Broadway Stars Unite For Satire Of Russia's Crackdown On LGBT People

A galaxy of Broadway stars have gotten together for skits and songs that mock Russia's crackdown on LGBT people. You'll recognize a lot of people: Harvey Fierstein, Laura Benanti, Michael Cerveris, Joanna Gleason, Jonathan Groff, Jackie Hoffman, Andrea McArdle, Brad Oscar, Stephen Schwarz, John Tartaglia, Mary Testa, Michael Urie, and many more. There are even cameos from Dan Savage and Michael Musto.

(Tipped by JMG reader Blane)

Larry Kramer Accepts Special Tony Award

True to form, even getting an honorary Tony Award managed to piss off Larry Kramer. Michael Musto reports for Out Magazine:

Downstairs, I found gramps Larry Kramer, who’d been briefly seen receiving a special award for his humanitarian work. He was sitting, but not in a wicker chair. And his normal heart wasn’t smiling. “It was all fucked up,” fumed Kramer. “They kept shunting me around. I was supposed to be on in the first segment, but everybody spoke too long, so they kept putting me off. I had to go on during a commercial break. They promised me they’d show a clip on network, but I don’t think what they showed was very long.” Oh, well, at least Larry told me they stood for him in the theater. “You and Cicely Tyson,” I beamed. “Don’t say anything bitchy!” he warned. Huh? After his harangue, anything I had to say would be as peachy as that hot guy from Pippin.

The Show Musto Go On

Famed New York City nightlife columnist Michael Musto has landed on his feet after being canned from the Village Voice after three decades.

Venerable Village Voice columnist Michael Musto — whose departure from the weekly this month caused outrage from devotees — tells us he’s starting a slew of new gigs. “I’ll be doing a weekly interview feature for Gawker, covering all manner of celebs and viral sensations,” he said. “I’m also doing a weekly column on Out.com called ‘Musto the Musical!’ It will span gossip, Broadway, movies, nightlife, everything. Also, I’ll do a column in Advocate magazine.” Nice. We hear the man who penned the Voice’s La Dolce Musto for nearly 30 years will also contribute to Scene and the New York Times. He also recently popped up on NBC’s “Smash” and Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live.”

I totally yoinked the headline from Page Six.

Big Layoffs At The Village Voice

Gawker reports that the Village Voice has laid off some its best known staffers, including the one person most closely identified with the title.

We hear that executives from the Voice's parent company flew in for today's massacre. Michael Musto, the Voice's nightlife columnist and most high profile remaining staffer, has been let go, as was rumored last week. (There had apparently been some talk of Musto's column hanging on in some form, but that does not seem to have worked out.) Also let go, sources tell us, was Robert Sietsema, the Voice's longtime food critic, and Michael Feingold, the paper's theater critic. Feingold was scheduled to host the Obie Awards for the Voice next week. That just makes the timing that much more shocking.

Musto tells Gawker: "So many people have come out to offer their love (and opportunities). I'll update you on all my new beginnings. My brand will be feistier than ever."

HomoQuotable - Michael Musto

"It's a shame the ex-NYC mayor never came out. It's tragic that he hid behind excuses like the fact that he was old and wasn't sexual at all anymore. Old people are still sexual--and if you're gay, you're still gay--and besides, he could have commented on his past. But Ed was so paranoid on the subject that when I interviewed him in the '90s, he propped up a tape recorder to tape me as I recorded him. It was a creepy double game of 'gotcha!' that led nowhere (though he was otherwise gruffly charming). [snip] The world is now an emptier place, but so is the celebrity closet." - Michael Musto, writing for the Village Voice.

From Katie To Queens To Teblows

Musto calls it "the best headline in history." But which one is he referring to?

Michael Musto As Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie's bare leg was a hot internet meme for a second or two in 2012. Inside the year-end issue of Village Voice, you'll also find Musto as the Tan Mom. Read his 2012-in-review essay at the link.

