Going Out On A High

Who better to close out my NYC celebrity experience than Amy Sedaris, the madcap actress/comedian responsible for Strangers With Candy's iconic Jerri Blank.  Mix a dose of kooky, two sprinkles of twisted sensibility and a side of depravity, and you've got Amy.  And the last seven years of my life in New York.  The perfect send off, if not the perfect picture.

V is for Vanna!

The Gods have smiled down on me and I don't have to go out on a Wilson Cruz low, because Pat Sajak and original beacon of gameshow glamour and premiere letter turner Vanna White were at The Paley Center for Media Wednesday night to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Wheel of Fortune! 


Let THAT sink in for a minute. 


Thirty-five years of Wheel of Fortune, going all the way back to the days when winners had to spend every damn cent they won on tacky shit like ceramic dalmation statues and silver-plated peanut bowls shaped like fish.


That's thirty-five years of me screaming at the TV every time some idiot wastes their money buying a goddamn vowel, but it's also thirty-five years of Vanna's exquisite Caché gowns that are the epitome of GLAMOUR, her luscious mane of ash brown hair that takes hair spray like nobody's business, and a job so easy even a Trump could do it.

Hey Gurl, Hey!

In case you haven't heard, I'm moving to Miami in a few weeks, forcing me into celebrity semi-retirement since I won't be stalking Telemundo studios or popping bottles in the club in South Beach, and I really wanted to go out on a high note with an A-list celebrity like Meryl Streep or Linda Evangelista or Jocelyn Wildenstein, and not this queen from that mid-90's TV show and a couple gay, indie films that I used to see shirtless and high as a kite on the dancefloor every weekend I'd go out in LA (and I mean EVERY weekend), but I took the photo anyway because Petra Nemcova was either very early or very late arriving at Good Day New York, but either way I never saw her and I didn't want the day to be a total waste of time, so here's Wilson Cruz.

Hey, How's Your News?

With all the fake news coming out of right field, ie Fox News, Breitbart, twitter and that potato head White House mouthpiece with the tragic makeup and Rose Nyland wardrobe, it's hard to tell who you can trust for information these days, but one thing I know for sure is that you can always rely on Dan Rather for the truth.  With roots going back to the Civil Rights Movement, Watergate and the war in Vietnam, he's a giant of broadcast journalism who has seen and reported on it all, and has proven to be a steady hand and voice of reason in these toxic times.  Giving voice to the marginalized and calling out hypocrisy through his website News and Guts and his weekly Sirius radio show Dan Rather's America, he also influenced one of R.E.M.'s best songs What's the Frequency, Kenneth? after being attacked by two assailants repeating the phrase "Kenneth, what's the frequency?", making him cooler than most grandpas out there.

What Happens When Annie Hall Takes Styling Tips from Beetlejuice

Diane Keaton hasn't given a fuck since the days of Annie Hall, so it's no surprise that she would build a house from the ground up, taking inspiration solely from Pinterest, and then write a book about the process.  Or that she would dress like a Cirque du Soleil version of the aging Supreme from American Horror Story: Coven while out promoting it. 

Fun fact: I went to this signing with my friend Blake, who actually bought the book for his mother Rhonda.  After he got it signed and I took his picture I jumped right in for mine (without buying the book), and when Diane asked who I was I told her we were brothers, even though we look nothing alike and Blake has a southern accent.  She asked what I thought of Rhonda, and I asked "what's not to love?"  I lied to Diane Keaton, and I am going to hell.

The Drama!

I've never been into blondes (or women), but I've always had a crush on Catherine Oxenberg.  From the moment she showed up in mother Alexis Colby's penthouse unannounced to her affair with Alexis' fiance Dex Dexter to her doomed marriage to Prince Michael of Moldavia in Dynasty's greatest cliffhanger of all time, her portrayal of secret, spoiled, petulant Carrington daughter Amanda had me from the start.  Catherine's real life is just as messy.  The daughter of Yugoslav royalty, she had an out of wedlock child with a drug smuggler, was married to my Hollywood idol Robert Evans for nine days, then jumped on Starship Troopers hunk Casper Van Dien's dick for sixteen years.  Still gorgeous, she's currently trying to rescue her daughter from a cult, proving that sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

How Do You Say Deee-Groovy?

