Would You Travel to Korea for a New Face? Ben Kawaller Did.

0:00I was going to ask you about like the roots and academic circles of critical queer theory, but I want to talk about the Matt Gala. Okay, let's do that.

0:12Welcome to Second Thought. I'm Suzy Weiss. And I'm Dan Ahdoot. And we are so excited to have Ben Kawaller on the show today. Hello, everyone. Doo-doo. You might know Ben Kawaller for his intrepid reporting. He goes out into the field for such storied publications as the New York Post and the Free Press. and something I like about Ben is he is a yes-ander. Oh, yeah. You really do a yes-and, which I appreciate. Yes, you are. Screwed that up. Let's take it again. And I really wanted to talk to Ben, first and foremost, because while most men go to Turkey for new hair... Oh, I got to do that. Ben Kowalor goes to Korea for a new face.

0:51Do you want to go together? I'm going to be either going to Turkey or Tijuana. Do you know that they've taken... No, it's Tijuana for dental work. Oh, but now they've taken a gaggle of the Turks, brought them into Tijuana, and you can just go to Tijuana and get the turkey-style thing in Tijuana. And the teeth and the boobs. Get it all done for$10. Are Mexicans complaining about Turks taking their jobs? Yes, good question. It's a good story on that. They should do like a special economic zone for male glow-ups. This should be my beat. Male glowing up? So yes, I went to Korea to get like fish salmon injected into my face.

1:25Fish sperm. Not fish salmon. Yes, very different. Salmon sperm. Salmon and lox. So, well, my brother wanted to go because he's fancy. I have a fancy brother who knows things about, you know, how to take care of himself. He'd become obsessed with Korean skincare because of TikTok, which he spends every waking moment on. And he says, you want to go to Korea for skincare? I said, how could I say no to that? Right. Okay, so I want you to walk us through it. You go to whose office? Who was this woman? Oh, Dr. Chaelin Chung. She's, uh, she was about British. Well, she was born in Korea, but she was British.

2:04So she had a British accent. So keep that in mind. It's very important. Okay. So first they, like, scan your, you sit in this, like, box and they scan, you put your face in this box and they scan it. And they give you the most horrifying image. Blow by blow of, yes, of how red you are and how clogged you are. It's like a reverse ultrasound. It's like, this is you dead. Yeah. You see, like, a sort of negative, like, creepy sort of negative image of your, of your face. and yeah, and then she details all the things that are wrong with you. Can I thank you for telling me that she had a British accent because I was gonna imitate her.

2:32Yes. In a Korean accent. And then I was gonna get canceled. No. Is it possible to get canceled on the free - Your face looks like it needs a little bit of sperm. Oh yeah, yeah. That's exactly what she said. That's why we pay him a big bucks. Yeah, that's good. Okay, so what did she say you needed after this like - Oh, I needed, well, the thing that most urgently I needed was I have a crow's feet, apparently. I didn't know this. You needed a Crotox. I needed Crotox, so I got some Crotox. Wait, you went to Korea for Botox? Well, apparently it was cheaper than it was here. Oh, they did do Botox? You flew business.

3:07I thought you'd go there for all the weird illegal stuff. I did. You know what? There's actually only one illegal thing, and that was the salmon DNA, but everything else is much cheaper. And this process is called Rajuron? Rajuron is the name of the... You got Rajuron, you got Protenza, you got Ulta therapy. Ultherapy. Ultherapy, I think. That's ultra violet light. You know, I love that I get to write funny things because then no one actually expects me to do any research and like know what I'm talking about. So I can just be like, yeah, they like shoot some waves in your face. That's Ultherapy.

3:40And it's, yeah, that's the one. Yeah, I guess it like heats you. You got microwaved in Korea. I got microwaved, yeah. And then what did the would juron feel like it was the worst pain i've ever had in my life whoa well i mean it was literally 150 shots or something somewhere in that neighborhood like shots in my face yeah with a needle what do you think that feels like it was i mean it actually it felt like my it felt like my at times it felt like my skin was being slowly peeled off like when she got here and then when she was like here it felt like being stuck in the face with a needle like right here right because it's like not thick no it's skin nothing is thick right i'm very sebaceous person generally so and and what as you're being injected with the salmon sperm in korea what's going through your mind you're like what what happened how did we get here we should show the i'll send you the footage oh oh my oh oh jesus christ oh oh oh fuck oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

4:49Oh, fuck me. Oh my God. I saw the after picture and it was horrifying. But you look so good now. But I mean, do I look any, I mean, I don't wanna, I was about to say, do I look any different? I mean, you know. Do you look any different actually? I don't can't tell. Really? I mean, for all of that, for I don't know, I'm not sure, I can't tell, I don't think it's worth it. Yeah, you didn't, wait, you didn't feel worth it? I never feel worth it. No, I didn't. You didn't feel as though it was worth it? Uh, uh, yeah, sure. Afterwards, I looked so frightening. I was like, this better be worth it because I was like covered in these like tiny red welts, it looked like.

