Disco Remix

One of the great things about living in NYC is that celebrities are everywhere, and so you often get multiple opportunities to meet them and get photos or autographs, which is a good thing because the last time I met Nile Rogers there was nobody who could take our picture and I'm terrible at selfies and ended up looking like Shrek.  So here's me looking slightly better and him looking like the smooth disco legend that he is even though he was extremely late for his segment thanks to traffic on the way into the city from Connecticut and don't ask me why I know that.  I just do.

We've Known Each Other For So Long

In "What year is this?" news, Rick Astley is enjoying something of a comeback.  Better known in recent years for rickrolling (a bait and switch involving a website hyperlink secretly swapped out with Astley’s so-cheesy-that-it’s-awesome music video for 1987’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”), Melania Trump plagiarized quoted his lyrics in her convention speech, and now he's releasing a new album, his first in eleven years, and he's in NYC this week to promote it.  I'm pleased to say the magnificent pompadour is still in place.


Fun fact: to this day my brother and I still refer to Never Gonna Give You Up as "the gay disco song", (before either of us knew we were gay or stepped foot in a disco) and he was the first person I told about this photo.

What the Fuck is a Luftballon?

Remember "99 Luftballons", the bouncy new wave nugget about balloons floating over the Berlin wall, triggering defense systems that lead to nuclear apocalypse?  Just in time for our political holocaust, Nena has dusted off this chestnut for a three city US tour of small clubs, block parties and bar mitzvahs with a show in NYC tonight, so I went to the source to answer the question that's bothered us all for 33 years:  What the fuck is a luftballon?  Turns out the translation is not exact: "luftballon" means air balloon, with no color specified, so it could be blue or green or yellow.  Or orange.  In 2016 it's definitely orange.

Coming Out Of The Dark

I think we can all agree that if you weren't a fan of Dawson's Creek in the '90s, the most interesting thing Katie Holmes has ever done was agree to be Tom Cruise's robotic dead-eyed Stepford wife and give birth to the heir to the throne of Xenu before squeezing out of a third story bathroom window at the Scientology Celebrity Centre, falling into a bunch of bushes and running for her life ala Sleeping with the Enemy, but she'll have you know that she has a lot more to offer than just being the Bride of Scientology.  Like being a spokesperson for Quaker's Oatober campaign, which is what she was promoting this morning in NYC while Scientology spy drones circled overhead.

Who's The Boss?

The moment I found out The Boss was doing a meet and greet in Union Square I jumped all over that free ticket, because who doesn't want a photo with Diana Ross, right?  Well bless my little gay heart it wasn't her, but Bruce Springsteen, whose constipated growl I'm not a fan of, which is why I sold it (for a substantial profit, thank you eBay!) to this sweet lady who flew herself in from Detroit and got a room in NYC for two nights just to meet me Bruce and get a signed copy of his memoir.  Since my name was printed on the ticket and ID was required, I met her at the store to purchase the book and give her the wristband required for entry, and that's where things went horribly wrong.

For Barnes & Noble.

Because although it was one person-one ticket, we both walked in together, they scanned my ticket without asking for ID, gave us BOTH wristbands, and directed us to the register where we BOTH purchased the book.  Fast forward four hours and I'm shaking The Boss's hand, thanking him for his stance on Trump, posing for this photo and walking out with a limited edition signed memoir (going up on eBay shortly) and a half month's rent in profit.

I'm the boss!

Scared Shitless

My friend Ashleigh has been giving me shit about taking a picture of the Halloween house since I first moved to LA back in 2006.  I'm not talking about the Halloween house that Six Flags (or your local church) puts on every year to scare the shit out of little kids and horny, drunken teenagers, but the real house where Jamie Lee Curtis babysat in John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween, which I lived around the corner from for a year but never bothered checking out because scary movies scare me, but finally went and took a picture of the last time I was in LA just to shut her up.  Speaking of Jamie Lee (and shit), here's a photo I FINALLY got with the notoriously difficult scream queen (and star of Scream Queens, season two debuting 9 PM tonight) at a children's book signing (yes, I endured a room full of children for this) right after a guy threw a tantrum about not getting his Halloween memorabilia signed and an older lady thanked Jamie Lee for convincing her to eat yogurt so she could poop regularly.

Paris Is Burning

But it's nothing a dose of Vagisil won't cure.  World famous DJ Paris Hilton took a break from her life's work of being vapid on every continent to hawk her latest perfume on the Today Show this morning, and it's a good thing I got used to the smell of stale spray tanner, jizz breathe and the desperate need for attention while living in LA or this picture wouldn't have been possible.