Unscripted: A Nolapapa Podcast - Season 4 Finale with NY Times Best Seller John Garrison with Upcoming Author TQ SIMS

Season 4 Finale with NY Times Best Seller John Garrison with Upcoming Author TQ SIMS

12/27/24 • 64 min

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Unscripted: A Nolapapa Podcast

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Holy cow what a season! I cannot believe we are about to wrap our 41st show of our 4th season!
I am so grateful for our inspiring guests that took the time to sit down with me to help share their passions, missions, and light to all of our audience through out the world. Thank you to our New Orleans community that helps our positive foot print grow outside of our city and spread into places that need the light that only New Orleans understands.
Thank you to our amazing producer and editor that creates a magical show every single Friday. Adrian from Solid Ice Media is amazing and he is local. He is the mastermind and it wouldn't be possible without his talents. Thanks big guy.
And of course, thank you to every single sponsor that NolaPapa.com has, allowing our campfire to brighten- creating embers from it to soar into the air and brightening someone's life somewhere out there.
On this season 4 finale, we welcome New York Times Best Selling Author, John Garrison. His brand new book, Red + Hot and Blue was released recently and he sat down with myself and local book enthusiast and author, TQ Sims.
"Red Hot + Blue is a meditation on music's capacity to find us, transform us, and help us make sense of our historical moment. Blending memoir and cultural history, Garrison recalls his coming out at the height of the AIDS crisis alongside the music industry's first major response to the epidemic. In 1990, a groundbreaking effort by musical artists sought to combat the silence and stigma about the disease. The resulting tribute album to legendary composer Cole Porter was evocatively titled Red Hot + Blue, capturing both the joy and melancholy that accompany love during turbulent times. It re-imagined those iconic songs - including “Don't Fence Me In,” “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” “Night and Day” - not just to celebrate the composer but also to offer a shared vision for survival. In this book, Garrison reflects on his own life story through the lens of Porter's life and music to illuminate the emotional landscape we all navigate in the search for love.
Red Hot + Blue returns us to the early 1990s to reveal how the love songs of the past can be revived to speak to new audiences in times of need. The book is the portrait of an album, a pandemic, and a young gay man's coming of age in the era of both." Courtesy of www.bloomssbury.com
Find Red+Hot and Blue at: https://a.co/d/iJjLSEf
Find the Vinyl here: https://a.co/d/ezbB5EA
Then we welcome upcoming new Author, TQ Sims. His new book, "God Speed Lovers" was released last month and is adding to a new genre that brings SYFY and gay romance together in a unique and romantic time, allowing our community to connect with a different type of story.
"Lovable loner Casey Isaac thinks love isn’t for him. Not since extraordinary events left him with supernormal powers and a great deal of trauma. But when Oscar Kenzari looks at him, he can’t help but change his mind. As Divinators, Casey and Oscar have used their psychic powers to defend humanity from sentient, extradimensional storms for one hundred years. But a storm more powerful than any before i

Thank you to our family of amazing sponsors!
Ochsner Hospital for Children
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Rouses Markers
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Sandpiper Vacations
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Cafe Du Monde www.shop.cafedumonde.com

The Law Firm of
Forrest Cressy & James
Www.forrestcressyjames.com
Comfort Cases
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New Orleans Ice Cream Company
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ERA TOP REALTY: Pamela Breaux
Audubon Institute
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Urban South Brewery www.urbansouthbrewery.com

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Previous Episode

Christmas Eve with Danny Roberts from Real World: New Orleans

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This is an interview I have always wanted from the depths of my heart. Danny’s messages I remember from watching Real World New Orleans inspired me to move to New Orleans almost 25 years ago. My trajectory could have been so different. My stubbornness to leave Mississippi because of some show was ridiculous to a lot of people. Man, my life would have been so different had I listened to them. Danny’s messages this Christmas hits hard- just like old times.
Our 4th annual Christmas Eve Special was created for our LGBT community that is not welcome home for the holidays. Every year I track down beacons of hope and light that is bottled up inside of passionate and kind people in my community that will help me send up embers into the world that may allow others to find their way in an unwelcoming place they may be in.
*If you need resources please go to*:
https://nolapapa.com/lgbtq-resources
Some sobering statistics for you this Holiday:
(www.thetrevorproject.org)

