The Power of Community: Mx. Pucks A'Plenty talks FatCon

Oh, my stars! We're buzzing with anticipation as we welcome the effervescent Mx. Pucks A'Plenty, co-founder of FatCon.org, into our auditory space! Brace yourself for an invigorating conversation that spans the universe of event planning, fat positivity, and the power of community. Buckle in as we unpack the details of FatCon, a festival that's set to resound with the joy of celebrating all bodies. From tantalizing fashion shows to engaging keynote speakers, this event is a ground-breaking testament to inclusivity and love.

Let's wander together through the labyrinth of planning a burlesque festival and the rollercoaster journey of bringing FatCon into existence. Hear Pucks' tales of venue hunting, overcoming hurdles, and the fortuitous support that brought dreams to life. We also drift into the realm of art, acknowledging the creative geniuses behind FatCon's logos and sharing chuckles over Josh King's whimsical weed strain illustrations. Pucks even lets us peek into their fashion escapades - mesh has never seemed so chic!

And that's not all, darlings! Amidst our chatter, we extend the conversation about promoting queer events, envisioning a 'Fat Nudity Day', and the power of unapologetic fatness. We muse about size-inclusive fashion and the need for brands to step up. Finally, we share our excitement about Pucks' recent accolades, their contributions to the Queer Prom, and the nomination of our very own podcast for the Soul Figure Industry Awards. We'll also let you in on how you can contribute to FatCon's growth and amplify its message of love and acceptance. Trust me, you won't want to miss this vibrant exploration of community, self-love, and unapologetic joy!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Crystal, I'm Murph. We're just two rad fatties sitting around chewing the fat Twice a month. We'll be chatting about current events hot topics sex, sex toys, fat politics, fat community cannabis, cbd, you name it. We're going to talk about it. We are very excited to have you a part of our community. Welcome and enjoy. Hey y'all, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Crystal, i'm Murph And we have a lovely mix. Pucks are plenty here with us today. Welcome, Pucks.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Hey, it's me and here I made it. Hey, pucks, is it okay if we call you Pucks?

Speaker 1: 0:41

Oh yes, please, everyone does Okay, wonderful, we are so thrilled to have you. We have been just a Twitter since Tigris told us about Fat Con a couple months ago. We are just like we can't wait. I'm sure you're very excited as well. You are one of the founders and creators of FatConorg. Tell us, tell everybody, what FatCon is. Whoa, i'm so excited.

Speaker 2: 1:04

FatCon is the brain child of myself and Candice Frank, who runs Chubrub, and back in 2022, we started talking about FatCon and we thought, oh yeah, we'll be able to make this happen in 2023. And that totally did not happen, but we never really let the idea die. We know that it needs to happen, but FatCon is going to be one of the biggest celebrations of 2024, with over 30 plus hours of programming, amazing keynote speakers, a fashion show, a vendor hall, and it's all geared towards celebrating fat joy and building community. I think we need more fat community. People need more fat friends.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So yeah, Community is important for everyone. It's really important for people who are a part of other marginalized groups as well, because man community can get you through the shittiest day If you have it. It's so important. I love my fat community. I'm so grateful.

Speaker 3: 1:59

I just finished working Pride in Sacramento and just to see the community and to be in that there's you couldn't not smile and be engaged and just feel good. And I can't wait to go to FatCon because I'm just like, oh, i know that feeling is going to happen.

Speaker 1: 2:17

I love going out with a bunch of fat people all at one time, like to restaurants and stuff. Oh, i love it because people stare and we're just like, yeah, we're just enjoying this cupcake or this taco. Fuck all of you if you don't like it, and we're just yeah. we have a group here called FatBrunch and it's, you know, mostly East Bay, south Bay and some North Bay, and we all get together different places, like about once every two months, and it's everything for me. I love it.

Speaker 2: 2:41

That sounds really good. There are so many fat babes in the Seattle Burlesque scene that. I just like we're kind of always rolling in and out of places. I am the person that's like we should go eat. We should go eat right now, Let's go eat. So it's really, it's just really nice to have fat friends, to have people that get it Instead of being the fat friend. I am of the fat friends, you know, and it feels less isolating, for sure.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I have definitely been the fat friend in a lot of groups, but now my group is much bigger. No pun intended, really, but truly I just yeah, i can't live without it. So and this is my art, fat community and that's kind of why we decided to make this podcast is we wanted to help people to have more fat community and even just we should all share some of the shit we've been through and how we've dealt with it, but just to bring everybody together and make it. We're trying really hard We've seen it as three white ladies to make it as intersectional as possible and as queer friendly as possible and sex positive and sex work positive, and we just we're trying to do all of that and give people a place to have a voice and share with us. So tell us about how do you know Tigers, by the way?

Speaker 2: 3:53

So I saw her on social media and I'm like fat con needs, i need to talk to this, this woman, about fat con immediately. And so I like I just straight up slid into her DMs. I am that kind of kind of human. I'm just like let me get up in here and tell you all about what we're working on. And you know, most of the time we kind of I kind of get ignored. but I did not get ignored this time And it was right. people were doing fat less fast And I'm like that con's coming. I swear it's coming in 2024. And she's like let's find a time to talk about it And that's this kind of. that's kind of how it worked. I was just I was that guy slid into the DMs, like Hey baby, you hear a fat con?

Speaker 1: 4:38

I'm sure she loved it. I mean, wait to see a meter in person. I can't wait. It's incredible. We adore her. She and I met at a pleasure party about 15 years ago where I was educating and entertaining people about sex toys And she and I just like I was like, oh, i love this lady And her name is Tigress. She was born with that was her name at birth And like she fits her name.

Speaker 2: 5:00

She lives up to that name every day.

Speaker 1: 5:03

We missed her in the Bay Area. You know she moved down to Arizona. Yeah, but she's to have. You would love her events talks. Oh man, it was beautiful in most of the Oakland, oakland area and San Francisco And she had a full figure entertainment group. Oh man, so fun. Oh, she's so amazing. We love her.

