As chairman of the International Order of Sodomites - the renowned entity that regulates the proper behavior, etiquette and culture of the gay community - one would think that Justin Sayre would have his hands full, but the summer of 2016 brings two other very exciting projects to his resume. He is releasing his first comedy album, appropriately called The Gay Agenda, and he will host another edition of his now iconic Night of a Thousand Judys, a unique theatrical experience that benefits The Ali Forney Center while paying tribute to the legacy of Miss Judy Garland. I spoke to Justin about all of this, his upcoming book, and the importance of kindness.

A comedy album seems to go along the lines of your love for everything vintage. Did you have any comedy albums you loved growing up or that inspired this one?

I listened to a lot of old comedy routines like Jack Benny, and Burns and Allen when I was a kid. I branched out to people like Nichols and May, who are still my favorite, and Lily Tomlin. There is something magical about comedy albums, you’re hearing the person and understanding how jokes and stories are created in a visceral way. I’m proud of having one of my own.

Like all things vintage, a comedy album can also be seen as old fashioned. Did that worry you at all?

Louis C.K.,Kathy Griffin put out comedy albums, it’s a thing that still happens, it’s not so archaic. I’m not churning butter somewhere. I think people are getting a lot of media out there, so we’re doing a comedy album, we have a podcast, our shows are taped and put on the air. This just rounds out the work I’m already putting out.

What went into selecting the pieces that would go into the comedy album? How did you select bits that you thought people would want to revisit?

That was the hardest thing because I never repeat at The Meeting, it’s always a new show. So I had to go back and listen to hours and hours of tapes in order to figure out what things would give people a sense of the show. We included things that people would quote to me, it was about figuring out what was our best. This first album is a nice sampling of what the show is and it’s a nice time capsule of what the show will be.

I think my favorite bit in the album were the Sex and the City pitches. Which would you most like to see come to life?

I kinda like the zombie apocalypse, I like the girls in trouble. The funny thing is I now work with Michael Patrick King who was the showrunner and directed both movies, maybe I can put a bug in his ear and ask him to make the movie.

Something that always strikes me as lovely is how much you insist on the importance of kindness among members of the Order. I also was worried I would never be able to reference you around children but then I gave my nieces Husky and they read it in like an afternoon. Is it hard to talk about kindness in a world that can be just the opposite of that?

I sometimes get told I’m very critical, and I am about societal things, about the way we think and interact. But I think it behooves us as a community to be kind to one another, even if you’re making fun of something people do that you don’t like, I approach it with an energy of knowing that I make mistakes, but I’m trying to be a little better. It’s all about examining how we act with one another, in a highfalutin way it’s about the energy we put out. I think us LGBT folks have to make the world better on our own and that starts with kindness towards each other.

Why is Pretty not here yet?

It comes out in the summer of 2017, we’re in the second edit and it’s going well. Then the third book will be out the following year.

If they get turned into movies please don’t split the last chapter into two.

No, I won’t.

NYC is so gross and hot right now and I’ve been called “masc” twice today because I’m wearing a baseball cap. How does one stay away from the sun without being called that awful word?

(Laughs) Next time I see you we’ll put a nice brooch on that hat. You should be able to wear any kind of hat you want, we’ll just add a little flair to it.

I wish I had that hat Kate Winslet wears in Titanic.

It’s very hard to keep those in the house, they’re very bulky.

In Love’s Refrain you wrote “beauty as I had learned it was the realm of women”, I wondered if by now you’d been able to figure out why gay men identify so easily with famous women?

When you go see movies as a kid you identify with women because in some ways you share their desires. You wanted to get the guy in the end and at least when I was a kid there weren’t enough gay things. As we get older we share a lot of sensibilities with women, or at least things that have been typically female like being a decorator, or wanting things to have a certain style. Those things are often relegated to the realm of women. Gay men can relate to that and find comfort in that, I think women also find safeness and strength in gay men. I love women, I just adore them. I’m a proud gay feminist.

Also, Love’s Refrain made me think of Melancholia which you also reference in the album. Does this make Kiki officially beloved by the Order?

I think she is beloved, she’s not beloved by me, but other people really love her. I can’t forgive her for Marie Antoinette yet. Such a beautiful movie and every time she opened her mouth she sounded like a teenager from Cherry Hill. She earned points for Fargo though.

I think all nights should be dedicated to Judy Garland, but what about this Night of a Thousand Judys will be even more special?

We get some of the most amazing talent from Broadway and New York to come and dedicate their time and energy to this project. I’m always shocked and in awe of the amount of people we get and the talent level. This year we’re getting Alice Ripley, Lillias White, Annie Golden and all these tremendous folks. We always want the artists to tell us what Judy Garland means to them, they do songs that touched them. From that we’ve seen some amazing things, we’ve had bluegrass versions of songs, rockabilly, tangos, but always with a nod to this amazing performer. Judy is part of the consciousness of what it means to be an amazing performer.

Where do you stand on the Judy hologram thing? Kill it with fire or the more Judy the merrier?

I don’t care for that stuff. I really think we’re getting to a place where the performer isn’t important in some ways. I saw Anohni’s show at the Armory and with this amazing voice and presence, she was covered in a mask for an hour and a half. When we go back and use holograms to get an inkling of what it was like to see someone who is long dead, we’re kind of robbing ourselves of the imagination of what things were like. It’s not good for artists to tell them that once we have their image we have an idea of them. The truth is you don’t. It’s not fair that we didn’t all get to see Judy, but we didn’t. You look at the films, we hear the stories, and there is something precious and rare about that which we should celebrate.

Is it sacrilege to ask what your favorite Judy songs are?

There’s two things, one is when she sang “Ol’ Man River” on her television show, I love it because she’s so raw and emotional. She knows what that song is so well, you wouldn’t necessarily equate that song with her but she makes it her own. The other thing is a rare song that I always find myself listening to, it’s from a movie called Presenting Lily Mars where she plays a young girl who wants to get into showbiz. She blows an audition, she’s sitting on the stage after the audition and this old woman who is cleaning the theater tells her “don’t worry, I used to be big star in vaudeville and now I’m cleaning the floors, but I’m still happy”. They sing a duet called “Every Little Movement (Has a Meaning All Its Own)” which is a Ziegfeld Follies from the 1910s. It’s such a small part of the Judy lexicon but I always go back to this because she has this moment. She’s such a brilliant actress and you even hear it in her voice, she’s so grateful of being part of this artform and to be part of a family of artists. It reminds me of what you should do as an artist, you should pass it forward. It makes me happy.

For more on Justin Sayre visit his website. For tickets to Night of a Thousand Judys click here.