I know I'm the first person you all think of when you hear funk music, but the truth is I don't know shit about it.  Aside from a couple Rufus songs featuring Chaka Khan, the only funk I know is the stench of a ripe New York City subway in the summer, but that didn't stop me from dragging my 5% less body fat ass down to The Strand tonight to meet funk legend Bootsy Collins.  Except for his work on the Deee-Lite masterpiece Groove Is In The Heart I don't know a damn thing about him, but this outfit is deee-groovy!

Who's Your Daddy?

Maury Povitch has been bringing daddies together with their illegitimate children since 1981. That's a lot of skanks serving vagina all around town!  If it wasn’t for Maury, many daddies wouldn’t even know they have children.  Plus, it's always nice for the mother to know who to sue for child support payments. Maury brings them all together. Simply beautiful.  Thanks Maury!

She's As Miserable As We Are Under A Trump Presidency

Me:  "Mrs. Trump, would you mind taking a picture?"

Her: "mumble, mumble mumble....On the way out."

Me: "I won't be here on the way out.  I have to go to work."  (lie - I took the day off)

Her: "Okay, hurry up."

Kevin takes selfie in which he looks like a gargoyle.

Her: "Don't post it."

She clearly doesn't know me.

You Must Love Her

At this point in my celebrity stalking career, it takes A LOT to intimidate me out of asking a celebrity for a photo, but you guys have NO IDEA how apprehensive I was approaching Broadway legend (and Corky's mom) Patti LuPone for this photo.  With two Grammys and two Tonys to her credit, and a resume that includes originating the role of Eva Perón in Evita on Broadway, Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables, Norma Desmond in the original London production of Sunset Boulevard and Rose in the Broadway revival of Gypsy, Patti is known for belting out songs in ALL CAPS, giving her unfiltered thoughts during interviews and stopping the show to call out rude tricks for texting or taking pictures during performances. In short, she scares the shit out of me!  But June is gay pride month, so I summoned my inner queen and gingerly approached, and I'm pleased to report that La Patti could not have been nicer!

To Sir, With Love

She's best known for her 60's hit "To Sir With Love" and the Bond theme "Man With The Golden Gun", and she co-wrote Tina Turner's international hit "I Don't Want to Fight." She was awarded an Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, had flings with David Bowie and Monkee Davy Jones, and her ex-husbands include Bee Gee Maurice Gibb and hairdresser-to-the-stars John Frieda, but she has Edina Monsoon as her PR(!), and THAT'S what got me excited to meet legendary Scottish songstress Lulu yesterday.  Sadly, Eddy was nowhere in sight, which explains why there was also no car for Lulu when she left.

So Nice I Got Her Twice

There is something otherworldy about a supermodel, that preternaturally perfect six-foot-tall woman with the face and hair of a Homecoming Queen Skipper doll who won't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day (copyright: Linda Evangelista), and when you're blessed with the chance to see one in the wild you stand back in awe and bask in the glamor, all the while suppressing your desire that they suffer some malady like bulimia, bankruptcy or a messy public breakup as karmic retribution for their genetic superiority.  But as Carol Alt strode down East 67th street like it was the Perry Ellis runway circa 1982 there was no schadenfreude, because on top of being radiantly beautiful and looking far younger than her 56 years, Carol is one of the nicest models I've ever met, always taking time to chat, take photos and sign autographs for anyone who recognizes her and even the losers passing by on the street who see you taking a picture of "someone famous" and want one too, which explains why I have not one but two pictures with her over the last two days. 

And Four More, And Three More....

When I was in my early twenties I knew this girl named Susan.  She was a coworker of mine who became a good friend, as most fag hags in my life have, and we used to get up to all kinds of mischief together.  Like the time we bought tickets for a U2 concert in Philadelphia even though we lived in DC, then didn't tell another friend who agreed to drive us to the concert that we'd already seen the show at RFK stadium without her.  Or the time we decided to run a 5K in Central Park on New Years Eve with the promise of fireworks and free champagne at the finish line and ended up in some dingy NYC hotel with separate rooms and an adjoining bathroom of all things.  Or when she convinced me that buying a pop art painting of a gecko from a street artist outside the Met was a good investment - I still have the painting, and met the artist again many years later, but it's not worth shit.  Or all the weekend trips we'd take to CostCo for groceries that we split, or the meals we cooked together so we could theoretically save money by not going out to lunch every day, which gave us plenty of time to do Denise Austin workout videos in the makeshift gym in our office building on our lunch hour.  So this morning when I met Denise Austin I was reminded of my friend Susan as I thanked her for starting me on my path to health and whatever kind of wellness this mudslide of a body can achieve.