Speaker 2: 5:21

That's what we bonded over was that burlesque is the kind of is the? is the vehicle that that got me here? Yeah, the vehicle that got me here was actually the Seattle sex positive community. That was the first first thing that kind of opened my eyes to like, oh, there's so much more than you know. Having sex missionary with my partner who doesn't want to, you know, choke me a little bit as a treat. Yeah, you know there's more to this And you know I bit my toe in.

Speaker 2: 5:54

I got to work under the, the great and late Elena Gavash here in Seattle, who is like a major pioneer in the sex positive community here here in Seattle, and I got to mentor under her And she's one that got me into teaching and doing public speaking surrounding pink and polyamory and all of that And that gave me a sense of boldness to try burlesque. Burlesque was on my radar for Google gosh almost seven years before I actually tried it And it will be six years next month that I debuted burlesque. But it honestly took like the confidence of walking through a dungeon naked in all my fat glory to be like, oh, i can do this burlesque thing and I don't even have to take everything off. I still get to keep pace. He's on and you know, gee, this will be great, that's easy You know.

Speaker 1: 6:51

One thing I discovered about the community is that they're very, for the most part, body positive, fat positive. Usually people in the cake community have my experience of being if you're into my kink, i'm into you Doesn't mean you have to have a certain body type, you don't have to have all the whatever it just if you connect on the kink level and the brain level, the body is just, you know, it just happens to be what it is And I know there's certain percentage of things that were. You know they want you to look like a Barbie doll or whatever, but it can't come in these very body welcoming.

Speaker 2: 7:27

Would you say that's true, yes and no, but also I think a lot of that is because it's my experience in a black, fat body is very, very different than massage. Noir is wild. It's a lot of kind of sizing up. I'm either I was either ignored completely or turned into a walking fetish fetish dispenser, right, or race play became a very instant thing that they wanted, right. And it's either you know I want you to be this mean dominant that you know that's calling me all these racist names, or I want you to be a submissive and allow me to call you all these racist names And I'm just like Oh, i know that most of the time when I walk into the majority kink spaces I'm going to have to deal with a certain amount of micro regressions. It rarely has to do with my size And it's mostly to do with my skin color. I do teach your class on that.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Phobia and kink. Mostly to kind of discuss like, the lack of like. Most of the equipment is not rated over, like you know, 250, 300 pounds, right. A lot of the fetish wear, like the cute fetish wear, does not come in plus sizes And if you're in delay text and you're fat, forget it.

Speaker 2: 8:43

You're like one, forget it. Or you're paying so much money for custom things, right. So those are the kinds of things that I bring up because people were really like, really kind of insulted that I had a fat phobia in kink class when I took it to a convention. They're like, but we're so body positive And I'm like you have such a pretty face, yeah. I'm like, but there are still things in our community. You know people making money off of us that don't want to serve fat community.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Yep, all right. How about they're part of fat community and then they decide that they're gonna have weight loss or a weight loss surgery and then they used to make money off of us. But no, no, they're a bubby. But that's a whole different topic. But yeah, microaggressions and the race thing. I don't understand the race play. I don't. When I've seen it before, i'm just like I can't handle that. I don't. It's just too ingrained in me. You know it's free, but you have two consenting adults, everybody agrees to it and that's what they wanna do. But man, it's hard for me to understand.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Yeah, I don't kink shame, but there's definitely a.

Speaker 3: 9:46

you know, my face doesn't lie, And so some will say something or do something and there's just like the record skip.

Speaker 2: 9:53

All right, you know. so it's like I don't wanna yuck anyone's yum, but also. I'm like hmm.

Speaker 1: 10:02

If you leave kids, animals and your family out of it, everybody's consenting you. get down with your bad self. I have a few additional guidelines I like to follow no needles, no poo, no guns, no knives. But if you're into that, as long as everybody's consenting, everybody say go for it. But the race thing is just, i can't.

Speaker 2: 10:21

It's a hard limit for me. It's very hard, And there's other aspects of kink that I'm just like it's really brave to be a person of color and decide that this is how you want to express your sexuality and you get the courage to go to a dungeon and people are out here talking about master sleeve And you're like, oh my God, where am I? What is happening? No, thank you.

Speaker 1: 10:45

You know, yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 2: 10:47

It's wild. I've been in a dynamic with a submissive for, oh my gosh, i've been in a submissive now for like seven years And he's really into. he wants to be property, and my brain is like whoa, property, i don't know. no, he's like, oh, slavery, i'm like good. And so what we landed on is goddess worship right.

Speaker 1: 11:12

There, you go.

Speaker 2: 11:13

So it is. there is a way to serve that is that feels like this is your whole entire life as a submissive, and so we've used that. So it's more like I am the patron deity for this person And that feels better for the spirit. Master. Sleeve stuff is not for me.

Speaker 3: 11:32

I'm a therapist And so when you say what you just explained is the perfect reframe, So if you can take something that's absolutely terrible and turn it around where it's like, yeah you're like serving me as a goddess.

Speaker 1: 11:45

This is like meant for your soul, perfect, oh yeah, oh yeah, tell, tell Pucks a little bit about Amanda.

Speaker 3: 11:53

Oh yeah, amazon, amanda is a friend of ours and she, she has a plus size. That was all different body types, all different identities, everything erotica, but it's triple X and it's called BBW Adventures.

Speaker 1: 12:13

Oh, it's triple X, bbw, triple X Adventures, it's a mess, Not me taking notes over here like hmm, she's gonna be one of our sponsors Also, once you tell her a little bit about what she does in addition to that, which I think is really interesting.

Speaker 3: 12:26

She's a. She's a Amazon, obviously, And so she goes in all around the world and sits on men, squishes them. She used to pick them up. She doesn't do that anymore, But you know, just her and her friends will look certain times so that there'll be like two Amazon, Amazon, Zoni and I'm not sure which word that is Amazon, right Women on top of them and like squishing them, and she makes tons of money and they fly her all around the world to do it. It's incredible.

