Because the world would never know how colorful New York City is without him, the Village Voice celebrated Michael Musto’s 25th anniversary as a columnist Wednesday night at 230 Fifth, a nightclub on the top floor of the eponymous building at 27th St. Hosted by Michael Urie and Joan Rivers, it was the kind of event that movies trying to capture the downtown New York scene can only hope to approximate.
Sipping champagne and eating salmon cakes and sliders were countless media guys in preppy suits, club-kid types decked out in severe and colorful makeup, feathers, corsets, (very) high heels. Ladyfag, the club scenster and female drag queen, pranced around screaming in a black, West African-style turban and with her arm erect, supporting a long black clutch and revealing her ample armpit hair. Circling the room were legendary drag queens Linda Simpson, Sherry Vine and Bianca del Rio—the latter, who has the sharpest tongue in New York, boasted a bright green sequined jacket with enough shoulder padding for birds of prey to land on.
Murray Hill, the drag king and comedian introduced Mr. Musto, 54, by describing the awkward and bumbling columnist pushing through the crowd, unable to let go of his ubiquitous leather bag, even at his own party, as though it were glued to his shoulder.
“Whoever you are, you’ve totally wronged his show,” said Joan Rivers, interrupting Mr. Hill. “Just shut the fuck up and we’ll take it from here.”
Ms. Rivers, flanked by two tall security guards, showered Mr. Musto with praise, calling him the one person who epitomizes the edgy, funny and survivalist character of “real New Yorkers.”
As soon as she said her bit her security cleared a path off the stage, where Ms. Rivers stopped next to me and gestured to my date for the evening, the fire-engine redheaded drag queen Erickatoure Aviance (wearing a sequined black tube top, two poofy skirts and “legs for days”).
“Gorgeous,” she said to Ms. Aviance, “and you’re very lucky” she said, clutching the my arm briefly.
“You are 550 of my closest friends and you have never abandoned me!” Michael yelled into the microphone, looking jubilant and overheated in his dapper checked gray suit and pink shirt. “although some of you did push me out of the way to get photos taken tonight.”
One of Mr. Musto’s closest friends is Lynn Yaeger, the former Voice fashion reporter who always wears cupid’s bow lipstick and a short red bob. “He’s the most loyal of friends,” she said of him.
Mr. Hill, who has performed his witty and biting standup routine since 1990, got his first press from Musto, “and my career has gone nowhere since,” he quipped, before introducing the burlesque dancer Dirty Martini, who performed to a Sarah Vaughan recording of “My Kinda Love,” revealing her (very) ample behind and a red tasseled pasties from beneath her bustier of pink roses (to match the pink perm on her head).
“Joan Rivers told me to shut the fuck up, I can retire now!” said Mr. Hill, grinning. “I met Michael at a club called Life—it was a Jameson party and I had this allergic reaction and got all blotchy. Then someone took a picture with me and Michael, and I still have it. He was wearing the ugliest sweater! He still wears ‘em, this is the best dressed I’ve ever seen him.”
Next to perform was singer Bridget Everett, a voluptuous blonde who stripped down to a diaper to a Mylie Cyrus track, only to yell at a skinny gay youth wearing a ribbon on one shoulder who looked at his phone while she sang. “You fucking jerk, you’re texting during my fucking performance! Jeez!” she yelled, extremities jiggling.
Hiding from the swarm of club kid freaks spanning generations was Anna Musto, Michael’s 90-year-old mother—she was featured with her son in the New York Times style section last May.
“Those pictures were so ugly!” she said of the feature.
I asked when she thought her son would turn out to be a big star.
“I never thought he’d be one!” she said, laughing. “It hadn’t crossed my mind!”
A recently common presence in the New York club scene is promoter and Bungalow 8 graduate Malik So Chic. A young bald-headed type wearing black Prada shoes and a Hugo Boss jacket, Malik is most easily identified by his enormous (and lens-less) black frames bought on the cheap—lately he’s been filming as a cast member in the upcoming Tinsley Mortimer reality show.
“The afterparty for Michael is at Bonbon,” he informed me, “and I’m also throwing a little private thing for Tinsley there.” He promised the show will be full of drama: “I broke up a few fights,” he said.
Later on over at Bonbon, a Suzanne Barstch and Kenny Kenny party at Juliet, (the new West Chelsea supper club that looks like the inside of a mirror ball), the I finally had the chance to have a few words with Mr. Musto (although before, at the first party I told him that I spoke to his mother and he said “Oh no!” and crossed himself).
Musto, who is shy and nervous in person, clutched the edge of a velvet curtain as we spoke, slightly grinning as his mind played back 25 years of documenting New York’s underground. You can check out our conversation here. More photos by Gerry Fisco here.
Technically, CONTACT @ Eastern Bloc began on January 8, 2009—
