I Got Bourbon Faced On Sh*t Street

To catch a glimpse of the man behind the glitzy suit, read the interview below.

Obviously, the issue of ethics is a hard one to circumvent. It's not difficult to see how the very methodology of the project — broadcasting the personal confessions of intoxicated partiers for the amusement of others — beckons themes such as exploitation and manipulation to the forefront of our consciousness. For Callaghan and director and cameraman Michael Moises, however, the naysayers of QC couldn't be farther off-base.

As a dedicated student of journalism and the author of "All Gas No Brakes: a hitchhikers diary," a zine capturing the tales of the fringe characters he encountered during an impromptu cross-country road trip, Callaghan certainly doesn’t prowl the French Quarter until 4 am for the clout, he does it because he wants to. “It’s an honor to be able to document this frenzy of sex, liquor, garbage, and drugs,” says Andrew, and thank God he does, because, from the flagrant to the downright freaky, this shit is too good to miss. In Vinum Verita isn’t an ancient Latin proverb for nothing...

It’s an honor to be able to document this frenzy of sex, liquor, garbage, and drugs.

Let’s start with the basics.

I’m Andrew Callaghan and I’m from Seattle and Philadelphia, but I live in New Orleans. I’m 21 years old and I’m about to graduate from Loyola University with a degree in journalism. I’m the author of “All Gas No Breaks” and “Hitchhiker’s Diary,” and the anchor and co-producer of Quarter Confessions.

Nice, what compelled you to start Quarter Confessions?

Well I had worked on Bourbon Street as a host and a doorman. I was kind of in that depressing service industry grind, working with people who had been waiters for twenty-thirty years who just saw no exit strategy. I was surrounded by this depressing sort of tourist culture, and I would see all these hellish scenes walking around. People laying in their own vomit, people fighting, all sorts of crazy things, and I wanted to figure out how to document them in this smart, funny way. One day I just decided to quit my job at the restaurant and have fun out here, and it’s an honor to be able to document this frenzy of sex, liquor, garbage, and drugs.

How would you explain what you’re doing from a sociological standpoint?

I would say that it’s a study of humanity at its most primal. This is kind of corny phrasing but I always thought of Bourbon Street as the last frontier of anarchy in the western world — it’s this backward city of corrupt institutions, just a completely destroyed civilization. People come here from all across the world and they get possessed by this spirit. As soon as they wander into the French Quarter they just lose their inhibitions, and you’re truly able to see what humans are like in their raw form, without the polishing of their mainstream lives. I think a lot of these people work their asses off all year at an insurance firm or something and get only like two weekends off, so they come to New Orleans and nearly drink themselves to death and release all the stress pent up inside. I think it’s a beautiful moment.

Do you think that you would be able to recreate this content anywhere else?

I think that you can keep the format and change the setting. I can imagine us having some funny content in Vegas, Cancun, Panama City Beach, or South Beach, but there is definitely something unique about New Orleans. It’s the diversity, it’s the fusion of people, but it’s also about the lack of money. The people who come to New Orleans don’t have much money to spend. Drinks here are around five bucks, even at the most expensive tourist spot, the drinks are twelve dollars. If you go to Vegas or South Beach, you’re getting taxed at the jump. I mean Vegas is like a money play — people aren’t blacked out, they are somebody so they understand how their life can be affected by the shit that I document.

Interesting. Which fictional character do you think would be the most boring to interview?

Well, the most boring people to interview are the people who think they’re some sort of shocking, fringe outlaw character when really they’re just a normal person. So Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, someone who thinks that they’re a rebel against the system. But you can’t really shock me, I’m out here on Bourbon all day.

You’ve seen it all! Give me some backstory on your zines.