Speaker 2: 13:01

I am totally clothed. Yeah, I am totally in the wrong, doing the wrong work.

Speaker 3: 13:06

I was.

Speaker 2: 13:06

I was told that the best place for me to go would be Japan and do sex work in Japan, specifically doing this sitting on on on male clients And, like you, probably could go for three months and make enough for a down payment under house. And I'm like I am seriously considering it because fat, fat fems are not common in Japan And so that is one of the most desired things sex requires is fat fems and sit on me, and I'm like I can totally do that. I can totally sit on you Fully, fully clothed, fully clothed and no sex, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:49

I just want to do that. I know We have a podcast where we interviewed her and she's so. She couldn't be lovelier. and we're stoner for a while, right, merv?

Speaker 3: 13:57

I just love hearing about her life, though. I'm just telling you again how you did what you know. Oh yeah, i put on high heels and, you know, just kind of squished his face a little bit and I'm like what? This is awesome, How do I sign up? Oh wait, i'm not. I'm not. Her name is Lime. How tall is she? again, do you remember? I think she's six foot or six two.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Wow, she's six two and then she wears heels and she's stunning and just inside she's just like oh, she's just sweetheart. I love it. Anyway, yeah, you should check out that podcast and we would love to introduce you to her, please. So tell us, tell us what else is gonna happen, fat Con Cause I know there's some burlesque element to this too.

Speaker 2: 14:32

So so when we initially kind of burst that con, i came at it meeting with nighttime entertainment has got to be burlesque, because that's what I do. I am the founder and co-producer of a festival here in Seattle called what the funk? It's all people that color burlesque festival, and we've been doing that now for four years And I'm like, oh man, i want to get that burlesque festival. I'm like, so what if I? what if we took Fat Con and we leave in this burlesque festival as the nighttime entertainment, as people were already be here, so we can just do that. And so when we started looking at making Fat Con reality in 2023, for 2023, we're like, oh man, we can't make it happen, like I can still make the Fat Less Fest piece happen, and so that can be kind of like a this thing to kind of get everyone's appetite wet for what's coming in the future. And so we produced Fat Less Fest Northwest in January of 2023.

Speaker 2: 15:32

We actually ran a Kickstarter campaign in late October into November to raise $30,000 for this festival And we did. I would not recommend a Kickstarter campaign to anyone ever in life unless you have like a really amazing team and you have like a really amazing following. It is a it is a full time job to run a Kickstarter And so, like I, the person I became during that Kickstarter is not someone that I loved. Other people said I was fine but whatever. But we made the $30,000 to produce the Brles festival And the. I knew, as we were kind of going through that weekend, that like Fat Con was going to happen, like it's just going to happen, and the big part of that was because we had people who hopped on airplanes who flew to Seattle that have nothing to do with Brles Nothing Because they were like I just need to be in the room where this happens, I just need to be here, and that's how I feel about Fat Con.

Speaker 1: 16:35

I just have to be there.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Right, i just want to be in the room where it's all going down, even if I don't do anything. We had one amazing woman who flew in from Baltimore, maryland. She took a couple of workshops, she came to a couple of classes and she was so into the work that we were doing that she recommended us for a grant. We had a $5,000 grant because this woman came to Batlet's Fest and had her world change just from being in the room. So Fat Con was taking place at this amazing hotel in downtown Seattle called the Hyatt all of eight And I say that they're amazing because we've had not so amazing experiences trying to look at Fat Con.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Back in 2022, when we were looking for venues for 2023, we went to at least six venues. We found a venue that we really liked And they walked us through everything. The lady was very charming and really nice And then, when we left and we were like, okay, we want to do this, she said no, absolutely not, and this is not something that we would ever have. And they're chain, they're Pacific Northwest chain and their other locations have straight up had like a rock balls, have had burlesque, have had fashion shows, but oh no, she was not having the fat broads there today, and we truly, truly believe it was because it was a fat event. We could have been anything. Oh yeah, i'm sure.

Speaker 1: 18:05

It's like the box on social media, right? You see extra flesh, you automatically assume it's pornography. You just have extra fucking flesh. Okay, It's not my badge, it's not my vulva, it's just my fucking meat.

Speaker 2: 18:17

So, but yeah, they can't handle things when they want to go for it. It was wild, just the her insistence and we emailed corporate and we're just like cool, do you like? this is what's happening. She just walked minimum a $90,000 sale in January. Okay, we intentionally picked January, like right after New Year's. We all know that hotels are empty, empty And I, like she walked $90,000. Are you serious?

Speaker 3: 18:49

Did anyone get back to you about that?

Speaker 2: 18:52

No, No, no, put them on. Oh gosh, yeah, we don't fuck with McMinnemans properties at all anymore. I just can't. And it's wild because, like they, like their other properties, are still doing burlesque shows, still doing events. But there's something about the all that. And then, just like Erin, might I say something that you said in your very first podcast episode of, just like how people hate seeing fat people not being sad and hating themselves. She could not Like, she could not with us. I'm like I am the you know, the 17th most influential burlesque figure in the world and Candice is like and I designed that lingerie and we're just all cute and having a really good time, and that she couldn't tolerate it. Let me stamp out this, like you're not going to make me hate myself.

Speaker 1: 19:47

If you're not dieting and you're not on that diet, you know, have a trail, whatever the hamster wheel, they people don't get it. They're just like what do you mean? You're happy, You're fine, You're going to stay like that? I've been fat since the third grade. Nothing's going to change. So I'm just here living my life, Sad that you fucking care about my life. But some people just have so much disdain for fat bodies. When I've tried to book events here at different venues here I've had pushback because of fat bodies and mostly also because of the sex stuff that people are just so Silicon Valley We're in San Jose, which is south of San Francisco, and Oakland and Berkeley, So people like to act like they're very conservative here And then you know all the fun happens in other Bay Area areas and hotels. Here They're very, very conservative.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Yeah, the hotel takeovers are fun, they are.

