Interview with an Idol

September 25, 2007

You may have heard that Joe Mantello is directing the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway revival of Terrence McNally's comedy "The Ritz", and you may have heard that it's an outrageous farce set in a gay bathhouse, and you may have heard that the show stars Rosie Perez and Kevin Chamberlin.

But did ya hear that gay porn legend Ryan Idol (his real name is Marc Anthony Donais) makes his Broadway debut in the show? (GET TICKETS!!) He portrays a patron of the bathhouse. Touche, I say! Buckle up, folks, for a world exclusive interview, and you had better believe that I asked my assistant to hold all calls while Mr. Idol was on the line....

HAVE YOU APPEARED ONSTAGE BEFORE ?

Yeah, I have quite a bit in a few way, way off Broadway productions. The first of which was a play called "Making Porn" about the ravaging of the gay world by HIV. There was someone in the play who was a lot like myself who was an aspiring actor who fell into the porn world but he wanted to act and his wife went into the porn world with him. When she saw how mechanical it was and how it was a business, she realized it was interesting and she tried to convince her husband to get more into it even though he wanted to be an actor.

IS IT INDEED A MECHANICAL PROCESS?

When I was in it, it really was. It's like show business now, but back in the day when we had the directors like Matt Sterling and Jim Hodges it was mechanical and pieced together.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO IT?

Lookin' for love in all the wrong places! (laughs) Actually I did PLAYGIRL magazine with my real name, Marc Anthony Donais, and they asked me to be their Man of the Year. They had misled me when I signed the contract and I passed on the honor though. It turns out they had offered it to other people who had passed, too. From there, someone gave my number to a porn scout and someone contacted me and got me hyped up about being in a movie and then I found out it was a porn movie and not just a porn movie, but a gay porn movie....

OH WAIT -- SO THEN ARE YOU NOT GAY?

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Sex and the City

September 24, 2007

For six years, you knew it was spring in NYC when "Sex and the City" started filming their next season. It's September now, but the "Sex and the City" movie has made things feel kinda like spring again.

A friend emailed me that they were shooting around the corner from 30 Rock on Friday afternoon and I stopped by on my way out to check it out.

Friday's shoot was the first time the four girls were shot together since the finale and it was pandemonium take after take as they chatted very sexandthecityish up Park Avenue and 53rd. I took this picture with my blackberry, not great but you get the idea. That's the film canister thing on the right.

There were fans jamming the island in the middle of Park Avenue trying to get a glimpse of the iconic foursome. They were psyched and cheering. What more iconic thing for tourists to stumble upon than those four ladies doing their thing?

The paparazzi were insane. Days before, they'd shot pictures of Kristen Davis' Charlotte looking preggers in front of a restaurant, but Friday her character looked fetus-less. A paparazzi guy told me he planned to be onset every day of the three month shoot.

Here's another picture of the girls, from behind.

There was an old NYC lady onset all dressed up in a black dress and hat with very severe makeup. I was asking Director Michael Patrick King if she was an extra and he said she was not. Later, I saw the SATC actresses pointing her out in amazement. She was just one of those classic NYC gals who's lived here all her life and turn half-crazy/half-classic the older they get. There's another gal like that who sunbathes on a piece of cardboard in the nook of a building on Bank and Bleecker any day that the sun is out. She's another marker of Spring/Summer in New York; I even wondered if the kookylady in the black was the Bank Street lady, but figured out it wasn't.

And so guess who I saw sitting out in the sun yesterday: Bank St. Lady! And I took this picture from far away to give you an idea of what I am talking about. (It's far to respect her privacy, but if you want to see her, you know where to go!)

Have a good day. Traffic is a mess in New York, so take the subway. And root for Marie Osmond on "Dancing with the Stars".

Night at the Emmys

September 19, 2007

We lost. "Double loser," is what I kept calling myself all night. Halfway through the evening I was preaching to Bruce that the only way to have fun at that sort of occasion was to win... But somewhere around midnight the groove kicked in and it was a blast.

The ceremony itself was okay. We were seated behind the stage. Behind the "Amazing Race" crew sat one Top Chef clump and another Runway clump. During the retardando "Jersey Boys" tribute to the "Sopranos", a colleague emailed me "help!". I couldn't agree more.

When you're in the house, they play clips from Emmys past during commercial breaks. The clips only made me depressed that I wasn't there to see MTM and Harvey Korman and Isabel Sanford and Lucy. I really really don't give a crap about America Ferrara or "Lost" or Helen freakin' Mirren, so the clips just reminded me of a time in the way past that I loved every single TV show. By the way, don't show us your boobs Helen Mirren. Just please don't.

Ryan Seacrest seemed to bomb in the house. I wonder if it was the same at home. I think he's good at his ten jobs, but they should've either gotten him great writers or had him absolutely not stab at humor.

We all took a shot from a flask of whiskey before our category. Then we lost and, oddly, did not have another.

Tony Bennett performed at the Governor's Ball. After that, we hit the valet line. It seems that Julia Louis Dreyfus' car arrived waaaay before she did. Neil Patrick Harris told us he was heading to the People party to hear Duran Duran. We told him we were heading to the Magical Elves party to get hammered and chillax with our peeps. He was tempted to join but went to sniff some LeBon.

It was a great amalgamation of Elves and Chefs and Designers gathered in West Hollywood to mourn our losses and rue Phil Keoghan. Ilan Hall was there and so was Miguel. I'd seen Laura Bennett at the ceremony and Nick Verreos joined our party. He is so fun: I love it every time I see him.

Padma headed home or to the HBO party, but we raged on and on.