5:23Okay, so Dr. Chung. Yes. Told you to come back in three months. Oh, yeah, right. They really recommend that. That's so crazy. Well, the first thing she said was that she was like, well, as you can see, you have these crow's feet here. And we do need to do something about those right away. And so I said, well, of course. The urgency. Actually, I think, you know, she said they didn't need to be dealt with, but she said the most important thing was to get a facial. She was like, first, you just got to wash your face, because that's something I do once every couple of weeks or something. Yeah. A face wash.

5:52I'm really learning a lot about men. Oh, she's pro wash the face, because I've heard you don't want to wash the face because it dries it out and then the oils go. Oh, this I love hearing. Yeah. Stop washing my face. I don't wash my face. I know a lot of people who don't wash their face. I use Cetaphil. I treat my face like a cast iron skillet. Yeah. And then you put it in the oven to release it. I think bacon. I've seasoned it with bacon. And a paper towel with salt. That's it. No, I, well, no, she's, I'm being, I'm being a bit glib here, if you can imagine, but I, she wanted to give me a facial.

6:25That's what, that's what I think of. See, I don't know anything. I'm like facial, that's washing your face, right? No, it's like putting all sorts of gunk on it. Oh, and extractions. What's an extraction? That's when they pop stuff. Oh, yes, they scraped my nose and then showed me like the blackheads. Oh, yeah, that's good. I mean, I think a lot of this stuff feels like snake oil, like the peels and whatnot. The laser. I think the lasers are the real deal. Botox is the real deal because your face. Yeah, I mean, they're putting plastic. You see it. I don't know. Like, I apparently got Botox here.

6:55Can I still make crow's feet? Oh, yeah. Oh, well, it's definitely a little. It's a little bit of expression. It's a little paralyzed. It's good. They did a good job. What did it come in at? Oh, under five grand. But of course, I had no intention of going and splitting with several thousand dollars here. First of all, I was a little annoyed my brother didn't pay for the whole thing. Yeah, sure. He bought me a first class ticket. And he put me up, you know, with him at the Four Seasons. He's made really good choices. He's married. He's married. Honestly, he should have paid for it. He should. He should have.

7:31Yeah. It was like, what's another four grand or whatever? Where'd you write it? I wrote this for the Times of London. Okay. Where I also write about theater and other cultural things. So you should all check that out. They're a fine publication. Wonderful articles. And you recently had an amazing piece about the etiquette. Oh, my podcast. Theater etiquette. Oh, theater etiquette. Yes, it's that. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about the podcast. We'll get to it, yes. But you wrote about how people have started. This is something I feel passionate about because anyone who's been on public transportation recently, where people are out loud watching TikToks, watching videos.

8:08Someone was watching like a football game. What's the world come to? I agree. And if I were ballsy, I would do the thing where you take your own phone out and then you play something louder. But I don't want to get stabbed. No, I don't want to get hurt. Yeah. But you'd think if anywhere would be sacred, it would be the theater. It's so crazy. Where you're seeing a play or a musical. because the whole point is that you've paid to be in a dark room to be entertained. No, people have to sit through that. Generally, people have brought them there and they're like, oh, I'm going to sit through this thing.

8:39What am I going to do to entertain myself? So tell us about your piece. What is it about? Well, here's what I wanted my piece to be about. So the piece was about misbehaving audience members. And Margie Mayte at the Times, who also used to work with Free Press, was like, go and talk to some people about, you know, find some stories. Well, it was like pulling teeth like getting anyone to talk to me on the record misbehaving audience members because everyone's so terrified of Niederlander or Schubert or whatever that it was like I felt like I was like It's like there's a mafia or something. So I mean like I walked up to some one box office I got a manager who was like, oh, he really wanted to he was like, oh, I could tell you stories and the stories me more like, you know This crazy person Got in a fight with someone and we had them out or whatever and I mean I don't know I didn't get to hear the stories because his like his higher ups were like don't talk to the press right as if like knowing that once at you know cats the jellicle ball like some woman misbehaved is going to make like everyone turn against the Schubert organization that's so crazy I don't so it was like a real yeah so it was a real reconnaissance mission but you did get some good stories yes I did I mean some woman at the Soho Playhouse, like, marched up to the bartender and asked for a fork and then took out a salad and started making it.