Speaker 1: 20:37

And the hotel that you chose. They seem to be very they're into sustainability and I noticed they also had a pride flag and happy pride, by the way, Pucks.

Speaker 2: 20:45

Yeah, i'm really excited for pride. Yeah, the Hyatt has been really easy to work with. When we were initially looking for a location in 2023, we actually looked at a Hyatt property and they were lovely. And so when we made the pivot for 2024, we needed a location that was near where we were doing the show at, and so we looked at this other Hyatt property and it's so cute. Like it's really really really, really nice. And the people there were really great. They weren't just trying to make a sale, like. They were genuinely asking us questions of like how do you envision using the space? Like what would make this better for you? Like they're really going going in and like and also accounting for the fact that there were going to be fat bodies in here, being like okay, this room would normally hold 200, but we want to give you guys some room And I'm going to say this room is going to hold 150 instead. So they're really like using their noggin and that was really helpful, right.

Speaker 1: 21:41

And did you tell them we're going to need a lot of chairs with no arms?

Speaker 2: 21:44

Absolutely. I'm like no arms on the chairs. They have really nice banquet chairs. I sat on it and I'm just like, oh, this is heaven.

Speaker 1: 21:51

Oh cool. Yeah, I see some, some banquet facilities have chairs that are rated up to 600 pounds and then others have those shitty chairs that are rated up to 250. And I'm like he's going to pull that thing up so fast with my booty.

Speaker 2: 22:05

Does that? the horror of sitting on a chair and you and like you go to sit down on it and you're like, oh, i've been here before. I know what this is. Every time I get near one of those plastic chairs, you know, i'm like I've been here, i've been, i've been in this exact scenario and this is going, it's going to return to its elemental parts and pieces with my ass in it.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Great, i sat through a wedding one time in one of those folding white chairs on the grass, so of course the chair and I are like digging into the soil and I'm trying to like hold myself from not being too heavy on the chair, so my legs are trembling, so I'm trying to hold myself up. It was outside, it was hot. I was like, oh, get me out of here. I had to come up, excuse me, i had to come back. I just had to get out of that space. I think those things should be banned.

Speaker 3: 22:56

Yeah, they're terrible. I have a question about the vendors, because every con has the like the vendors bring in, just like I don't know a different element to a con. I go to a lot of cons, so it's like if the vendors are top notch, you know you're getting good stuff, so I've got to know what's going to be happening.

Speaker 2: 23:21

Okay, so we haven't announced who our vendors are yet, but I can tell you that the curation team for our vending they're ridiculous. This team is ridiculous, like they're like I mean the questionnaire. Folks ever had a chance to look at the vendor questionnaire. It goes pretty deep And one of the things is like we were definitely looking for either like the vendors themselves being fat or offering size inclusivity with, you know, with clothing, but also like just a wide variety of that vendor. So it's not just clothes, there's all kinds of stuff. And we're going to have two separate Boudoir photographers and two different, completely different styles on site And we're really, really excited about doing that.

Speaker 2: 24:10

And one of the things we're also doing is that we are bringing in a panel of fat photographers who would talk about posing as fat people, because it's something that I still struggle with and that's my job is to like get in front of the camera and look cute. Sometimes I'm like, I'm still just like, what do I do with my body? again, you know, and understanding, they're looking uncomfortable for the first 10 minutes. Like, is this sexy? You know? like, how are we sexy? Like it's like I forget for a little while, but I will.

Speaker 2: 24:44

I'm going to give a shout out to Candice Frank yet again. Oh, yeah, she does. Yeah, she does the majority of the photography for her company, chubb Reb, and so I've been behind her camera or been in front of her camera numerous times and she's she just fucking gets it Like she's done a lot of my like publicity shots for burlesque too. I just the way that she puts you at ease and makes you feel comfortable and and we'll straight up tell you not, don't do that, do this. You know I need, i need that kind of person in my life. Stop doing that, do this. Okay, thanks, you know, but I'm really excited about that And the the keynotes are all like really fierce and awesome and fun. We're still we're holding onto one team that we haven't announced yet, but like I'm just really excited about like what workshops the the keynotes want to do and the panels they want to do And they're all really fired up about this.

Speaker 2: 25:50

Like it's really it's really interesting to be around when you're messaging people to ask that they want to come out. You're inviting them, you want them to come out And they're just like, not only are they like happy to have the call, but they're just as psyched about it as you are. You know even more. So it's wild.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Everybody I've mentioned it to in my fat world are like oh yeah, i'm being there. I'm like you are, because I know so many people, like probably all of us, online only but to just meet them in person and Give a hug, with lots of consent, of course, can't wait to like be in their space. I feel like I already know them. you know, but I don't yeah, I'm not from in person. Everybody says they're going, so it's gonna be. I think you're gonna have more than 500 people.

Speaker 2: 26:33

I know it's such a it's. It's something that, like You're really thinking about, like we've already, like in my head, we've already outgrown the venue that we're in, so it's like already thinking about, you know, 20, 25, which sounds fictional.

Speaker 1: 26:49

You know, like we're already thinking about like We're gonna have to be in a bigger venue.

Speaker 2: 26:54

You know, and what does what does that look like? we had people messaging being like what would it take for that kind of be in my city? And I'm like, oh, you know, and so You know, right, it's bigger picture Stuff to. You know, bring it here.

Speaker 1: 27:11

Let's do it here. Yeah, we have a lot of fatties here, a lot of rad fatties, a lot of rad babes.

Speaker 2: 27:16

Oh, Yeah, the traveling, a traveling con sounds so great on paper and the execution of that like, oh my god. So really thinking about how do we bring fat con to the masses especially. You know we've had a lot of comp. There's been a lot of conversation on some of our posts surrounding accessibility, specifically virtual accessibility to the conference and And you know I'm just like the the financial cost of doing it.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Well, doing it right Is is which is not feasible this year Because everyone's like, oh just, you know, you just did a computer. And I'm like, yeah, you're right, but we just did a computer and you know, four different rooms for 30 hours, you know. And so and make again this idea of doing it right and doing it well. So, like you know, if you tune in to the virtual conference that you can only hear every other word, you're really unhappy that you paid for that. Right, so it's really thinking about that. And also I know that a lot of folks, especially in the fact, in our fat community, you know, have been deeply affected by COVID and And so there's been a lot of conversation about that, about, like you know, the response, like what is our responsibility? and I will tell you this that I think that a Lot of the healing that we need to do as people has to happen in the community and that has to happen in person.

