BY MICHAEL MUSTO | I’ve always had a complex love/hate relationship with the art of attention-seeking. As a shy child, I always craved the spotlight, but since I was conditioned to feel unworthy of it, I got nervous about success and sometimes sabotaged my chances to seize it. My familiar pattern is that I’m dying […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | I love a good drag name because it not only encompasses clever wordplay, but it can also be refreshingly incorrect, because it’s only a name, after all, and drag queens are supposed to shake up societal norms. I’ve written for years about the best drag names, and now I’ve dreamed up […]
BY SCOTT STIFFLER | The mirror has four faces—in front of it, that is, as two maskless BFFs breeze through an ask-me-anything exchange with a worldwide audience, while gazing into a reflective surface as they apply the makeup that transforms them into NYC-based drag queens Jackie Cox and Chelsea Piers. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, the frequently-tested-for-COVID-19 bubblemates […]
BY PUMA PERL | The first time I saw Joey Paulina, he was clad in a tight royal blue dress and stilettos, executing perfect backflips down the center aisle of the Bowery Poetry Club. Once onstage, he hit more octaves than I could count and managed to be both operatic and hilarious. Whether at his West […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | In my many years of covering entertainment, I’ve met up to 2,000 celebrities, but who’s counting? I’ve adored a lot of them, was irked by a few others, and generally got a sense of what makes them sparkle, though some simply exploded and left a mess. In the following list of […]
Writing the Apocalypse is a weekly series featuring the poems, essays, and recollections of Puma Perl, with subject matter influenced by her experiences as a NYC resident during the COVID-19 pandemic. IN THE MAYOR’S HOUSE: In Commemoration of World AIDS Day | TEXT & PHOTOS BY PUMA PERL I had planned to leave the golden man’s […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | A compulsive workaholic, I’ve had jobs pretty nonstop since the 1970s. After graduating college, I had office gigs while freelancing on the side and eventually became a successful full-time writer. In 1984, I landed a column in the Village Voice, which lasted 28 and a half years. And that was hardly […]
BY GERALD BUSBY | It wasn’t quite Halloween when I moved into the Chelsea Hotel, late September 1977, but ghostly fun—which is what I’d call my early days at 222 West 23rd Street—started in right away. I had just returned from working with Robert Altman on the movie A Wedding, shot in and near Chicago, and […]
BY CHARLES BATTERSBY | Among the fringe benefits of being a journalist in New York City is the opportunity to attend industry conventions, with full access to things the general public doesn’t get to experience. My last con was February 2020’s Toy Fair, at the Javits Center. Most of the companies I spoke to said […]
REVIEW BY MICHAEL MUSTO | Mart Crowley’s landmark 1968 play The Boys in the Band brought a group of gay friends together for a bitchy and fun NYC birthday party, which is rocked when an unexpected visitor arrives after having had some kind of flareup with his wife. That the visitor turns out to be […]