9:58She took out, like, the ingredients of a salad. Yeah, she took out, like, she had a whole bunch of bowls. And, yeah, she threw together a whole salad. So crazy. And then, give me a fork. You know what I think the issue is? Because in the stand-up clubs, you have this as well, but we are allowed to call it out and make fun of them. Right. And tell them to put out. But when you're, you know, you're doing a monologue, you can't stop and be like, put your phone away. They have, though, and it's really scary. Patti LuPone did it, screamed at this person in the audience. I love that. You wrote about how someone was on a three-way Zoom call.

10:27I did hear about that story. Someone was, what's it called? Submitting a history paper on their laptop. On a laptop. It's crazy. It's so crazy. I think a little bit of it is people just can't stand still for two hours anymore. They don't know what they're doing. Especially post-COVID, they're all weird. Theater and movies are like, going to the movies is like my only respite from my phone. What's your favorite musical? The best musical ever. There's, what are we? Cats. There's an answer. It's not cats. There's an answer to this. What is it? I'll ask you. What's the best musical? It's your quiz.

11:01West Side Story. Yes. Thank you. Boom. The Street Guy for the win. Hello, Layup. Downtown. West Side Story? Really? It's so obvious. Yes. Even this. Who knows? It's only just down the street. That's exactly it. Soon as it shows. You make him kind of bowling down from the sky gleaming your eyebrows as a rose. He can sing. I went to Marie's Crisis last night and I learned a couple things. Okay, way to bury the lead. You went to Marie's last night and you didn't text me? It was my favorite place in the world. Well, I feel bad for the gays there because it's like a bunch of straights just come there to like stare at the gays doing their thing.

11:39They're like, oh, look at the gays in their natural habitat. It is a gay aquarium. It is a gay aquarium. That's like every gay bar now. Yeah. I keep wanting to get this piece published about how there are no gay bars anymore because all of you women have stolen them from us. Well, my question for Ben Kwaller, and I think he'll have a good answer for this, is how did gay become queer? Oh, well, you know, I actually just did a podcast about this very question on Longview, with Longview Investigations. Their podcast is called Reflector, and this is impossible to pitch. It's like three - You have a mini series within Reflector, which is a Longview investigation.

12:14I have a mini series within the podcast. Presented by? Presented by Longview and the podcast is called Strange Bedfellows. You got there. Wow. Strange Bedfellows is a great title. It is. Thank you, Simon Adler. So why did you want to make this podcast called Strange Bedfellows presented by Longview? A number of reasons. I was, I'm frustrated with the tenor of the conversation around gender issues. I feel like there's a great deal of demonization across the board when it comes to this stuff. And I feel like the understanding of these issues is so siloed. And conservatives, if you can call them that, have one sort of way of looking at this.

12:51And liberals, broadly, if you can call them that, have another way. And there's a sense, I think, on the liberal side that we are seeing a backlash for against what we call LGBT rights that's coming from a place of religious intolerance, coming from this bigotry, of hatred. And while some of that may be true, there are divisions and tensions within that coalition of LGBTQ++++ that sort of complicate the idea that all of this is just coming from a sort of hatred. Right. When I say all of this, I mean like, you know, the Trump executive orders on gender or the rolling back of the rights to self-identify, that kind of thing.

13:37But I also didn't know how LGBT, even just LGBT, came together in the first place. Yeah, like how did the L's, the G's, and the B's meet the T? Right. And that's what our first episode focuses on. So the first episode is sort of this whirlwind history of the gay rights movement, which started becoming known as the gay and lesbian rights movement during the 80s when AIDS started happening. And a lot of those leadership people in leadership positions were dying and women were getting more involved. And so gay liberation became gay and lesbian. I think bisexual, you know, people say like LGB. I don't actually think LGB was ever a thing, was ever really a thing.

14:19It was gay and lesbian and then it was LGBT. And as always, the bi's were erased or, you know, sort of implicitly part of that. But anyway. Well, they're just they're they're swept up in it. They're included. If the Ls and the Gs get what they want, then the Bs get what they want. Well, if you're a B, you can effectively be a G or an L. Correct. Depending on your gender. You know, so it's implied, I feel. And then there's Ts. And so Ts, so I always thought, and this was just, okay, actually, let me ask you guys. If you had to guess, why do you think the Ts were ever a part of LGBT? A marginalized group because of their sexual preferences.