Speaker 3: 28:46

Yeah, i want to go back to something, so, first of all, love Candice, love her tiktok. I just they've. The last couple have just been hilarious, like perfect, like The way that she's using these memes, it's like this is fantastic. The other thing, though, is that I own a bunch of her outfits and Just amazing quality, really, really good stuff. I Have the. The latest that I've purchased was the Mary Jane person, and so it's like this, like Green, glittery Mary Jane print with the strappy, black And mesh you know kind of outfit fit for my butt, and it's like oh my gosh, this is so cute I, i wear around the house all the time. It looks so good on everyone.

Speaker 2: 29:35

The style looks so good on everyone. I am obsessed with the. It's like the purple berry print, and so Like. I've modeled it a couple of times, though, and I'm just like, if you put this thing in me one more time, i am not taking it off, i'm going to walk out of here with it. And she's like no, no, not yet. So I just. I just finally got my, my personal piece of that, and I'm very, very excited. I got to wear it when I was in Vegas at the Burles Hall of Fame Weekender in the beginning of June, and I was just like my booty's out, it's like it's mesh, right, we is out.

Speaker 1: 30:12

And like I need to get this one.

Speaker 2: 30:14

It's so good. All the straight-size you know gals you know are walking around and there are string bikinis and stuff like that And I'm like I got this mesh and my booties out and my tips look fucking fantastic. It makes everyone's titties look good. That thing is just like oh, titties, mesh, mesh, i love mesh. I mesh is the best. Mesh is my favorite thing alive. I love being as naked as humanly possible and mesh allows me to. You know where the tiniest, tiniest things underneath put the mesh on it. I'm like, oh, my god, look at this outfit, killing it in mesh, you know, ugh, so they mesh grabs your lumps and bumps and hips and curves and all that.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Or folks are just like where do I get all the mesh? Where do you get the mesh? Check out the swimsuit Department, like the some section They have the cover-ups are made of mesh and they have sexy cover-ups and that is the best place to get mesh. Yeah, oh, it's me out.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Who is your graphic artist? all your hot production, your The prom Graphics, the fat pony graphics, your graphics that you put on your ig who does all that?

Speaker 2: 31:25

It's so amazing. I'm really lucky. I am surrounded by a lot of talented artists The fat common logo and like all of the little, like, all the little cute icons and things like that. Candace Frank y'all like Again, like could not do this without her. She's amazing and, like we were initially talking about the fat con logo, because this logo has now existed for like two years. We're like we want something that look that's not quite feminine, not quite masculine, just is, and What she came up with is golden. And the text, the font that she used Is also the same font that we use for fat less fest. Bring those two things together. The fat less fest logo was created by mix latina k turner, who is a drag queen in olympia washington. Fucking incredible human. We love, love, love, love latina. And then the production logo, which is like, actually like it is a profile of Of me when I first got started in brulasse and I just kind of kept it. Lori Collins, the art of lori collins. You can find her at loria pandora on instagram. She's actually our programming director for fat con.

Speaker 2: 32:39

I have known lori Excuse me, My son is going to be 13 this year. I have known lori for about a decade. I actually met lori through my ex-husband. They were best friends and they have very similar personalities And when my my ex-husband, my ex-husband left me, like Almost four years ago, like I was at a burlesque festival and he moved all of his shit out while I was gone, moved it all out, didn't tell me, didn't tell anyone, just moved gone and just abandoned me. And so lori was one of the first people to come to my house after that and take care of me and my child and make sure that we Aden all of that. And you know, she's like i'm not going to choose sides, i'm just going to be here. And he basically forced her hand And so she chose me. And so I feel like I i'm the luckiest person in that that divorce I've won.

Speaker 2: 33:29

Lori, she is incredible. She's designed the what the funk logo every single year for the past Oh gosh, five years now. And as programming director, she is just Epic. Like she's so good at this job I don't know what we would do without her. She's written on like a lot of our contracts her and I sit down and look at like Our FAQs on our website and stuff like that. This is like I said. This team is so incredibly sexy. And then the queer prom logo was actually created by one of my partners, josh King. He's an incredible artist. He has this project called strains in a jar and it he takes the names of different weed strains and designs like literal Interpretations of them, an art form. It's so cute. So one of them is like Cat piss it's a cat's head floating in a thing of pee. You know Things like that, but they're really cute and his art style is just the most adorable, cutest thing you've ever seen.

Speaker 2: 34:29

And if you meet this man, he's six, four and he looks like a giant teddy bear. He's got real golden retriever energy. I love him, but just and also just a big, a big fat man. And this is actually the the first time I've been in a sexual relationship with a, a big fat man that is not ashamed of his body and is not ashamed of throwing that body around, and I can just sit there and rub his fat belly for hours and not get bored. I wanna chew on the fat. And I have never been like. I have never been like that drawn to someone's body, but it's because of how comfortable he is in his body. You know he's stretched around our house, you know, in our bedroom naked and stuff like that, and then like, and then just like oh my God, like I love how confident and comfortable him as a fat man in his body is. And he'll tell you it's because of me And I'm like I mean, i don't care who is, because I just wanna. I wanna eat them rolls.

Speaker 2: 35:33

I say that he said a shikuri board of yeah, I call him a shikuri board of dad meats.

Speaker 1: 35:39

By the way, your ex-husband sounds like a total fucking idiot, So I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2: 35:44

Yeah, he made a. he made a piss. poor choice. I think he knows that now My career really took off after my husband left me. I mean, I'm now the 16th most influential and the last figure in the world. I was voted performer of the year for 2022 by Seattle Gay News, our production company, production one micro business of the year, And I'm one of the grand marshals of the Seattle Pride Parade.