HomoQuotable - Michael Musto

"Just when you assumed gay self-loathing had been deposited in the dead-chicken bins, along comes a new wave of self-flagellation aimed to throw us under the hate truck. At a time when gays have made significant progress and other people are fully available to do all the hating, some gays crazily want to join in! I'm talking about the wave of gay Republicans who grovel before the enemy, making lavish excuses for politically repellent candidates—you know, the Romney/Ryan ticket—who would gladly turn us into a subordinate class without any semblance of full equality. There's no one more self-loathing than the oxymoronic 'grubs' (gay Repubs) who rally to the defense of power-crazed bigots, spinning them as champions of decency and fairness who happen to be grossly misunderstood." - Michael Musto, writing for the Village Voice.

Quote Of The Day - Michael Musto

"Free speech means you can generally say whatever you want without being carted off to prison or otherwise punished by law. But it doesn't guarantee that there won't be any repercussions! You can run through the street yelling 'Blacks shouldn't be allowed to get married,' but that doesn't protect you from people boycotting your store and using their free speech to announce their horrified lack of support for you. I suspect that the 'patriots' haven't thoroughly thought out their noble act to the point where it's completely devoid of other agendas.

"Their moving love of human rights--which they exercise by rallying in support of some old-school gay bashers--doesn't seem to be an equal-opportunity kind of situation at all. I mean, if someone found a religious book that said conservatives should be stripped of rights and treated as second class citizens, would the Santorums be lining up to buy that person's chicken while calling themselves fierce defenders of the Constitution? No way. But in defending the hate mongering Chick-Fil-A, these people can hide behind their flag-waving, pseudo libertarian crap while backing an organization's bigoted views that just happen to mirror their own. Do they have a right to say that? Sure. And I have a right to yell bloody murder." - Michael Musto, writing for the Village Voice.

Homocon Tweet Of The Day

Michael Musto On GOProud

"So a bunch of sef-loathing gays endorses someone who wants to rewrite the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and when someone attacks them for it, they insult his looks? And they reduce my career, without even addressing the issue at hand? I was hired as an entertainment columnist in 1984, but expanded that from day one to include gay (and other) political issues, as well as doing feature stories and eventually blogs on those topics. And I've fought self-loathing political crap, even angrier at the self-defeating bigots like LaSalvia who are smelling things up from within our own ranks than at the ones outside. Do I look like a Muppet? Yeah, but how is that relevant? Are the "professionals" in politics the ones who mock each other's looks rather than try to find some rational defense for their own behavior? - Michael Musto, responding to GOProud's attack on him.

Here's what started it all. Jimmy LaSalvia: "Have you seen Michael Musto lately? We aren't going to take serious political advice from a human Muppet. Musto should stick to writing gossip pieces about Lindsay Lohan, and leave politics to the professionals."

Headline Of The Day

GOProud is super-pissed at Michael Musto.

SLIDESHOW: Broadway Beauty Pageant

Last night Mamma Mia's Andrew Chapelle took the tiara in the Ali Forney Center's Sixth Annual Broadway Beauty Pageant, their gay gay gay and wonderfully hilarious competition among Broadway's most talented chorus boys.

Participants included Andrew Chappelle (Mamma Mia!), Wilkie Ferguson, III (Porgy and Bess), Corey Mach (Godspell), Jesse Swimm (Mary Poppins) and Anthony Wayne (Priscilla Queen of the Desert). Celebrity judges included: Jackie Hoffman (Xanadu, Hairspray), Michael Musto (Village Voice) and Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam). Four-time Tony Award nominee Tovah Feldshuh (Golda’s Balcony, Lend Me a Tenor, Sarava, Yentl) hosted.

This year's swimsuit competition segment was especially memorable as I was hit with a well-oiled water wing during one contestant's number. Hit the slide show for super-gay frivolity and some very buff bodies.

