Still guided by the Voice
When skirts were long and subways safe Michael Musto was a musto.
Everyone read him back when everyone read the Village Voice.
The ’80s NYC nightlife wasn’t shootings and lootings. It was party time. Studio 54. What went on which nobody ever said went on was Andy Warhol. Roy Cohn. Cher. Madonna. Liza Minnelli. Bianca Jagger. Elton John. Diana Ross. Brooke Shields.
Musto, then a musto read, would wear balloons, bubbles, thrift shop crapola, drag. Shticks and tricks. From Brooklyn, his aunt a nun, he’d work a party dressed from pajamas to a papal uniform.
I was never in that scene but he mentions me. So, if you missed all that, this month’s W magazine is — pardon the expression — full of him.
Saving Gotham
MORE. Comes a new doc that’s a crime to miss. “Gotham: The Fall and Rise of New York.” Goes down dark alley of Big Apple mayhem from 1966 to 2013. Cops, NYPD chiefs all on the record. Six mayors tracked over almost 40 years.
Director Matthew Taylor: “It’s archival footage, 26 interviews and re-enactments. But you can’t mug Manhattan. It’s still America’s Greatest City.”
On demand as of today.
In the doghouse
MORE stuff I personally want to mention. Last week’s news story about an NYC animal shelter and an adored puppy temporarily in their care — not coming home alive.
I lived through that years ago. Never again! I know the lady who ran it. I know the shelter. I went crazy. It was over one weekend. This tiny 4-pound Yorkie, my family member, I loved insanely. I called police. I hired private security.
Nobody admitted anything. Nobody would speak. I tell this now to warn everyone who needs to park a pet in a kennel. Check them out. Make certain. Be sure.
Prosecutor or persecutor?
HOW about we bag Bragg? Our DA lets out felons and killers. Our country lets Biden bums hide, slide — and, listen, let feds swan around Delaware for stories.
Partisan politics does this to a former president of the United States of America? A martyr in the eyes of his followers. A mouth that opens. A country with masses who respect him. Like him, don’t like him, to level such against a former president — MISTAKE. Conviction? Doubtful. Indictment? Please. What is this — Iran? Syria? Russia?
Noshing news
OTHER oddities are also in the making. A resurgence. A retroactive movement. A return to familiar comforts.
The Village. Macdougal Street. Monte’s Trattoria. Because I know chef-owner Peter Mosconi for years, I went. I couldn’t squeeze in. So packed, jammed, mobbed — people waiting — they couldn’t find a table for me.
“It’s a resurgence,” I was told. “People wanting to relive what they love.”
NOT returning in a hurry — the Friars Club. Allegedly, management problems. Its newest logo is a padlock. Also gone — its members. Like Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, George Burns, Milton Berle, Irving Berlin, Joan Rivers, Joey Adams.
And back in the day Henny Youngman who once said: “So I asked the guy how’s business. He said: ‘Not good. I had to lay off my son-in-law and two of my wife’s nephews.’ ”