Speaker 1: 36:13

Congratulations.

Speaker 2: 36:13

I know like this is rad.

Speaker 1: 36:16

What happens at Queer Prom? Tell me more about that.

Speaker 2: 36:18

Queer Prom is, we do a big giant burlesque and drag show to kind of kick everything off. And this year we're bringing in the lap we call he's the last king of boy less. The burlesque hall of fame Weekender decided to get rid of their boy less category this year And so now all genders can compete for the big title. So he's the last king of boy less And he was the grandmaster Funk of 2021. So he's one of our headliners. And then we have so his name is Pinot Noir just the most talented, funniest, gorgeous, just most beautiful black man I've ever seen in my entire life And just so expressive and great. And then we're bringing in Baggy Randy, who used to be based in Seattle, who now lives in Chicago, but he's in Seattle all the time that you wouldn't know it. He just came in third place at the burlesque hall of fame Weekender and also won most comedic And it's the current Mr Hollywood burlesque And he is just. He is like so unapologetically gay. It's incredible.

Speaker 2: 37:27

And then we're bringing in Margo Mayhem. She was in the Broadway production of Come From Away in New York. She is the best debut of the burlesque hall of fame Weekender this year And this is the only thing I can actually book her for, cause she is a skinny, straight size white lady And I'm like I can't book you, my all people at Colerborough Les Festival. I book her partner all the time but not her, and I can't book you in Fat Les Fest Northwest. And I'm like you gay. She goes oh yeah, i'm gay. I'm like, okay, let's go, we'll do that, so you know. So she's bringing some real bisexual, bisexual realness to the stage. So we have all this fun stuff happening. And then after the show, books will exit the auditorium and go down the stairs of the Grand Lobby And in the Grand Lobby they'll be able to dance. One of our amazing sponsors is giving us what did they say? A metric crack ton of macarons, so everywhere.

Speaker 2: 38:26

And then we also do. We call it queer core competition. So we'll be crowning a new queer monarch for the year And I love, love, love, love that I created two titles. I have a we, so we have queer monarch and we have grandmaster funk, and I created the titles because they really wanted, for some reason, titles to make people listen to people or, at the very least, book people. They open doors, and so we created these titles. But titles only have as much power as we choose to give them. And the people that keep winning our titles, they, with their whole chest, will tell you I'm a grandmaster funk, okay, this is what we're doing, you know. And so they've all utilized these titles that I made up in my bedroom, you know, six years ago.

Speaker 2: 39:17

They've used these titles and gone on to do incredible, amazing things And I feel so fortunate. Our last three queer monarchs for Queer Prom are all involved in Queer Prom this year in some capacity. Our very first yeah, very first queer monarch went on to be crowned Miss Imperial Gay Washington 2022. So it does open doors.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Well, just on that topic, our podcast was nominated as one of the best podcasts by the Soul Figured Industry Awards And even if we don't win, first of all, we're so. We can't believe that we even nominated our first year of our podcast And then it just I think it kind of it does. Even if it doesn't mean anything to the whole wide world, it means something in our community And I think that will open doors for us for sure, just because they came up with this cool word, and we might win it, or we might not, but at least we are nominated, yep, and you can put that on everything As seen as nominated.

Speaker 2: 40:17

I'm a big fan of people marketing in the fuck out of that stuff. I mean, do it. It's so important. I say this as someone that is really terrible at tooting my own horn And I'm committed. I'm committed to the next year of uplifting myself and cheering on myself the way that I cheer on and uplift the people that I love and care about, because if I say that I love and care about myself, then I need to include myself in that.

Speaker 1: 40:45

Speaking of which, I would love to know how we can help you. So I do this a lot of my business networking meetings. What do you need for your business? How can we help you? We want to help you and we're not looking for anything in return. We just want to help. We want to get the word out there, because it's going to be good for all of us. So what do you need right now?

Speaker 2: 41:03

This is thank you for saying that, Because I think this is really important. It's something that I try to talk to people about all the time is that we need partners and we need community. I am a big believer that what we do collectively can bring in so much more than one person going in there and being like I need this. I'm constantly looking for more sponsors and partners And the economy sucks and people are being really tight with their purse strings, But we're really trying to get more sponsorship, especially for FATCon, Because I mean, let's face it, We know FATCon is going to be huge. Like I can safely predict that in five years FATCon is a million dollar business easily, Because this is so desperately needed, Community is so desperately needed, And so I'm like I know that this year is the year of proof, Like it's the show us the proof. I'm like, OK, I mean we're going to kill it.

Speaker 2: 42:05

So if you know of any grants, if you know of any sponsor people that are like I don't know what to do with my money, They can give me their money. It's so great, I'm busily sponsored. So I operate as a 501C3. So any donations that are made to protection, especially for FATCon, are tax-adeptable, which is not something that a lot of or less babes can say about their business, which is really neat. The other thing that people can do to help is spread the word. It's so free. It's $3.99 to do that. To just share a post, comment like Sure.

Speaker 2: 42:41

You know those things are really important. But if you're a business, if you work for a place, it's like we do donation matching You can donate to us And we will get matched. And I think people don't please abuse that, abuse that at your job. People don't do that nearly enough. It's literally free money to give to an organization that you love and care about, and our mission statement for production is so. It's not jadaric, but it doesn't mention burlesque in it anymore, because we're just growing in so many different ways It's kind of innocuous. So you'll know in your heart that it's going to fatties and it's going to titty shows, but your loss won't have any clue. It's going to fatties and titty shows. So do that, even if you're not giving the money to us. Please. That's a benefit that you have at your job. Book and use it.

Speaker 1: 43:37

Yeah, and there's. We have a lot of people in tech here and they all have those that matching things. That's a great point. Is there anywhere on your fatcon site where people just want to give you 50 bucks or 100 bucks? Yeah, i have anything on there like a button.