I was nineteen and I hated college, so after I took my last final I basically sprinted out of campus. I left everything in my dorm, all of my stuff — clothes, electronics — I just didn’t even think about it, I kind of spazzed out. I hitchhiked across the country for seventy days alone without any plans where to stay or how to get food, it was sick. The experience definitely changed my life. I wrote the zine two years later, actually, and I had my homie illustrate it. I didn’t go into it with the mindset, “I’m gonna document this, I’m gonna be the next Jack Kerouac road dog,” I wasn’t tryna be on that. The zine is a couple of my stories, but I wanted to take myself out of the focus, so it's mostly composed of stories that people shared with me along the way. Deadbeats, outlaws, runaways, all sorts of fringe characters who were kind enough to tell me their story and let me record it on my phone. So I transcribed those recordings, had my homie Dominic Frost illustrate, and I made a zine.

Do you think that we have certain obligations to uphold when telling the stories of others?

Yes, definitely. I’m in school for journalism right now and I think it’s important to let people tell their own story, to remove yourself from it even if you disagree with what they’re saying. I made the decision to focus on other people because I really don’t think the world needs another On the Road, Into the Wild white boy-ass train-hopping book. Who wants to read that? I don’t want to read that! I don’t think anybody wants to read that! I dig that!

As a student of journalism, is there a something you were taught about the subject within an academic setting that you have respectfully unlearned out in the streets?

Well, in journalism school they teach you the conventional route. They want you to write for the school newspaper, to be this no-opinion arbiter of information, someone who just collects information like a White House correspondent and sends it out into the world, unfiltered. They teach you that you start at a tv station or a local newspaper and work your way up so that maybe, when you’re 35 or 40, you land at the New York Times or as a White House correspondent if you’re lucky. Me doing Quarter Confessions is the new media, and the media landscape is totally different from what I expected. The videos, for example, get more exposure than the New Orleans one-stop newspaper, we get more exposure than the top story of the day. I’m realizing that you don’t need a sponsor, you can take complete control of your own media. I did a lot of formal journalistic work before this, I’ve covered very serious subjects like prison reform, gentrification, Katrina Recovery, stuff like that. And while I felt like these were rewarding experiences, I also felt like with serious straightforward journalistic reporting, there is always this undercurrent of boredom. I like video, I like bare news, I like things that don’t necessarily follow the conventions of journalistic integrity. I like to make my own content, I think it’s more rewarding and I think that people like it more because I don’t follow someone else’s program.

Have you ever had to cut any of your content because it was too out there?

Oh yeah, I’ll tell you a few things we’ve had to cut. We had to cut this girl because she dropped her name, her college, and her sorority, then pointed to a dude saying, “I’m cheating on my boyfriend,” then flashed the camera and said, “Fuck my boyfriend,” and drops him by name. I put it online for like half and hour and then she had lawyers on us so we took it down.

Oh shit! Do you have a legal team?

No. Someone once confessed to having a sexual relationship with their dog.

Like, an ongoing sexual relationship?

Very ongoing. We had a dude confess to shooting a man to death for trying to molest his sister. We had a dude confess to stabbing a guy in a prison fight and paying off guards to get out of it, and he said what prison it was at. Just certain things that we have no reason to include.

Do you ever feel affected by the darker undercurrents of the content?

No, I guess because even before I was making this show, like when I was kickin’ it or working on Bourbon, I was always around it. I’m pretty desensitized to everything to the point where it kind of surprises me that other people are shocked by it. I’m in the streets all day, so when people go, “What!” it reminds me of how normal everywhere else is.

That makes sense. That guy who kept sleeping with his cousin kinda did it for me. What’s something invisible about QC that you wish everyone else was able to see?

So a lot of people accuse us of coercion, of taking advantage of drunk people. We actually don’t put anyone who is visibly blacked out or stumbling on the show, we don’t encourage anybody to flash the camera, we don’t want any Girl’s Gone Wild shit. I wish people could see how down the people on the show are to be on the show. That’s one thing I wish the viewer could see, how enthusiastic they are. A lot of them are fans of the show and they want to be on for a reason. The people who try to come after me claiming I’m exploitative, it is what it is, it’s not true. Mike and I are both empathetic and reasonable and we both have a good moral compass. It’s pretty obvious when something isn’t cool to put up. To me, that’s not funny. I mean it would be shocking and it would go viral, but you don’t achieve longevity by making viral stuff, you have to build an audience.