We WILL Survive

If you're gay, grew up in the 70's, have ever turned on a radio or been to a wedding or bar mitzvah in the last 40 years you're familiar with Gloria Gaynor, the disco diva whose 1978 megahit I Will Survive became the anthem of emancipation for anyone who's ever been in a shitty relationship, your coworker in accounting who busted out some smoking hot hair whipping moves and danced, danced, DANCED like nobody was watching at last year's Christmas party, and every queen who ever had to fight the white, heterosexual patriarchy for a spot next to a shirtless go-go dancer on the dancefloor of life.  Gloria became something of a gay icon, scoring hits with Never Can Say Goodbye and I Am What I Am before she turned to Christianity and her career fizzled into a series of nostalgia appearances at county fairs and casinos like the Morongo Casino Resort just off the 10 on the way to Palm Springs, but now she's back from outerspace to celebrate I Will Survive's induction into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry with a dance party in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson building, just in time to remind us that even in the dark ages of a fascist Trump regime, with strength, persistence, common decency and the courage to resist, we WILL survive.

I Survived the Moldavian Massacre. She Didn't.

There are cliffhangers, and then there are CLIFFHANGERS, and thirty two years ago this month, Dynasty ended it's fifth season with the mother of all cliffhangers.  Of course I'm talking about the Moldavian massacre, in which Amanda Carrington, long lost daughter of Blake Carrington and Alexis Colby, marches down the aisle to wed Prince Michael of Moldavia, a man she's not sure she loves (but think of the financial advantages!) just as terrorists spray the chapel with bullets in a military coup, leaving the guests lying bloodied and lifeless, but still looking glamorous of course and with no bullet holes in sight, and leaving us all wondering "Who will live?  Who will die?" all summer long.  As it turns out, Moldavian rebels are shitty shots, and the only casualties were Steven's boyfriend Luke Fuller and Lady Ashley Mitchell, two minor characters that were forgotten as soon as everyone returned to Denver. 


Except that I never forgot, and I was thrilled to meet Lady Ashley's portrayer, the glamorous and incredibly gracious Ali MacGraw, yesterday on the Upper East Side, gushing about how much I loved her on Dynasty and laughing with her about how wonderful the wedding was.

Fun fact:  Ali was once married to Robert Evans, the legendary former head of Paramount Pictures and Hollywood force of nature, who was a client of my previous law firm (and was also briefly married to Catherine Oxenberg, who played Amanda Carrington.  Weird, huh?).  I was once asked to deliver a very sizable royalty check to Woodland, his famed Beverly Hills estate, and to this day I regret not staying for the drink that was offered to me because I was running late due to traffic and had dinner reservations.

"Miss Truvy, I promise that my personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair."

Remember back in the '80s when Daryl Hannah was the hottest thing around, starring in hit movies like Splash, Roxanne, Blade Runner and every queen's favorite, Steel Magnolias while dating John F. Kennedy Jr. until Jackie told John-John that she wasn't marriage material and he broke it off and then ended up at the bottom of the ocean with Carolyn Bessette?  Remember when she kicked Uma Thurman's ass in Kill Bill, then went all spacey hippie bohemian, living in a solar powered teepee built with green materials, chaining herself to a walnut tree and getting arrested multiple times protesting in support of environmental causes?


I sure do!


She may be bat shit crazy right now, but you guys!!! She fucked John-John and worked in Truvy's beauty salon!!!

A Good Friday to You Too

If you're super religious like I am you probably spent your Good Friday in church, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary, before his resurrection on the third day provided the way to heaven for all us sinners who could never get there on our own.


Because I'm a little fucked up ("a little?" - you) my Good Friday deviated slightly, and involved meeting the Pope of Fashion, Andre Leon Talley as he rose from the chiffon trenches for his first Sirius XM radio show, where he touched me on the forehead and blessed me with his fabulousness.


Different strokes kids.

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World?

You might (but probably don't) remember Mayte Garcia as Prince's belly dancing femme fatale first wife and the inspiration for his single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" before they inevitably divorced and she jumped on Tommy Lee's monster cock (I own saw the sex tape - it's HUGE!), and now she's peddling a tell all book about her time with Jehovah's sexiest witness, coincidentally timed to the one year anniversary of his death.  Don't judge.  She probably didn't get more than a box of Graffiti Bridge VHS tapes and an ass-less yellow lace jumpsuit in the divorce settlement, and we've all got bills to pay.