14:59Oh, yeah, that's basically it. but there's a why i wasted my time but there's sort of an idea that your there was an idea at least in the 2010s that your gender identity and your sexual orientation had nothing to do with each other right like i always thought that the t's were sort of these were like functionally gay men who were like so gay they were like women yeah and this is just like totally divorced from what the this movement actually looked like transsexual rights started emerging in the early 90s. And these were not homosexual males, but mostly heterosexual males who dated women. But to gays and lesbians, it was not immediately obvious that these males who were really intent on becoming part of the lesbian movement, that was sort of one of the early sort of projects of a group, for instance, called the Transsexual Menace, which came around in like 92 or something you know their sort of first project was to um be allowed into something called the women's uh michigan the michigan women's festival oh sure festival this didn't make it in the podcast either but it did make it into an episode of transparent oh like this sort of there's an episode where they go to one of these music festivals and the and they don't want the trans woman there and that was the dynamic that transsexual menace came up against in the early 90s at this at this festival was mostly people saying like you guys are men you don't belong at the right so this there was a whole sort of campaign to to become included in in the women's michigan festival and i do wish we'd spent more time on this i think it's a pretty uh sort of important moment prescient yeah because the because prescient what we focused on was the political messaging of of the T is that ultimately like got them into LGBT like on the sort of like movement level like what it was that allowed that eventually led say human rights campaign to start calling themselves a program for a movement for LGBT rights as opposed to just gay and lesbian and the the pitch there was more like what you said Dan that like we are all at at the end of the day, like despised for our, we are a despised sexual minority.

17:14And whether we are trans or gay or lesbian or whatever, they're all calling us faggot when they beat us up. But the inclusion of the tease, like the addition of the tease, was sort of the last time in this story that you had a kind of robust debate over what should be pursued. I mean, the decision - This is an intro debate within the gay movement. Yes, within what was then the gay and lesbian rights movement. And at first there was a whole, there was a real debate of like, well, do we let the tease in? Do we take on these, this project under our banner? And even before that, I think there was a debate of do we like within the gay and lesbian movement, do we want marriage?

17:53Like, is that a thing we should even be aiming for? Right. Throughout the whole, I mean, there's always been, and this is probably true. I mean, I would imagine. Marriage equality, I should say. Yeah, a lot of movements. There's always a more sort of radical wing that wants fast change or that wants or that even wants a sort of like revolution of how society is organized. And then there's a there's a segment that wants to sort of fit into the established order. And that was happening with the gay rights movement. As one writer put it, like some people want a seat at the table. Some people want to turn the whole table over.

18:25Right. So you had these sort of more like radical, often sort of left left leaning figures who were like, oh, we don't want marriage is this oppressive institution. We're not interested in marriage. We don't want to be in the military, obviously. Or we don't want to be in the military because that's an imperialist, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the voices that ended up sort of carrying the day ended up being the more moderate ones. And the pitch to the American people that was so successful was we just want the we just want what everyone else has access to. We want the right to marry the people we love.

18:54We want to serve our country. This was a movement. Right to housing, right to work, like fair pay, that stuff. Yeah. But what started emerging is this sort of metaphysical sense of gender. I mean, it was always sort of there. But once you start having gender identities that are not binary, that are not male or female. And at that point, it's really just defining yourself as against the normative thing. That's the overarching. That's the overarching. That's the umbrella thing. We're not heteronormative. We're not. We're a minority. I mean, gender nonconformity is kind of the umbrella term that encompasses everyone, I think, including gays and lesbians.

19:33Because like I said, like we don't generally conform to the expectations of our gender. So gender as not a medical condition, but a metaphysical one started to become the predominating sort of ethos of gender within LGBT, you know, starting around 2015, 2016. How do you identify gay or queer? Gay, but I mean, I'll do queer sort of to be politic, I guess, sometimes. Okay. If I want to say something in a queer space, I'll say, I'm queer. I don't know. I'm supposed to say like curmudgeons like me are supposed to be like, I'm gay. I'm not queer. I don't, you know. Right. I think I'm pretty, you know, there's something a little off.

20:12You suffer from same sex attraction. That's how I think of you. I was going to ask you about like the roots in academic circles of critical queer theory. But I want to talk about the McGala. Okay, let's do that. Instead. There's enough queer theory. Yeah, exactly.

20:35Can comedians still joke about the Middle East? Are people less committed to religion now? And most importantly, is it ever okay to toast a fresh bagel? These are the kinds of questions being pondered on Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam. Hosts Michal Bitten and Noam Weissman are two bold voices in the Jewish community. They're intellectual, provocative, and deeply curious. If you've ever been to a chaotic and loud Passover Seder, this show will probably remind you of that. And there's always a seat at the table for someone interesting, like New York Times columnist Brett Stevens or author Sarah Horwitz.