Speaker 2: 43:49

Okay, they can click, okay, so if they go to fatconorg and go to support us, you'll see all the sponsorship options. But there's also just a donate button. It'll takes you right to our donation landing page, which is again all under protection, which right now people are like wait, what is that? But if you look at the put that, that That landing page, it talks about that con. It talks about that less fast, so you know you're in the right place. Yeah, those are really good ways to help. We want you to be successful.

Speaker 1: 44:17

Yeah we want you to kick ass And we want to. We want to do everything we can to make sure this is amazing and huge and Every seat is sold and every sponsor is. Yeah, you get all kinds of crap, ton of stuff to give away and I, like, i want big fig mattresses.

Speaker 2: 44:32

I'm just putting it out there big thing, we need mattresses. All my friends who have big fig mattresses just love them. I need one so bad.

Speaker 1: 44:41

Yeah, i've heard that too and, as as Tigris reminded me before on one of our episodes, we don't just want fat money from fat brands, we also want fat money from big brands like amasis or Nordstroms or whatever. Oh yeah, time for them to also step up, not not just the lame brines and the towards in the big fig Although we appreciate all of that horse but we need also start going for the bigger you know who's money I want.

Speaker 2: 45:04

I want gaps money. I want gap in and well, navy, after this bullshit with all their plus size clothes and Coming out there through a whole size inclusive stuff and then being like, oh, i didn't sell. Well, i'm like no, because that shit was ugly and you fucking newt was ugly.

Speaker 3: 45:21

Come on, if you make something that's quality, that's unique, that's interesting, that's sexy, we are going to buy it.

Speaker 2: 45:29

We're gonna buy it and even if it is expensive, we're gonna save up and we're gonna get it. That money spends just as good as straight-size money. And I'm not out here trying to wear moos and stuff. I mean I do like a good calf-gan moment. I do like a calf-gan moment, mm-hmm, but I want to look and feel good. No well, i want to be sexy Because it makes me feel good to be sexy. I don't really give a fuck what anyone has to say about my badass ever, but like if you're out here making granny clothes for people and Like I just don't know why they don't want to be covered up, i don't want to be covered up. I don't want to wear a tent. Leave me alone, i'm hot. Okay, exactly, there's that. I don't want to be naked. I mean, really I love it. I think that we need to put together a like a fat Newtie day, fat nude people. Yeah, this feels good to my spirit. I'm gonna think on that. That new to stay. I.

Speaker 1: 46:29

Thought you're gonna say something like the other fat 10 commandments that we need all brands to know about. You know we have money to, we'll save up our money And we don't make a lot of money because we want some. Ditch it. We wanted to go up to size 10x and beyond, like whatever those rules are that we want them to all understand. We need to put it on a piece of paper somewhere and say here's what we need.

Speaker 2: 46:47

We do need that, but I also want to be in community with a bunch of fat babes, because there's just something magical and powerful about watching a naked fat person walk around unbothered and Unapologetic. Oh, my god, unbothered and unapologetically fat and naked Oh.

Speaker 1: 47:09

Bless pretty hot. Yeah, yes, tell people about your on your production page. I think that's where you have like, where you share That people can put time with you. Yes, let's you know ideas, or? Yeah, so I do.

Speaker 2: 47:25

I do some consulting work. It's mostly geared in the burlesque realm, but also in the sex positivity realm. So I I Consider myself a sex educator. I went through Dr Bianca Loreano's Program, annie up, and so a lot of my work is focused in like disability justice, fat acceptance, queer, queer theory and also reproductive justice, like, but in like a non-binary body right, and So I do a lot of that. I was, i do a lot of like one-on-one consulting with folks who are just like man I really want to dominate my partner and I don't even know where to begin. So I do a lot of that work. And then the thing that I've been doing a lot of recently is Unraising for the arts. There's a lot of ways to make money and to create Donor, donor, donorship, right of having, even if you're not a nonprofit, even if you're for profit, you can create Donor levels and have donors who are donating to you, at donating to you and for members of some of something. And so we talk about membership and what that looks like, because a lot of burlesque babes especially are producing shows on $500 and a hope and a prayer, you know. And So we talk a lot about different ways to raise money. So that's something I've been doing a lot of.

Speaker 2: 48:53

But yeah, my my Instagram that is at hooks aplenty. But if you go to my my Instagram, there's a link tree there and you can book a consultation with me. I Gosh, god bless Calendly. What a fun app. It's so great. I love it. It it freaks me out, though sometimes They'll be like looking at my calendar on something. Something appears on my calendar. I'm like what is that? and then I get the little pink noise from pay pound. It's like you got a hundred and fifty dollars. I'm like, oh Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1: 49:27

Yeah, i mean, what I do is my calendar. I make sure it's. If people can't book anything For 48 hours, like so, they have to book it. They want to see me on Wednesday. They have to book it by Monday, because otherwise someone shows up on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm like shit. I don't have time for that right now. But that's just the sidebar. Do you do you know Monet? I know money. How's it a? yes, i do burlesque here in Sacramento, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 49:49

Yeah, I don't know because she has a Group, black art matters. Yeah, she does like arts.

Speaker 2: 49:55

She also has a burlesque show coming up called revenge of the blurbs the festival revenge of the blurbs. Monet and I were featured on a on a list back in like oh gosh, 2017 and it was like 16 plus size burlesque from her to keep an eye on. And so this was like I had just gotten started and this list came out And it was a huge uproar in the burlesque community. People were so mad. There were so many new burlesque performers on there and so a lot of the established plus I through leskers were really pissed off. It caused a lot of in fighting, but Monet and I are both on that list And that's actually how I became familiar with Monet's work was through this list. But yeah, like it was such a bad taste in my mouth that how, how we were fighting with each other within within that community in burlesque that I never mentioned this list until last year. that was on it. That's why I met Monet.

Speaker 1: 51:02

Yeah, yeah, i hate that. Yeah, she lives in the Sacramento area and she's amazing hair color and hair stylist as well.