Promiscuous

Nelly Furtado, the slightly wonky Idina Menzel lookalike whose anthem "Promiscuous" became my jam and informed my slutty ways when I first moved to LA is back with a new album, her first in five years, and girl is on the ho stroll to promote the shit out of it.  I caught up with her on the Upper West Side this morning after my workout, then walked to work and had too many blueberries for breakfast because they are supposed to be good for my prostate, and I've had a stomach ache all day, which means I won't be dancing to Nelly's new music anytime soon.

(Spell)BOUND!

Please sign me up for a lifetime supply of whatever dead fetus cells Jennifer Tilly is using to stay so young and fresh.  The 58 year old star of direct-to-video-on-demand masterpieces Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky and the soon to be released Cult of Chucky hasn't aged a day since Gina Gershon went down on her glamorous chola Betty Boop snatch in Bound back in 1996!  I don't think she's gone under the knife, so either she's bathing in virgin blood or Gina's tongue is magic, and if that's the case she can eat my snatch and keep me young too, because I AM that vain and I'm not too proud to admit it.

Cuchi Cuchi With The Star!

The latest cast of Dancing to Pay The Damn Rent was revealed this morning on Good Morning America, and sprinkled among those willing to humiliate themselves on live television is the Swarovski encrusted star power of an international treasure who has fascinated me since her Hollywood Squares panelist days, her eight appearances on The Love Boat, and her starring turn in the Christmas episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse; an ageless sequined sparkler who made a career out of busting and thrusting her shit and is about to share her talents with the world!  As she walked to the waiting van after the announcement I channeled every Telenovela I ever watched on the treadmill at the gym and every Cuban trick I ever slept with in Miami, calling out to her with what little Spanish I can remember, "Charo!  Charo!  Por favor!"  I even rolled my damn r's like Mrs. Bogardus taught me to in high school!  And I thought my gay heart would explode and then set itself on fire and scream "Balenciaga!" in it's final moments on earth as Charo STEPPED OUT OF THE VAN, cuchied over to the barricade, and posed for this picture like the intergalactic superstar and future mirror ball trophy winner that she is.

The Grand Dame of Dish

It's not every day you get to meet the woman whose writing informed your childhood; the woman who planted the seeds of a lifelong fascination with fame in all its fabulous, sordid glory.  With scandalous blind items and tales of celebrity encounters at glamorous parties, legendary gossip columnist Liz Smith singlehandedly transported a goofy, starstruck gay boy from a lonely bedroom in a house on a dead end street in a dead end town to a glittering world of bold faced names, exotic places and lavish Robert Isabell-designed soirees, teaching me the importance of chasing my champagne dreams and caviar wishes at an early age.  I lived by her example, was voted Biggest Gossip and Most Mischievous my senior year of high school, couldn't wait to get to college in a fast paced city with some action, lived life to the fullest and brushed elbows with celebrity ever since, and with the exception of a few wistful thoughts throughout this blog I've never looked back.  As I thanked her for being such an inspiration to me, Liz hugged me close to her and whispered "I feel like I know you."  Oh honey, I feel like I know you too!

So You Think This Is A Good Idea?

My one sided love affair with style-challenged host Cat Deeley is well documented and I think we can all agree that it's an honor for national treasure Paula Abdul's drowsy-voiced presence to grace our TV screens for even five seconds (which is really about how long you get with a lucid Paula), but I was shocked yesterday when Nigel Lythgoe told me So You Think You Can Dance would be back this summer, since they pretty much destroyed it with a season full of little kids last summer.  Half the fun of watching the show is seeing late teen/early twenties hotties who haven't quite come to terms with their sexuality dramatically interpreting choreography while dressed in spandex, feathers and sequins while the nation judges, but it seems a little cruel and creepy when it's nine year olds.

Sally!

Without her signature red glasses Sally Jessy Raphael is just another overweight grandma trying to get out of the cold on a chilly Monday morning.  Anxious to get to her knitting and the hot cup of Earl Grey waiting in the Today Show green room, she was nice enough to take this photo ("Make it quick!") but refused my friend Dan's autograph request and didn't offer either of us a quarter or a Werther's Original like a real memaw would.