Where do you see Quarter Confessions going? I have no idea. We started four months ago and it’s grown so fast, I don’t know what to do next. I kind of want to change the platform a little bit, maybe do more stuff on Youtube because they don’t censor as hard as Instagram does. I also want to do storylines and monologues and have recurring characters, to make it more of a satirical party show. A party reality TV show in which the people involved don’t know that it’s satirical and think it’s just a regular party show like I’m Shmacked or one of those frat boy shows, but we’re really just making fun of people who are partying hard.

Who or what were your biggest sources of influence, or your biggest reference points?

When I was a kid, I was always into underground 90s DVD’s — stuff that you couldn’t watch on TV. Old Jackass videos, Indecline, Bumfights, War4, all those old Handycam skateboarding and graffiti documentaries that you had to order on DVD. That’s why we use the old camera and go for that vintage aesthetic, because, you know, cool kids love vintage aesthetics.

Naturally. Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?

I just want to say that nothing would be possible without Mike, the director. I’ve got to give him some credit, he’s the most down — he’s been down since day one. We’re out there shooting, just me and him, on Bourbon at three in the morning on a Friday night so we have to hold it down. He’s a real one, and he’s as dedicated to this project as I am, it’s just people don’t see him as much because he’s behind the camera, but he’s out here.

He’s the unsung hero of Quarter Confessions.

Exactly, he never gets enough credit.

Peep the exclusive office x Quarter Confessions video shot by Edward Buckles below.

Culture

Mowalola x Miss Sixty Launch with H. Lorenzo

I swing my legs over the ropes that guard the VIP entrance. Always over (I’m 5’10), never under. I’m late to the H. Lorenzo x Mowalola event, and the line is wrapped around the block. I don’t want to be an asshole, but I hate waiting in lines; it just ruins everything.

“Hey, my friend is DJing right now. My name should be down,” I say.

The youngish security guard looks me up and down. I have made an adventurous choice for this type of crowd. Neon pink hoodie, bright orange vest, my Raimundo jeans, and Jeremy Scott animal print sneakers. I let him take me in and look over his shoulder. Hmmm… I will be swathed in darkness when he lets me in. Dark night, dark clothes, dark makeup, furs, hoods, leather accessories, and sunglasses. I don’t recognize anyone, but it’s hard to tell who anyone is because I can’t see after 8 pm without my glasses. Night blindness. I can still catch a vibe though.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Mr. Guard says, interrupting my squinting.

“Who?,” I ask.

“The woman in charge of the list.”

That’s a drag. I want to dance. Lately, I am going out in the name of music.

“So…can I go in?” I ask.

“Just wait for her to get back.”

That sounded fine. I wait. The outdoor smoking area is packed. I imagine the inside to be a mirror of this, hopefully with people dancing instead of blowing smoke in each other’s eyes.

“You got instagram?” The guard asks me after about ten minutes of flirting.

“Can I go in?” I said.

He laughs. He lets me in the event without a wristband.

Inside, I understand why the other guard was gone for so long. I made a mental note to not drink too much liquid, the bathroom line is almost as long as the line outside. The party is popping, far from a flop.

I push through the crowd solo, following the speakers to the DJ booth. The immersive visuals provided me with enough light to make out Mowalola in a gold bikini and her low rise denim. My pulse races like the horse printed on the front of her coochie. That’s the point of the collection, obviously.

My hips swing around before I head towards the open bar. I smile to myself, noting that it’s a mezcal forward menu. I see a drink that disgusts me so I order it without hesitation. It’s a mezcal coffee concoction. My heart ’s ran through already, why not go all in? I head back to dance when I hear Shigecki’s set start. I’m jumping around, sweating, and when I pause for a beat I let out a yelp. There are strippers working poles opposite and behind the DJ booth. Good. Events should be sexy.