The Bravo people know how to give it up. Here's me, Amy Introcaso-Davis, nuzzlin' Dave Serwatka, Frances Berwick, and Jason Klarman... moments before sun-up!

Back to Work

September 03, 2007

In our final installment of "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" -- Andy Cohen bids a fond farewell to the Hamptons and is back at work. We hope you enjoyed our little jaunt through the life of a power-gay at leisure.

I guess it was fitting that there was a slight nip in the air all weekend, because it was my last one out East. I am headed to Spain later this week so it was a long goodbye to fresh corn and outdoor showers and everything I love about the East End of Long Island.

Saturday afternoon I spent an especially satisfying day at the Persky's. As I drove home, I did that thing that my dad used to do which is drive about 21 miles an hour - not because it was the speed limit - but because it was a beautiful day and I wasn't in any damn hurry, and the temperature was perfect and why rush through it? Feel it.

I happened upon a wee Shelter Island yard sale. As I slowly drove by the sale, I thought "you've been driving by yard sales all summer long. Stop at this one! It's your last chance..."

I flipped my car into a U-turn and felt like I was being guided to unknown treasures by fate and karma. Jameka on "Big Brother 8" thinks that the Lord has determined her fate on that show, and I felt like the Lord was holding my marionette strings, guiding me into that yard sale.

When I parked the car, I noticed that the sale was hoppin'. There were only about 15 people but they seemed...loud. I don't know how else to explain it. I grabbed my wallet and bounded into the sale, and I mean I BOUNDED into this thing like I was going to CONQUER and DESTROY it.

I guess I noticed that something was terribly wrong when I actually looked up from my feet and got out of my deep karmic thoughts to see the lawn people frozen and staring. At me. This was no wee yard sale. This was some wee lawn party.

Not only was it not a yard sale -- it REALLY wasn't a yard sale. I stood, frozen, wearing a bathing suit, a t-shirt, and gripping my wallet. The guests - all around my age - stood silently staring at me wondering about the stranger bounding into their party.

"Want to play pin the tail on the donkey?" Some lady asked, breaking the moment of terror...

"I actually thought this was a...yard sale," I spoke both confidently and like I was mentally challenged. (Not retarded though. You can't say retarded.)

"Some of us ARE for sale!" My girl had a sense of humor! I couldn't even see which one was talking to me - they all looked like one mob, moments away from busting out in hysterics at my expense.

"Well then lemme have a look at you," I at least mustered that wee joke as I began backing out of the wee lawn party that was absolutely not a yard sale.

"You really CAN stay" the ladyvoice called, as I now galloped to my vehicle. As I drove away, I felt something. I was actually embarrassed. It doesn't happen often, but there it was. I began wondering wtf it was about this wee yard party that made me think it was a wee yard sale.

There was, near the driveway, a table with a couple pitchers on it. And some glasses. I know now that it was the freakin' BAR, but at that early, hopeful moment, I read it as "kitchenware for sale". That bar is what brought me into the lawn.

And so I have learned: not to jump to conclusions, to only stop at yard sales with signs, that there are things in this world that actually can embarrass me, and that Jameka is not going to win "Big Brother 8". And that I already miss the Hamptons.

August And Everything After: The Hamptons 6 and 7

September 03, 2007

As Labor Day weekend winds down, we're finishing up our roll-out of "How you Desperately Want to Spend Next Summer, by Andy Cohen." Enjoy

The Hamptons, Park Six: Bad Breath and Such

This weekend proved two things about hard core socializing:

1. Nonstop interaction with people is made more bearable when in close proximity to a sparklin' ocean. Stop, drop, and roll in said ocean every fourth hour for a recharge!

2. People have bad breath and I probably do too. I am overly sensitive to people's breath in the first place and thus wonder if I may just be smellin’ my own stank... Bottom line is that it don't matter if you're a king or a socialite or a supermodel, you probably at one point or another have had a date with Hally Tosis and I've smelled spoiled french toast coming out of your fire-breathing facehole.

I ate so much this weekend it's a wonder my fat fingers can type on this wee blackberry. (And lord knows what my breath is doing…)Friday night we went to the Palm and gorged. Gorged.

Saturday was actually "Super Saturday" in the Hamptons. "Super Saturday" is a fashion bacchanalia where hundreds of designers sell fashion at very reduced prices to benefit the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

When I think of fashion, I think of Rudy Guiliani and Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Here they are at Super Saturday plotting Republican domination. Rudy looked very bald to me. Balder than usual. Also spotted: Kelly Ripa and Mandy Moore. (Not together.)

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The Hamptons, Episodes Four and Five

September 02, 2007

Our continuing Labor Day series on "How an SVP Spends the Summer" continues today, with the fourth and fifth photoblog installments from Andy Cohen,

Part Four: A Great Big Ford

What better way to say "sayonara" to NYC than to gaze at the Chrysler Building and the Lipstick building? Is Erica Kane's cosmetic empire still housed at the lipstick building, or was there simply not enough space?

Saturday was perfection, so my pals Jeanne and Fred grabbed me and my favorite shrink, Dr. Amanda Baten, for a day trip to an amazing furniture store in Greenport. What better wheels for the drive than Fred's '67 Ford!?

Uh oh, filling up this guzzler is pretty expensive. I think he topped out around 75 bucks for the tank. Buzzkill!

What better way to island hop than via the Shelter Island Ferry? Oh yeah, it happens to be the ONLY way to island hop. Ruh Roh. 13 bucks round trip!

Here's my posse chillaxin' in the Ford, which felt like a living room!

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