s a message in that too.’

Michael: Who did you grow up watching on TV for cooking?
Ted: I was cooking when I was a kid but I grew up learning from my mom. There was no food on TV when I was a kid.
Michael & Carson: Julia Childs.
Ted: Julia Childs was it.
Carson: Ted grew up with Laura Ingalls Wilder. No, really. With her. On the prarie.

Michael: [to Jai] Who did you grow up watching on TV?
Jai: Everything from Fred Astaire to all the movie musicals –
Ted: You were alive in the Thirties?
Jai: I had a strong, I felt like I was born in the wrong era. Especially when I was twelve, eleven or thirteen, people always said I looked like Sal Mineo.
Michael: Good out gay actor.
Jai: I know. So I went out and got everything he’d ever done and watched that. I had a huge thing for learning and always wanted to try stuff that was new and interesting and different at a very early age.
Carson: Like man to man sex.
Jai: I didn’t try that until I was like 19. So that was crazy; I waited a long time. But I found that I liked to be involved and tried to be the best at everything, which meant I had my hand in everything at the same time—
Ted: And everyone.
Jai: I was spreading myself so thin at such an early age—
Ted: I like where this is going.
Jai: See? [as everyone starts laughing] Just so you know: that’s exactly what life is like on the set. Normally it’s Thom.
Ted: Let’s tickle him; let’s tickle him. [Ted and Thom tickle Jai.]
Carson: You remember ‘Facts of Life?’ We’re ‘Fags of Life.’
Jai: I’m Trudy.
Carson: I’m Blair.

Michael: Was there anyone on TV you identified with or liked or thought oh he’s cool?
Jai: It was more experiences like ‘Star Search’ and watching people come out of nowhere and become something greater than. It was meeting people at dance competitions who actually worked professionally on Broadway. Oh my God, but you work two towns over. I realized I could actually do whatever I wanted to do. Because in my town people stayed there and graduated from high school, had some kids and that was it.
Michael: Got married and had some kids and that was it.
Carson: We have about ten more minutes.
Michael: What about you? Were there any shows with great interiors?
Thom: TV? I think there were a lot. Growing up with ‘The Jeffersons,’ which had a great interior.
Michael: Was there a gay—
Thom: It wasn’t really gay. Although there was the ambiguous bachelor who lived next door and didn’t have any partner.
Carson: Often showed up in his underwear at the door.
Ted: Always wanting to give you backrubs.
Thom: But that was a great interior. Jeffersons was a very timely, and of the moment –
Ted: Jeffersons was your inspiration?
Thom: No, but I was very aware – I could draw the floor plan of Archie Bunker or Facts of Life or Dynasty or the one in Texas.
Carson: Dallas.
Thom: Or even better, something that was more about my life, like Knotts Landing.
Carson: Cul-de-sac living.
Thom: No, but I grew up in an older neighborhood. I was watching and I could absorb. I was very much involved in how they were living, what they were doing. The cars they were driving. It wasn’t really just the interiors. It was more the lifestyle. And understanding demographics. Architecturally, there’s a lot you can absorb from old movies like ‘Casablanca’ and old sets with the black, shiny floors. I think as a designer and as a young kid, I was constantly absorbing those things. Going to my friend’s parents’ house. Traveling with my family and going visiting. There’s that place in Florida. What is it? Vizcaya?
Michael: Vizcaya.
Thom: My God. I almost had a panic attack when I went through it the first time it was so good. I like studied the book the whole time. I couldn’t believe there was a pool in the basement. So I was just very much into all of it from boats to campers to houses. Just living environment, space, interiors, I was into it.

Michael: Was there anybody you saw on TV growing up that you totally identified with or thought oh wow.
Kyan: I had these crushes on these women. I was so into Farrah Fawcett and Lindsay Wagner. Lynda Carter. I thought they were so beautiful. I was so intrigued with them. I definitely had crushes on Lee Majors and Shaun Cassidy.
Thom: Did anybody else have a crush on Wonder Woman? [general yeses]
Carson: I think we all recognized beauty and fabulosity from an early age.
Kyan: I remember being very interested in and paying attention to guys’ hair. Like Shaun Cassidy. I remember being, I was five or six and my sister was older than me and on a softball team that my mom and dad coached. So I would spend a lot of time at the softball park or whatever in Tampa, Florida. I remember very distinctly this one particular day. I don’t have very many memories of childhood but this is one that stands out. Playing on the jungle gym and stuff and I’d seen this guy walking towards me. He was probably like 19 or 18.
Michael: So he was a man, an adult.
Kyan: He was an adult. But he was young and beautiful and he had this fly, feathered hair and it was feathered and I was just like…I don’t know who that person was, it was just a random guy. But I remember making a conscious decision, ‘I want to have my hair like that.’ My sister told me, ‘Well, you have to train your hair to do that.’ So that is when I started futzing with my hair.
Thom: Some reporters have been calling our families. So I called my mom because we have like curly hair and so like hair is a huge part – she said, ‘You don’t remember? You used to blow my hair out all the time.’ I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Michael: I tried to do the part down the middle with the feathering on the side, back when I had hair. I looked like Richie Rich.
Carson: I did that for our family portrait in front of the faux bookcase a la 1979. We had matching blue polyester leisure suits and my sister’s wearing a denim gaucho with a corduroy blazer. Very 1977.

Michael: Last question. This show really is the first time we’ve got real gay people on TV—
Carson: Being really gay.
Michael: Being themselves on TV. What could be next?
Jai: Opportunities for gay people to play roles that move people and challenge people to think in different ways. Not just because I’m gay and I’m Latin, I’m going to be playing the janitor because I’m kind of sick of going out on those auditions. But it would be great for us to expand our horizons of what we view on television, what we teach our children. But wouldn’t it have been so much easier if he’d been able to tell his parents he wanted to be an interior designer or he wanted to be in fashion? Can we mold the next generation so they can actually do what they want to do? If we use the medium of television, which is so powerful, wouldn’t that be great?
Thom: I agree with that. But it’s not so much what programs are on television or what we do on television. It’s really about the audience and what they’re capable and willing. You’re only as good as your audience. You’re only as good as your client, depending on what business you’re in. The thing is, right now we’re working together really well and we have a strong team behind us that’s producing and editing really well. Right now, I guess for some reason America is really sort of acting positive to it. And they’re ready for it. For whatever reason. Maybe it’s because of the war. Maybe it’s because they’re okay with gay people. Who knows what it is? But they’re reacting well to it and that’s the most powerful part of this whole situation. People are watching it and responding to it in a positive way.
Carson: And maybe in the future it won’t be such a novelty that it’s five gay guys. It’s just five talented people. And that would be the greatest thing and those labels come down. You know Thom, the great interior designer and it’s not about ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.’ Us not being a novelty. It’s great to be a pioneer.
Kyan: For me the ideal evolution would be pretty much what Carson just said. If there were actually just gay people out there in the media, hosting, actors. That’s why I’m very excited for Ellen [Degeneres]. She’s got this talk show that’s coming out. It’s not being marketed as a gay show by a gay person. It’s just Ellen Degeneres. We all know that she’s gay.
Carson: Snaps to Ellen for coming out and paving the way. [they all snap]
Michael: One last question for all of you. Status. Single. Dating.
Kyan: Single. [Jai raises hand too]
Thom: Swingle.
Ted: Taken. Ten years.
Carson: Painfully alone.
Michael: Four out of five. So America has hope. I appreciate all your time. [Chorus of thanks and hand shakes]
Carson: I’ll give you a hug. Hugs not drugs.