[Photography by Dr. Jeff Smith]

Michael Musto As Donald Trump

From Musto's year-end recap column:

New York became fun again in 2011! Thanks to a global economic meltdown! The lingering desperation in the air brought down our emotional walls, and New Yorkers became friendlier and more open than we've been in ages, most of us no longer propped up by elitism as we reached out to one another like we were having a massive midlife crisis together—in a good way.

Read the full article.

Fork On The Left, Knife In The Back

Last night I attended the launch party for gossip legend Michael Musto's above-titled book, where hundreds of bold-face names collided with hipsters, scenesters, and queensters all vying to get their names into large print. Where else but a Musto party would you see F-Troop octogenerian Larry Storch chatting amiably next to drag star Flotilla Debarge while samba dancers spin around to live conga playing as a Sarah Palin impersonator does shots?

Just a short list of those I can recall seeing: Jerry Springer, Jackie Hoffman, Basil Twist, Robin Byrd, Murray Hill, Lisa Lampanelli, Dirty Martini, Robbyne Kaamil, Xavier, Mike Diamond, Boy Culture's Matthew Rettenmund, Kenneth (In The 212) Walsh, Gawker's Brian Moylan, SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile, and many many hookers, hustlers, porn stars, drag queens and basically every person who makes Manhattan what it is. Big props to promoter Chip Duckett (who did the JMG Pride party too) for another memorable event.

SLIDESHOW: Below are a dozen of my own photos from the evening, but you should check out Father Tony's much more glamorous sampling, as he is eternally drawn to anybody in a bizarre costume.

UPDATE: More photos are in from Wayne at World Of Wonder.

UPDATE II: Boy Culture's Matthew Rettenmund has posted many photos and videos of the evening, along with a pithy recap of the attendees.

NYC Still Has A Club Kids Scene

NOM To Sue Over Ladyfingers?

When Carrie "Ladyfingers" Prejean was busted for homemade porn videos in which she explored her tingly no-no parts, NOM burned rubber in distancing themselves from their former hero. However Michael Musto today reports an interesting development.

Well, outside Sister Act last night, a guy approached me and said, "Hi, Michael, I'm Keith Lewis from the Miss California USA pageant." "Oh, you're the one who ripped the crown off Carrie," I noted, grinning. "Congrats!" "Well, now we're being sued by NOM," he informed me, meaning the National Organization for Marriage group that Carrie had been a spokesperson for. The suit has something to do with NOM accusing the pageant of releasing damaging (i.e. true) info about Carrie, as opposed to the press having dug it up by itself. "Huh?" I screeched. "NOM is suing you? But NOM fired Carrie too!" "Well" said Lewis, "nowadays people can do just about anything."

RELATED: More than 18 months later, "Carrie Prejean sex tape" is still among the top search terms that bring folks to JMG.

HomoQuotable - Michael Musto

"Calvin, darling, you're embarrassing yourself. What's worse, you're embarrassing the whole community. You were never really that much of a gay hero in the first place. Remember when you suddenly had a wife because, as AIDS made it uncool to be gay, you took the wussy way out and closeted yourself so you could sell more T shirts and perfume? That was a hideous approach and I screamed my lungs out about it--but it was better than now! Now you've hooked up with that almost-21-year-old ex-porn star, Nick Gruber, and you're fawning over him as if this were real love and not a massive late-life crisis being acted out for the horrified masses. It's not going to work!" - Michael Musto, dishing Calvin Klein for the invitation to Gruber's birthday party, which describes the event at "the hottest ticket for New York's gay and fashion elite!"

Lady Musto

Michael Musto's year in review.

Michael Musto Blasts Elton John For Performing At Rush Limbaugh's Wedding

Michael Musto: "Elton’s actually a pretty good gay and he’s done a lot for the causes, but this is kind of gross. I was waiting for the transformation where he was going to sprinkle fairy dust on Rush and he was either come out of the closet or be gay positive. That hasn’t happened, so Elton’s just a whore." I keep hoping for Elton to say the money is going to his AIDS foundation.

(Via - Advocate)