LGBTQ youth in our sample who reported housing instability or homelessness had nearly two to four times the odds of reporting depression (aOR = 2.07), anxiety (aOR = 1.96), self-harm (aOR = 2.30), considering suicide (aOR = 2.62), and attempting suicide (aOR = 3.70) compared to those who did not report any housing instability.
69% of youth who reported past housing instability and 68% of youth who were currently homeless reported that they had engaged in self-harm in the last year – compared to 49% of youth who had not experienced housing instability,
58% of youth who reported past housing instability and 62% of youth who were currently homeless reported having seriously considered suicide in the last year – compared to 35% of youth who had not experienced housing instability,
28% of youth who reported past housing instability and 35% of youth who were currently homeless reported a suicide attempt in the last year – compared to 10% of youth who had not experienced housing instability,
- Preventing LGBTQ Youth Homelessness. Strong anti-discrimination policies in the workplace and strong anti-bully and harassment policies in schools can be effective in helping LGBTQ youth stay connected to school and employment, increasing their skills and future earnings, and making it easier for them to maintain stable housing. Additionally, since family conflict around youths’ LGBTQ identities is a driving factor in LGBTQ youth homelessness, developing family counseling or mediation programs may be effective at decreasing conflict and keeping LGBTQ youth in their homes and connected to their families. Special attention should also be paid to preventing housing instability among LGBTQ youth in foster care through case management and exit planning for youth exiting care.

NolaPapa.com Will ALWAYS be a SAFE PLACE for my community. Our Christmas Eve episode is dedicated for all of those that need hope, inspiration and love this Holiday Season.
Danny and I had an amazing chat about keeping the fire inside you bright so that the embers from it fly and touch others that need your light as well.
We are ALL in this toget

Next Episode

Season 5 with Celebrity Chef Art Smith | and another NY Times Best Seller!

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Is this REALLY Season Five? Like, for real? In the short hiatus that we took after Christmas, 2025 came chugging through with Stats of our show like NEVER BEFORE.

This lil engine that could is NOW the #1 podcast in New Orleans! (www.goodpods.com) WHAAAA! And to guild the lily... the NolaPapa Podcast is now #5 in New Orleans! (www.feedspot.com)

There are others too, yall. Ded gum son!!! LET's GOOOO!

Starting us off this year is a chef I first saw back years ago when Top Chef was hotter than boudin! (spicy Louisiana rice sausage)

I followed along and remember thinking, oh he is spicy! But also funny! And also exquisitely detailed. Little did I know, celebrity Chef Art Smith has had such an esteemed career. Starting off from the very beginning when he admired Martha Stewart. Little did he know, he'd work for her but not only that, Oprah Winfrey and The White House!

Today, Chef Art owns multiple restaurants, including one in my stomping ground of WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!! Yep, nestled in Disney Springs resides Chef Art's crown jewel called, Homecomin' . I love everything about it and CANNOT wait to visit there with my family.

Sit back and welcome us all in as Chef Art spills the tea on not only Oprah, but my precious Martha Stewart. Like, y'all! OH MY!

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Later we welcome New York Times best selling Children's Book Author of ABC's of Black History- Rio Cortez sits down with me to talk about her BRAND NEW book that JUST hit the bookshelves! In a beautiful picture book brimming with G for Groundbreaking women, National Book Award nominee Rio Cortez and illustrator Lauren Semmer celebrate all the joys, challenges, and historic forward movement of women’s history in the United States, with a special focus on the Black women, brown women, transwomen, and others who make change happen. This is a book about Artists, Activists and Allies, about Civil Rights and Choice, about Freedom Fighters, Headliners, Labor -- and Librarians! It’s about historic moments—Kamala Harris being sworn in as the first African-American and first Asian-American Vice President of the United States; Title IX passing through Congress; Seneca Falls, where the first women’s rights convention was held; the Riot Grrrls movement; and so much more.