21:06It's smart without being stuffy and joyful without being shallow. Whether you're deeply observant, totally secular, or not Jewish at all, this show will probably have something you'll love to disagree with. Search Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube and grab the link in our show notes. Okay, on Monday night, celebrities descended onto New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for this year's Met Gala. The theme was fashion as art, which seems bland enough, but it was also sponsored by Jeff and... By the way, fart. Fashion as art. Oh, my God. Thanks so much for coming to Second Thought.

21:42I like that. Sorry, keep going. Well, I actually didn't hear that in all of the coverage of this. Did you guys watch the people going up the carpet? Did you have any... Who was best dressed? Okay, look, here's the thing. Monday night was a real raw shock test for gayness and straightness. Oh, that's true. I think I'm going to come out straight in this test. It was the Met Gala and game one of the Knicks playoff game. Now, I was put in this weird position. I'm not really a sports fan, and I'm a big fan of the arts. But I have my straight bona fides to work through. And so I watched the Knick game, even though I would have much rather seen the Met Gala.

22:21Who was the best dressed there? The Met Gala best dressed, I would say, I actually love Jean-Baptiste, his outfit. I didn't see what he was wearing. I love him, though. He's incredible. Oh, my God. So cool. It was like this space-age ski outfit that was all white and also looked like a tuxedo. I thought Kylie Jenner was amazing. She wore this sort of surrealist chaparelli dress that was sort of falling off of her. I thought Kim looked fabulous. I was not impressed by Nicole Kidman. I thought Lauren Sanchez Bezos, the idea was really interesting. It was based off the portrait of Madame X, which sort of shocked everyone when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in the 1880s.

22:58and the artist, John Singer Sargent, had to repaint the strap of her dress because it was sort of deemed over-sexualized and over-the-top. So Lauren Sanchez Bezos was dressed up as a rich man's wife who the pearl-clutching public thought was too sexual and over-the-top. It was really like... Great idea. Wait, was her strap painted? No, it was down. It should have been painted. It should have been... You should have been painted onto her skin. Yeah. Yeah, they should have and could have gone the whole way and had her hair up and had the dress, like, exactly how it was in the painting. But any worse dressed?

23:33Worst dressed, I think Heidi Klum looked like a crazy person. She looked absolutely ridiculous, but I do love her. She was dressed as like a statue. Oh, yeah. And then it was like a Halloween costume. She goes really hard for hell. Cumbersome? Yeah. Who like was getting in everyone's way? Most cumbersome. Oh, Madonna came and she had people wearing or holding her like gray veil. And it was off of this like medieval painting. So it was really like accurate, I guess, but she looked like a human carousel. She had people like holding every point of her, of her veil tent. Okay, she was the worst dress.

24:07Okay, because you think just get in, get out. No, you said most cumbersome. That was most cumbersome. That's not worst dressed. Yes, it is. Most cumbersome is worst dressed? Yes, it is. Why? There's so many people here. What are you thinking? Yeah, like shuffle in. But they're trying to, it's trying to be art. It's art. Art isn't always comfortable. Wait, here's a good question. To wrap up this, fuck this item. do you think fashion is art fart do you hear it now whenever you hear fashion is art sorry do you think fashion is art absolutely fashion is art are you kidding me and actually uh i think are you kidding me absolutely fashion is art and i think the you know i i dated a girl once who was in charge of um fashion at the at the lacma like like the the fabrics and the dresses from old school.

24:55She's a preservationist. Yes, a preservationist. And she was like, look, the thing about fashion is that you look at someone and even if they don't care about fashion, then you know that's their attitude on fashion. Like everyone has an attitude on fashion, even if the attitude is I don't care about fashion. Right. You might not care about fashion, but fashion cares about you. Yeah. Cerulean. Cerulean, yes. So yes, I think fashion says a ton about somebody. And I feel like we're in a place now where people don't care enough about fashion wow yeah i feel a bit attacked what's your problem do you think fashion is art okay do you you don't sure no you don't you know what no i have very passionate feelings about this no you don't okay what else do you want to ask me okay let's talk about another i had a thing happened what was your take well i want to talk about jeff bezos sponsoring this thing yeah you're not interested in that no i totally am important he gives back Well, here's the thing.

25:48I agree. And I feel like everyone is shaming the Met for accepting this money. Ten million dollars from Jeff. It's like, how do you think art happens? Let's take a break. And like every single great museum that we have go into all the rooms. There's a name of some Jew on top there who like sponsored it. And like. And the whole thing was built by someone who essentially used indentured servants to build the railroad. I mean, that's kind of how it works. But look, the alternative is you do how Europeans did it. And you have Napoleon who steals everyone's shit and puts it in the Louvre. That's true.