I end the night smoking my friend’s Korean strawberry cigarettes taking in the air of cool- when a man comes up to me wild-eyed exclaiming that we look just like one another. I look at him- no, not at all. I turn slowly, remembering what I should be doing: listening to DJ G2G’s set. Back inside, she is playing reggaeton type beats with lasers beaming out of her headphones (I want these). A rave in it of herself.

Too bad all the events end at 2 am in LA.

Culture

Vans Pipe Masters 2024

On the first night, Steve Van Doren and the Vans team hosted the heat draw for the competitors at a casual backyard barbecue. The son of Vans’ co-founder Paul Van Doren, Steve has worked in the family business for decades, and is now known as the Ambassador of Fun. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat made out of old shoes, he was definitely dressed for the part. The surfers, along with family and friends gathered in a relaxed setting as 40 men’s and 20 women’s names were drawn from a shoebox. The competition would run in 3 rounds, the top 4 men and 4 women with the highest scores moving onto the finals. When asked about their strategies, most gave answers along the lines of “get waves.” Refreshingly simple.

After waiting a few days for favorable conditions, the first day of competition kicked off with Women’s Round 1. It was finally time to see Pipeline in action. Banzai Pipeline is known as one of the most dangerous places to surf due to the powerful waves breaking over shallow and sharp reefs. With the potential to crash into the rocky edges or have leashes caught in caves, it takes a ton of skill–-and even more courage–to surf here. No stranger to these risks, the first heat included favorites Caity Simmers and “Queen of Pipeline” Moana Jones Wong, who showed off exactly why they’d been successful here in the past. Midway through the heats, Mother Nature decided to throw in another element as a light drizzle turned into a proper downpour. Rain or shine, the athletes went out unfazed, focused on getting their first points on the board.

After another short day’s break, the competition continued with the women’s second round and the men’s first. The beach was filled with spectators, locals and tourists alike, as the competition was free for all to attend. While fans rooted equally for the women and men, the most popular were the local Hawaiian athletes, which made up about half the competition. The women started off the day again, hyping up the crowd with incredible rides. One ride by Bettylou Sakura Johnson earned the first Bag of Cash of the day– a cash prize (of undisclosed amount) awarded in a brown paper bag to any surfer that pulls off a wow moment, excites the crowd, and pulls off something spectacular regardless of what the conditions might look like.

Winds picked up as the men’s competition began and two strategies quickly emerged: an aggressive approach, targeting any decent waves to build small scores; and a patient approach, waiting for the perfect wave to chase a high single score. Even the waves that were unrideable were a spectacle in itself. The sheer size, illustrated by the length of surfboards riding up and over, and the following crash of white water spray was hypnotizing. Then imagining having to experience it out on the water, duck diving under or being lifted over, brought a renewed respect for the surfers.

After watching these early rounds, it was time for office to head back to the cold. With the competition officially spanning from December 8-20, it seemed the forecast was gearing up for some massive waves— and it didn’t disappoint. Following from afar through Vans’ Instagram and live updates, we saw the full extent of what it means to surf at Pipeline. After a series of electrifying and daring surfs, the 2024 winners were crowned: Erin Brooks and Nathan Florence.

The thrill of watching top athletes compete at the highest level of their sport, even remotely, never fails to inspire. Few sports surrender so completely to the forces of nature as surfing does. And at its core, surfing is all about having a deep respect for the ocean—its unpredictable whims, its immense power, and its ever-changing moods.

Culture

The Cost of Queendom

December 17, 2024

One summer afternoon in New York, a few days after their New York premiere of the acclaimed documentary Queendom, office met up with documentary filmmaker Agniia Galdanova and producer Igor Myakotin at a tattoo parlor on the west side of Manhattan. While Agniia received a tattoo of the portmanteau “DOCU CUNT” across her fists, she — unfazed by the needle on her knuckles — answered our questions alongside Igor about the making of the stirring story that has traveled around the world.