Speaker 2: 51:11

Oh, she's amazing hair color, super talented.

Speaker 1: 51:14

Yeah, i know, i know I love when she shares her photos. I am so excited and we want to talk. I hope, hopefully, monet can be there too. I hope she can be at that con. I would love to meet her in person. We've never met in person before. I feel like I know her.

Speaker 2: 51:30

Yeah, her social media is she. Her social media game is strong. We have so many amazing people coming, like already right now, like announced right now. We have Tigris coming as one of our keynotes. We have a lot of Boutay as one of our keynotes. Beers, fat, them is coming. I really go ahead and just drop this. It hasn't been announced yet. We're just going to drop it. Sassy West is coming. Yes, so we got Sassy West coming and I just had a phone call with her on Friday. She's coming and I'm really excited.

Speaker 1: 52:02

Hashtag fat and free. I love her. Yes, We're good friends with Sassy I do too. She's here in the Bay Area, and when I had my Andre Boutique she would model for us and she's also out there advocating for people like me above a size 28, because we really get forgotten about. Oh yeah, and she will not let it die and I'm so grateful to be in community with her. She's amazing.

Speaker 2: 52:25

She's a blessing. I like again one of these hook people that you Yes, i think I know through social media, because there's this artificial infancy that happens with us on the internet because we talk about so many things that are happening in our lives and so when you finally get to be in front of people and you're like you go to reach for them to hug and you're like, wait, this is actually not a familiar action, but how's your dog doing and how's your grandma and did you get that promotion? and your boss really sucks right. You know so much intimate details about this person's life. It's really weird, especially coming out of the pandemic, one of the first events that we did met a bunch of people like in person that I had been working with online and stuff and we met in person and it was just this moment of just like we actually don't know each other. Let's fix that right now. Yeah, it was beautiful, but also really weird how the how the internet has created, it's created these relationships with people that are very meaningful. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:31

When people talk shit about social media, i'm like, look, you have to understand. I know something who'll be because of social media, and I feel like they have my back all the time and I have theirs and I always have theirs. It's the good stuff, it's the best stuff. I was going to tell you, too, about working with Sassi. This woman is the most professional model you will ever work with.

Speaker 1: 53:52

I mean, i worked with a lot of models when I had my boutique and all the fashion shows, sassi she would have to drive two hours to get down to my boutique. She would never be late. She'd shove at 7am, you know model call, like just doesn't even fuck around, she just takes it all so seriously. It doesn't cause any drama. She's so beautiful and just amazing. I worked with so many other people that were just such a nightmare. Sassi is always on it, always just right there. I mean, who drives two hours to come? She wasn't even getting paid, you know, and always on time. Other people just like, oh, showing up. Whatever. You know, sassi is very professional, she's not fucking around.

Speaker 2: 54:33

Sassi is the business. Like she is the business, i appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 54:38

She has a million followers on one of her Facebook pages. Yeah, she's incredible, her tagline.

Speaker 3: 54:44

What does it say? Hashtag, fat and free. No, no, no. She says your favorite fat girl. Is that the tag?

Speaker 1: 54:51

Yeah, and she also says the fat girl that everybody hates or something. Yeah, love it. What you said? that's one of the ones. Yeah, i don't know anybody hates her. I don't know people that love her. but I met her through Tigris and they used to come to my boutique a lot and you know they're not, they're. both of them are not afraid to like eat cupcakes on camera. you know, eat food on camera. They just like yeah, so you don't like it, don't look. We should probably wrap this up because we're coming up on an hour And I'm so grateful.

Speaker 2: 55:19

I'm really, really excited to have you all in Seattle in January. January can't come quickly enough.

Speaker 1: 55:26

I'm so excited I know, i know It's going to go fast, though I'm sure, because when you're organizing shit at the ghost, house.

Speaker 2: 55:33

I know it's going to be November and we're like wait, wait. what No?

Speaker 1: 55:37

Yeah, As a person who's been on events for three and 500 people, I remember the stress. I don't I don't have that in me anymore, but I'm so grateful that you do. Murph, do you have anything else for Pucks?

Speaker 3: 55:48

I just want to say thank you for your time. It was so fun to get to talk to you and I'm I'm so I can't even describe the excitement Like it's just I feel all buzzy because I know it's going to feel incredible being in that space with so many people that get it and understand, and I just know that it's going to fill my soul. So I'm like January, get here now.

Speaker 1: 56:12

So people can find you at fatconorg. Is that where you have your link tree, or is there a link tree somewhere else?

Speaker 2: 56:18

Oh, my link tree is going to be on my on Instagram. If you go to, so it's the fatcon on Instagram. If you go to at Pucks aplenty, you'll find my link tree there. My link, my link tree is yeah, it's all connected, and then I'm. Yeah, then my website, mixpucks aplentycom. Just real simple. We're out here. So if you just type in pucks and burlesque and pucks and fatcon into the into your search bar, you will find me. I am there. I'm everywhere you want to be right now. I'm like Mastercard, you're pretty easy.

Speaker 1: 56:55

You're easy to find. Yeah, Well, for our listeners who are tuning in, we hope we'll get to meet you at fatcon. Make sure you whenever you see our episodes come out, we'd love your comments and shares and reviews. Anything else, Merth, that I'm not thinking of.

Speaker 3: 57:10

Email sexy at bigsexychatcom.

Speaker 1: 57:12

Yeah, and that's how you get our newsletter, and we have about a thousand subscribers so far in our newsletter and it's growing every day, so we're excited, you know. Thank you. It's really good, All right. Well, y'all have a good evening and I'll see you later.

Speaker 3: 57:26

Alligator After a while crocodile Tits up buttercat. So where can you find your favorite fatties? You can find us at bigsexychatcom on all the social medias, at bigsexychat, on Twitter, bigsexychatpod and Crystal. How can they reach us?

Speaker 1: 57:48

Oh, merth, the best way to reach us is by email, which is sexy at bigsexychatcom, and remember to like, subscribe and share, please.