I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together!

No, that's not someone dressed up as Carol Burnett for Halloween.  It's really comedy legend Carol Burnett, one of my all-time favorites!  And my double chin.  Couldn't get the treat without the trick.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This!)

Music has always been a huge part of my life.  As a gay boy growing up in a small town in the '80s, I turned to music as an escape, racing to the record store with my allowance money to whenever a new Culture Club album came out, counting down with Casey Kasem every Sunday morning or poring through the latest issue of Rolling Stone, 16 or Star Hits, reading the articles two and three times before carefully pulling out the posters to hang on my bedroom wall.  Madonna, Boy George and Duran Duran transported me to exotic worlds where the rain was purple, everyone dated supermodels, had pet lions and got chased on yachts and in jungles by dangerous women in body paint, exposing me to a world much bigger than the boredom and isolation of the town I grew up in.  Twenty (ahem!) years later, that music still resonates with me, sitting in my memory bank almost frozen in time.

Among the greatest was goddess, icon, advocate and all around genius Annie Lennox, whose pure and powerful voice is one of the most beautiful instruments I've ever heard.  Defiant one moment and vulnerable the next, this otherworldly creature still helps me navigate the jagged terrain of my heart.  And I'll be sure to thank her tomorrow, when I'll be one of ten people attending Annie Lennox: Iconography at SiriusXM studios.  That's right bitches!  While you're stuck in meetings or answering more mind numbing phone calls from idiot coworkers, I'll be spending my lunch hour with one of the greatest female singers of my generation.  I'll tell her you said hi, and maybe even get this photo signed.

Sharknado Touches Down In NYC!

There comes a time in every party slut's life when they start to look a little busted, especially when they spent their 20's and 30's destroying their bodies with coke, cock and Cristal, so it's a miracle that Tara Reid looks as good as she does in this photo.  Sure she's got bags under her eyes, brushed her hair with a tumbleweed and fished that outfit out of the bargain bin at Hot Topic in 1993, but she's upright on a Monday morning and that's something!

Forever Your Gurl!

How the fuck is American Idol still on TV?  The show hasn't produced a 'star' in the last hundred seasons, and really hasn't been the same without the incoherent ramblings of the heavily medicated Vicodin angel Paula Abdul.  Paula was the thread that bound the show together, and I'm shocked it hasn't all come crashing down without her.  In town to promote her breast cancer awareness video, which is as cringeworthy as it sounds, Paula's glazed over eyes lit up arriving at the Today Show yesterday to a crowd of three fans, signing autographs and posing for photos like it was 1989 and she was still dueting with MC Skat Kat, hugging and kissing me like I was her dealer making a house call.  Someone get this girl back on network TV quick!

Billy Idol Popped My Hotel Cherry, and Other Rock and Roll Tales of the Week

It's not every day I get to meet some of the greatest musicians of my lifetime....oh who the fuck am I kidding?  Yes it is!  In the last few weeks alone I've met Slash, Neil Diamond, Melissa Etheridge, John Mellencamp and Chris Stein, and we all know what happened a few weeks back with Boy George!  This week was no different, yet MUCH more surreal, which is how I found myself standing outside the London Hotel at 6:15 AM Wednesday waiting for Billy Idol.

I swore to myself that I would never be that fan that stalks a hotel, but the son of a bitch blew past all the graphers his fans at the Today Show the day before,

and I damn sure wasn't gonna spend two hours at the Barnes & Noble booksigning and be told I couldn't take a photo with him.  Well someone woke late, alone, and on the wrong side of the bed, because the fucker tried to brush me off again leaving the hotel for the Stern show until I asked him to sign the memoir he's in town promoting, which he begrudgingly did as he walked to the SUV and took off without posing for a photo.

Fucking punks!

Good thing I live in New York and there's traffic, because I sprinted to the Sirius building without having a heart attack, barely beating him, only for him to blow past all the fans waiting and head straight into the building.  MOTHERFUCKER!  IT'S ON!  Two hours (and two radio interviews) later, he finally leaves the building and I'm right there waiting, and while the publicist says 'no photos' (standard publicist bullshit) I stood beside him, he smiled/sneered/did that Billy Idol face he's done so many times, and I finally go this picture.

Having invested four hours into an autograph and a photo, I won't feel bad illegally downloading his new album Kings & Queens of the Underground, due out October 21st.

So last night, thanks to a dubiously obtained press pass and a friend with persuasive email skills, I'm at the opening reception of 24 Karat Gold, a photographic exhibit of Polaroids Stevie Nicks took on tour in the 70's and 80's.  My love of Miss Stevie Gypsy Goddess Rhiaaaaaanon Nicks is legendary, so to be in such an intimate setting with the white witch (and a thousand of our closes friends) was a dream come true and I could hardly hold my camera steady to take these photos and not wet myself.
STEVIE FUCKING NICKS you guys!!!!!!

There to show support were bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie (I KNOW!)

and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics!  I KNOW!

I did everything I could to get a photo with Stevie so I could die today feeling complete, but she wasn't having any of the crowd, disappearing into a back room to do a line of coke compose herself before viewing the exhibit, flanked by bodyguards in tight suits shouting "Stand back" without any trace of irony at all.

Blondie Ambition

I've been a fan for a long time, but for some reason I've been obsessed with Blondie lately.  Like full on OBSESSED.  Like, greatest hits pumping my morning workouts EVERY SINGLE MORNING obsessed.  Maybe it's because the opening strains of Heart of Glass still make me smile whenever and wherever I hear them?  Maybe it's that I'm living in NYC now and they're such a part of the city's musical history?  Maybe I'm regressing back to 9 years old, playing hide and seek with the kids in the neighborhood while Kenny Reinhardt sang 'One way, or another, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha' trying to find us?  Maybe it's because at 69 years old Debbie Harry is still a badass that can put all these new young bitches to shame?  Whatever it is, Blondie is still dropping their shit and scattering glittery shards of YES all over the dancefloor in my brain!

To coincide with Blondie's 40th anniversary and the release of their new album Ghosts of Download, guitarist Chris Stein shared his iconic photographs of Debbie Harry and 'the cool creatures of the '70s and '80s New York rock scene' in  Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie and the Advent of Punk, which documents the band's life on stage, on the road and at home, and is THE coffee table book of the season in my house.  Chris signed my copy and was cool enough to sign the vintage Rolling Stone I've been holding onto since 1979 I bought it on ebay last year and will one day get around to framing.