One of the opening scenes of Queendom depicts a ritual many of us are all too familiar with in the 21st century. Jenna Marvin, the documentary film’s central subject, takes her friend along with her to take photos for Instagram. When she finds a suitable backdrop, she poses, poses, poses, and then reviews the photos. Dissatisfied, she gives her notes, and then returns to pose, pose, pose again.

By Brook Aster
Photos by Liv Solomon

The ritual may be familiar, but nothing else about the scene — from its setting to its stakes — is ordinary. The backdrop behind Jenna is a sweeping expanse of ice and snow in a small Russian port town called Magadan. Jenna is dressed in drag, but not drag of the Rupaul’s Drag Race variety; her drag has been referred to as “creature drag.” Her signature white face paint, platform heels and surrealist costumes, with their exaggerated sculptural proportions and use of duct tape and repurposed items, catches the ire of her neighbors and the love of online admirers alike. Jenna eventually accrued a following on social media for her public and technically illegal drag performances, which often involved little more than her walking or being in public spaces but nevertheless were often met with abuse and threats of imprisonment.

But when Agniia first encountered Jenna, she hadn’t yet reached the level of virality that would eventually come in the years to follow. The filmmaker was researching different drag performers in Russia for her sophomore project, which she thought would be a docuseries, when she heard from a friend about a young drag queen from Magadan. “I was like, this is impossible. I have to meet this person,” Agniia remembers. “And I could not actually go meet her because I was in Moscow and she was in Saint Petersburg, so I sent a friend of mine with whom I’d been studying with in film school, and she went and filmed the sample.” The simple video, showing Jenna and her friend getting dressed up for a party, struck something in Agniia. The drag was an earlier, more prototypical version of the style Jenna is now known for; less duct tape and ornamentation, but still that signature striking makeup. “Something sparked. I knew I just had to stick to this feeling,” Agniia says. She decided to turn the docuseries into a documentary solely focused on Jenna.

Around that time, the entire world came to a grinding halt: the onset of COVID-19 pandemic had just led to lockdowns around the globe. With only a couple thousand followers on social media at that point in time, Jenna had tried to branch out and connect with other drag artists in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but faced rejection; her drag was extremely unconventional, and not even other drag artists quite understood it. “I think we found each other at the right moment, because nobody knew what to do, how to cope with all this,” Agniia says. “Jenna was saying that she was lost, and she also didn't know how to develop her art next.”

Unlike some of the other artists Agniia had initially researched, Jenna didn’t need much convincing to allow the camera into her life. “[Especially] after COVID came, there wasn't really [any] drag in my life,” Jenna recounts when I speak to her later over Zoom. “I realized that what drag is for me is not just a costume, a dress, something that you leave, that you take off and then in the dead of the night you put back on. Later, I understood that this is who I am, that I am art and I am drag, and that this is way bigger and more important than just clothing or costume.”

[LEFT TO RIGHT: Agniia Galdanova, Jenna Marvin, Igor Myakotin]

When it came time to move into production stages, Agniia sent a clip to Igor, who had been referred to her by a past colleague. When Igor saw the footage, he was similarly struck by Jenna — and even more struck to find out she shared his small hometown of Magadan. “It was just so fateful to know that I also come from this town, and I've never seen it through this cinematic lens, through the vision that Agniia has,” he says. “I was mesmerized by the footage, mesmerized by Jenna. I thought to myself, I have to do everything I can [for us] to work together, whatever the collaboration is gonna be.”

The two followed Jenna for over three years; Agniia first relocated to St. Petersburg, where Jenna had taken up residence after leaving her grandparents’ home in Magadan, and later Jenna moved in with Agniia in her home in Moscow. All the while, Igor and his team worked remotely from the United States to meet Agniia’s production needs. Inevitably, with all their time spent together, Agniia and Jenna became close.

