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 […]
BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER | One morning in 2013, while recuperating from a total knee replacement, I found myself in a class at the Chelsea Recreation Center (W. 25th St. btw. 9th & 10th Aves.). The floor was carpeted with yoga mats containing my neighbors, mostly older, mostly female. Sitting in front was Frederick Schjang, a […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | As someone who gets regularly called upon to discuss celebrity gossip on TV, I can tell you that the demand for that sort of thing started waning around 2016. The reason? Trump’s rise to political prominence became much more salaciously fascinating to certain channels than anything involving movie stars. After all, […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | When the COVID-19 crisis started escalating in March, I packed up and moved my entire life—to Zoom. That marvelous app is sort of like a big conference call, but it’s visual too. It’s the kind of incredibly clever thing we dreamed about when growing up (“Someday there’ll be a telephone where […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | I’ve always assumed the role of an outsider, and that’s tended to help my journalistic career. Getting access to all kinds of creative and cultural scenes while not being pulled onto center stage in any of them, I have a knack for being the fly on the wall and observing everything, […]
BY HIBA SOHAIL | New York City is often hailed as the city that kickstarted the modern LGBTQIA+ liberation movement, with the Stonewall Riots being of massive importance, cementing the movement across the nation. This year is the 50th anniversary of the first-ever NYC Pride March. Held on June 28, 1970, and called The Christopher […]
Graphic Artist/Entrepreneur seems a fitting encore, when your resume already includes Broadway actor (Cabaret), musician (musical director for Charles Busch), composer (Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan), house flipper, political activist, author (Laid Bare) and, for a couple of years, adult film star “Gus Mattox.” It was during the building of Gus’ fan website that Tom Judson—the man […]
BY CHARLI BATTERSBY | It will be impossible for me to review Disclosure objectively, because it is a resoundingly authentic documentary about transgender actors in the film and TV industry. And, when I’m not working as a writer, I’m an actress. The performers interviewed in Disclosure include Laverne Cox, Candis Cayne, MJ Rodriguez, and others, […]