Finally, It Has Happened To Me!

Although I certainly made up for lost time, I was something of a late bloomer, meaning that I didn't lose my virginity until I was 21. I know you're thinking, "how could that happen to a guy so devastatingly handsome?" but it's true.  Not that I wasn't trying to get laid sooner, but I always confused sex with love and wanted my first time with Mr. Right to be special and not some one off with a guy whose pick up line was "Wanna go back to my place and watch the new Michael Jackson video?", who rushed through it before his boyfriend came home from work while Beverly Hills 90210 played in the background, then took me out dancing afterwards.  As we walked into Badlands, the irony of CeCe Peniston wailing "Finally, it has happened to me...." was not lost on me, and I hate that song to this day.

A Slip Of The Tongue

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, you get tongue tied in the face of celebrity and forget how to speak like a normal human.  Sometimes you get so excited that the dumbest things tumble out of your mouth even though you've rehearsed over and over in your head exactly what you want to say, and you spend the next hour metaphorically kicking yourself for sounding like a moron.  And sometimes you say exactly what's on your mind and let the chips fall where they may.  So when Dan Levy, son of comedy legend Eugene Levy and star of Schitt's Creek (Wednesdays at 8PM on PopTV) was leaving Sirius studios in midtown Manhattan the other day, I asked for a photo and told him I was a big fan (LIE) then accidentally on purpose mentioned that I had a crush on him, because he's cute and gay and why not?

That Gum You Like Is Going to Come Back In Style

If there's anything to look forward to in 2017, it's the revival of Twin Peaks, the backwards talking little people, cherry pie and damn fine coffee, Log Lady fever dream that David Lynch spit out in the early '90s that's coming to Showtime this May (not to be confused with the shitshow going on in Washington, DC today, which feels more Twilight Zone/Apocalypse Now than Twin Peaks anyway).  One day it's 1990 and you're watching the reveal of Laura Palmer's killer with the stripper you picked up at the seedy Dupont Circle club that was upstairs from Burrito Brothers before both the club and Burrito Brothers closed and the show went off the rails and was cancelled, and the next day you have white hairs on your taint and you're old, but I still can't fucking wait to reunite with Ed of Ed's Gas Farm and his wife Nadine with the eye patch and the greased drape chords or Laura Palmer's screechy mother played by the amazing Grace Zabriskie. Sadly no Donna Hayward, because collagen hasn't made it's way to Twin Peaks yet and there's no other way to explain Lara Flynn Boyle's fucked up face (you can’t just go into the plumbing aisle at Home Depot, pick up something in a tube and inject into your face. That’s not okay.), but Mädchen Amick will be back as Shelly Johnson, and there must be something in that Double R Diner coffee because she hasn't aged a day!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Louise Sorel is someone you wouldn't know unless you were my mother or you spent the late 80's watching the greatest daytime soap opera in the history of soap operas, Santa Barbara, like we did.  If that's the case you'd be very familiar with the eccentric villainess Augusta Lockridge, who framed a man for murder to protect wrongly suspected son Warren, served daughter Laken's pet pigeon to the family as hors d'ourves as revenge for dating Ted Capwell, whose family she held a grudge against, faked a kidnapping and used the ransom money to keep the family mansion, and had an affair with sister Julia's rapist Dash Nichols, and you'd understand that meeting her portrayer would be a big deal for me.  We got a good laugh out of the fact that, although I traveled all the way to LA to meet her, she's an Upper East Side neighbor, and we agreed that next time we'd skip the TSA pat-down and have dinner and drinks at Scalinatella.  Hold the pigeon.

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

I know you've all been missing me terribly the last few weeks, waiting patiently for updates of my glamorous holidays sunning my nipples in Barbados or St. Barts or working a Chanel ski suit in Aspen, and while I'd love to tell you about swimming in the med with Naomi and Kate or that dinner in Lake Como with George and Amal, the truth is that the flu kicked my ass for two weeks and pretty much fucked my holidays right in the ass without lube or whispering sweet nothings in my ear afterwards.  So instead of some reality star or has been actress clinging to her last few seconds of fame with a show about strippers, let's start 2017 off right with international icon of glamour and my personal role model, Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan herself, Joan Collins.  Dripping glamour in spite of the champagne and caviar bloat, she can still take your man, take your company and everything you love without even trying.