“There is an unspoken rule in documentary filmmaking that you have to keep this line, and you can’t overcome certain boundaries,” Agniia explains. “In my first film, it was not an easy subject [to do this with] as well. I was following a family for seven months, and [we became] close, but I always was trying to keep my distance, and was constantly thinking about it. How much should I say? How much should I give?” But as she got to know Jenna, it became clear that this time, that distance wouldn’t be possible. “With Jenna almost from the very beginning, I was like, fuck it. That’s not going to work with this one. I'm going to break this rule 100%. I never regretted it, because that's actually what built up the trust that is there.”

As Jenna's public performances continued and began to garner more public attention, her online audience multiplied. Among her virtual admirers was French fashion maven Michèle Lamy, who would eventually sign onto Queendom as an executive producer. Lamy's discovery of Jenna led to an invitation to walk in the Rick Owens show in Paris — her first time modeling, and her first time leaving Russia in her life. Of course, Agniia and her camera followed. But most of their excursions were not so glamorous; many of Jenna's performances shown in the documentary were undertaken at a real risk to her physical safety, and by extension, to the safety of Agniia. But neither of them were daunted.

I remember who I am. And this is what carries me through this life.

After all, Jenna was used to both taking risks and documenting them well before she was the subject of a film; she and her friends long filmed the often impassioned, sometimes violent reactions of strangers and policemen to their mere existence in public spaces in drag. And after a protest performance in which she wrapped herself in the Russian flag, Jenna was kicked out of beauty school, her last attempt at a practical route before pursuing her drag as a full time venture.

The only time Agniia tried to dissuade her was on Paratrooper’s Day, a Russian military holiday often characterized by the drunk soldiers roaming the streets. The risk for violence was especially high. “On Paratroopers Day, people say you can't come out in skinny jeans or with nail polish,” Jenna describes. “[I think] you should do the opposite. You should really make a statement and come out wearing what you want to wear. I think that clothes, what we wear, is really at some point beyond our psyche, our mind, our understanding. It is as if it's a certain kind of spice that is enticing you and you follow the scent of that spice and you don't see anything else except that scent and you follow it. That's how I see it.”

“I was like, ‘girl, maybe we should not do that,’” Agniia says. “Igor was stressing out and she told us, ‘well, you don't need to follow me. I'm gonna go and do it. I don't care if you're coming or not.’” In the end, Jenna ventured out for her performance anyway, protesting the then-recent invasion of Ukraine. Agniia followed. Not shown in the film is that the two were arrested, and managed to talk the police out of their arrest.

Not too long after, she would have to leave Russia again, this time moving for Paris for good; the film follows her struggles to get a visa in time to leave the country after the onset of the war. “It's already been three years that I've been in France, and it is important for me to understand and remember who I am, and to remember that pain, those moments when we were back in Russia doing drag, fighting with the police and law enforcement,” Jenna says. “It is important that this resistance continues and that those voices are not being silenced. Yes, here there’s much more freedom, there are pride parades and queer people can get married, but this is an illusion because there are also places where you cannot get married and you cannot enjoy the same freedoms. I cling to who I am, who I was from the very beginning. I remember who I am. And this is what carries me through this life.”

“Meeting Jenna gave me hope for the future of the country, because governments come and go, people in power come and go, but the generations change at the same time,” Igor says. “So it warms my heart to see that someone like her came from somewhere like that. If I saw her back then at a similar age, it would be even more personal. I think I would’ve accepted myself as gay quicker, and I wouldn't be nervous or closed and not open to the world or myself… Working with this project also meant that we were amplifying the voices of many, many people who couldn't speak like Jenna could.”

For Agniia, the honor of telling Jenna's story is only paralleled by the honor of having her in her life. “We found each other,” Agniia says. “And what I learned from Jenna is so precious; about life, about art, about surviving. And I appreciate it a lot. This film grew so much larger than just a documentary, because I have a family now, a working family.”

Queendom is now available to stream on Apple TV.