“Where do you see yourself at this time next year?” wasn’t always such a loaded question. Before COVID-19, forward thinkers could confidently project ahead 365 days to find themselves seated in a restaurant booked to capacity, rubbing shoulders with fellow theatergoers, or making good on the “If I’m elected” promises that swept you into office. […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | Having done a list of “Celebrities I’ve Met” and included some drag performers in it, let me go full feather boa and do a rundown of just the drag queens—creatures who live their dream while enlivening the nightlife on a regular basis. (And yes, there will be nightlife again.) There are […]
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 […]