BY MICHAEL MUSTO | As a professional talking head, I’m in virtually every documentary known to man—whether it be about club kids, Fashion Week, or the bald lady from the first Star Trek film—but I’ve never been the subject of my own doc, and it’s not for lack of trying. Sure, my flaws and lapses have no doubt gotten in the way of the Musto miniseries; I hardly have the stature of, say, Fran Lebowitz (or the Star Trek baldie). But I also have to blame the utter ineptitude of two creative teams who approached me for such a project, then mishandled me, souring me on the genre for all time.

It started in 2021, when I was courted by a casting person from a big production company. She was a huge fan and I was her “icon,” though she didn’t seem to know exactly what it is I had done. I gladly filled her in, let them scan my archives, sat for an on-camera interview, and chatted with friends on camera for another shoot I organized.

The idea was to bank as much footage as possible, while also coming up with a five-minute pitch to send to the networks and streaming services. But things were slowish on the production company’s end. In fact, by time my one-year contract was running out, they had barely progressed at all, blaming backed up scheduling due to COVID. I agreed to renew my agreement with them, but only for six months, figuring the tighter deadline might pressure them to be a little more aggressive with the pitching.

It was my idea to also spend a day shooting on Fire Island with a field producer I’d brought in, and the result was tons more great footage, including me interacting with a bevy of colorful drag queens. What’s more, I shot separately with that same producer in New York, holding up items from my archives for the camera and giving the elaborate back story on each of them. By now, I had talked on camera about my childhood, my parents, my aunt, my schooling, my gayness, Studio 54, the Village Voice, my band, Area, Andy Warhol, Madonna, RuPaul, Michael Alig, ACT UP, outing, Giuliani, Trump, relationships, Black Lives Matter…you know, every single aspect of my life and career. I’d laughed on camera and cried on camera. I’d pretty much bared my soul.

So I was horrified when the lady who called me her icon blurted, “But we need to get your life story!” I was so stunned, I turned whiter than a backup singer for Amy Grant. There were easily 12 hours of footage of me yapping nonstop by now! Surely you could find a life story in there somewhere! I was also annoyed to find her posting Facebook whines like, “It’s weird going through life not being loved” (not surprising) and “Anyone know a good movie? I feel like binge watching this weekend.” “How about working on my pitch?” I wanted to scream.

At this point, I was enjoying a surprisingly hot career moment as a survivor and a source for so many things, and felt like it might be a good time to finally cash in. I posted one of my new press breaks on Facebook and tagged the woman, but she didn’t even “like” it. I messaged her to complain about the lack of communication going on—barely a peep in ages—and she swore up and down that I wasn’t being ghosted. She assured me that the director would indeed forward me some voiceovers to record and then they’d send out the completed pitch. I found that hard to believe, since it was almost Thanksgiving, when things prepare to start shutting down for the year, but I held out hope, always an ingenue, despite all I’ve been through.

Well, the voiceovers never came, so I contacted the director, who had been enthusiastic. And I almost croaked when he said point blank that they were giving up on the whole doc because, “People only want the Kardashians.” What??? But he’d never finished (or even started) the pitch and if he had even informally contacted any networks, he certainly didn’t tell me about it. At least let me know who it was that said, “No way” and why! The internal communication process seemed awry here, and though I was willing to admit that I was hardly going to be the subject of a bidding war, I felt that the way this was handled, with mixed messages and missed opportunities, felt wrong. They never even asked me who I knew in the biz that they could reach out to!

I was over the whole process, which I’d never asked for in the first place, but my interest got piqued again when an indie filmmaker contacted me last February about being in an ‘80s/’90s nightlife doc she was developing. She, her teammates, and I had a Zoom call and the idea evolved into a doc just about myself and all I’d seen and done—fine with me, even if a déjà vu-ish feeling seemed inevitable. They were laying on lots of flattery, which always makes me queasy, but they seemed to understand my style and I thought, “Well, this can’t be worse than the last time, right?” Wrong!

These new people said they could probably get the pitch for my doc out by June. Again, I went into overdrive, bombarding them with photos, videos, lists of archival materials, and stories about my career. The woman wanted to meet me in person by the end of March, which I looked forward to. But a giant red flag waved when that encounter never happened, and she never even mentioned it again.

Still, there was another Zoom meeting arranged, so there I was, with tongue out. They asked me more about my experiences and I started yapping away, going into detail while being, I thought, pretty insightful as I came up with perspectives about myself that I hadn’t thought of before. Unfortunately, one of the two main creative people wasn’t on the Zoom at the time (“Busy with another call”) and when she finally surfaced, I desperately tried to recreate some of my previous sound bites, but the magic simply wasn’t happening. The moment had vanished.

I told them I was performing at a club in a few weeks and they could shoot the event and get great footage of me onstage and backstage, as well as commentary from my friends and followers. It would be a goldmine of material for the doc. They replied that they had no resources to do that. “But wait. You’re still planning on filming a pitch, aren’t you?” I wondered, not wanting to go down this road again. “Maybe” one of the team said half-heartedly, while another blurted, “No one is going to want this. You don’t know what it’s like out there.” Right. People only want the Kardashians. But I was flabbergasted. What happened to the overbaked enthusiasm and praise? Why were they wasting my time in the first place? I started plotting an exit strategy, but it turned out I didn’t need to.

“Frances Ford Coppola said his movies are each based on one word,” exclaimed the tardy woman out of the blue. “He said The Godfather is about loyalty. What’s the word for your life and career?” My heart sank even lower—all the way through the trap door to rock bottom. After all my ruminations and background materials, we were basically down to a minimalist variation on “We need to get your life story”! “You want me to reduce everything I’ve done to one word?” I whimpered. Ugh…Hey, that’s it! That’s the word! UGH! “I see it as relevance,” she threw out. “But that could be anyone,” I moaned. “I mean, everyone works to stay relevant their entire life, don’t they?” I later thought of proximity—I’ve been adjacent to so many huge personalities and movements–but I kept it to myself, not wanting to play word games with my life. Besides, word was that Coppola’s latest—Megalopolis—could be reduced to the word “megaflopolis.”

The fact that I’d bristled probably made them further cool on me, but I have a low bullshit threshold and I wasn’t going to censor myself. Besides, that kind of personality flareup would be great on camera.

We ended in a friendly manner, and they said they’d send me synopsis pages and I could add notes and improvements. I said, “Terrific. Will do.” But as with those phantom voiceovers, nothing ever came–except for the shocker. In May, the woman emailed to say that I’m so wonderful and would make a great documentary, blah blah blah, but they were suddenly all booked with other things and were much too busy to work on this project. I testily replied, “What a rotten experience this has been for me, full of false flattery and ineptitude. I am delighted to be free of this.” And again, I was mystified by a system that propels these know-nothings to pounce, destroy, and abandon, dumping you with an insulting smiley face as if you had courted them, not vice vera.

So I’m back to being a guest star. Anyone need me to talk some more about the alopecia alien?

Michael Musto is a columnist, pop cultural and political pundit, NYC nightlife chronicler, author, and the go-to gossip responsible for the long-running (1984-2013) Village Voice column, “La Dolce Musto.” His work appears on this website as well as Queerty.com and thedailybeast.com, and he is writing for the new Village Voice, which made its debut in April of 2021. Follow Musto on Instagram, via @michaelmusto.

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