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.