I was at a friend’s dinner the other night and at a table of 10 people, 4 of us were on GLP-3s. Over the summer, I ran into a group of friends whom I’d been in a wedding party with back in the day. 4 of us were on GLP-3s, plus 2 spouses. EVERYONE is “on the juice” as I like to say. And I must say, most people I know on the juice are looking and feeling good.

I’ve spoken in this Fat and All That column before about my Mounjaro journey. My movement disorder doctor had asked me if I wanted to get on weight-loss medication when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 4 years ago. I said I was fine being fat but if he thought I needed it for health reasons, I was open to it. We left it alone until last year when I read reports about early studies of GLP-3s having wonderful side-effects for people with neurological disorders. As soon as I got on the juice, I became a fan. The fact that it helps reduce ‘food noise’ in my head is wonderful and I can really see how this medication can help addicts and compulsive gamblers. I generally try not to tell fat people what they should do with their bodies or their lives because I know, as a fat person myself, that every person you pass on the street seems ready to give you their unsolicited opinion on your weight. But I’m so impressed with the drug that I have become a bit of a GLP-3 evangelist, constantly sharing the fact that I’m on it with so many people. I’m not trying to convince people to get on the medication, I’m just providing a testimonial that people can take or leave. I also feel like I need to tell every restaurant employee and every person I go to a meal with since I rarely finish my meal now.

I’m diabetic and I’m on Mounjaro. My friend has sleep apnea and is on Zepbound in hopes that losing some weight will help his breathing. I have friends on various GLP-3s just to lose weight. These folks are truly kindred spirits. Then again, people with weight issues or food issues have always been my people.

One of my fellow-travelers asked me the other day if weight loss medications prove that the whole body-positivity movement was a lie. I said, absolutely not. We need to love our bodies and ourselves at every size. That hasn’t changed because I’ve lost weight. I need to love myself at every size.

If you’re interested in numbers, I’ve lost 55lbs. Actually, I’ve lost 80 lbs from when I hit my highest weight ever of 265 but 25 of that was lost over the past few years before I got on the juice. Also, after being fat for most of my adult life, this weight loss has made me skinnier but I’m still not skinny, exactly. I’m still in an XL. I had been wearing 3XLs. I’ve always somehow felt like I was in no-man’s land. I’ve usually been too fat for the skinny people and too skinny for the fat people.

I’m such a fan of Rosie O’Donnell for a lot of reasons. She’s so smart and funny and wise. Like me, she’s a Mounjaro girl but she did it in a way that was so smart. She was on the lowest dosage for 1 year. Then she went up to the next dosage for another year and finally to the next dosage after that for a third year. Slow and steady wins the race and Rosie lost 6o lbs in 3 years and by doing it slowly and gradually, she had zero side effects.

I’m currently at the highest dosage available, 15 mg and as I’ve gotten used to that strength, I’ve had more of an appetite which honestly is good.

Food and fatness are an area where I can get a little cuckoo crazy. I need to remind myself that my instinctual reaction on these topics is often unhealthy. Left to my own devices, I would enjoy Tootsie Rolls for breakfast. Although I’ve been sober for 29 years, I can still slip into addict thinking when it comes to food.

In past columns, I’ve wondered if it’s ok that I don’t have a goal weight in mind. These days my approach is to listen to my body and trust that I’ll know when I’ve reached the right weight for me. My goal is feeling healthy and being a weight that is maintainable and manageable. And that feels like a better goal than any number on the scale.

Is there anything more fun than a night on the town with your favorite gay porn star? Which reminds me of my night out dancing with Jimmy Durano, a Brazilian muscle king and Virgo who was also a go-go-boy and graphic designer in addition to working with a bunch of porn companies like Falcon, Titan and CockyBoys.

Jimmy just happened to be in town when I was going to Marj Madness, a fabulous dance party with DJ Mad Marj aka Marjorie Gubelmann, co-hosted by muscle man Simon Huck with a few extra friends like me thrown in sometimes as co-hosts. DJMM spun ALL the gay hits and had the whole crowd dancing all night and singing along to Erasure, ABBA, Madonna and more. I’m dancing in my chair as I type this just thinking of the dancing I did at that party.

Jimmy was (and is) a sexy Brazilian top and I can’t remember if we met on social media or in person. As you might have guessed from this series, I’ve known more than a few porn stars in my time. Jimmy came to my place to pick me up and he felt like his outfit needed a little boost so I loaned him my fabulous Ashish leopard sparkle top and matching zebra sparkle shorts. I mean, all animal prints, go together, don’t they? The weather was warm or else I would have topped it off with my matching Ashish half-leopard, half-Zebra sparkle motorcycle jacket. He looked sexy and high-fashion. I, meanwhile, wore a Moschino twin set in black covered with gold buttons.

We had fun dancing and hanging out with Marj in the DJ booth. Jimmy was super star-struck when I introduced him to designer Tory Burch and Odd Mom Out star/writer Jill Kargman. He was in heaven and I don’t blame him. Tory and Jill are two of the most fabulous glamour girls of NYC. Marj Madness was classic New York and attracted gays and straights, uptown and downtown, old and young, famous and unknown but fabulous. It launched DJ Mad Marj into a global DJ star. She just DJ’d the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda party in Sicily.

As always with Marj Madness, we stayed out well past our bed times before finally Jimmy dropped me off at home before heading to his friend’s place where he was staying. He had a flight home at the crack of dawn so he gave me back my clothes and we took a few photos to remember the night and off he went. A classic NYC party night with friends, disco music, dancing and fun.

I generally don’t like to focus on the number when I talk about my weight because after almost 60 years of dieting, I know it’s not the healthiest thing to obsess about. Better to focus on how I feel and how my clothes fit. My weight fluctuates in a big way so I have Lacoste polos in every size from M to XXXL. The last time I lost a lot of weight, I made the decision to get rid of the Lacostes in the fattest sizes. I thought, ‘Keeping them is like planning to regain your weight.’ So off they went to be donated Housing Works Thrift Shop and, surprise, surprise, I gained back all the weight and needed new fat sized polos.

Now as you, kind readers know, I’m on Mounjaro. I had avoided getting on the juice until a routine blood test showed that I’m diabetic. Also, I’d read some articles that early studies show that GLP-1’s have positive side effects on people like me who have neurological issues (I have Parkinson’s). Being diagnosed as diabetic was the push I needed to get on the juice, as it were. I have to say I’m a big convert. In the almost 7 months that I’ve been on the drug, I’ve over 50 lbs. I generally don’t announce my weight because at this point in my life, I’m all about feeling healthy and obsessing about the number on the scale is not the healthy thing to do. This attitude is complicated by the fact that my current weight loss has taken me below 200lbs for the first time in quite a few years. I must say, it’s a thrill to be under 200. It makes me feel like, while I’m still chubby, I belong in the average size department at the store and not the Husky department.

The main reason I had avoided getting on a weight-loss medication is that I thought it was some kind of short cut that wouldn’t deal with my actual food issues. I’ve been sober for 29 years and imagined I needed that type of AA approach to food to address my addiction and you don’t get that from a shot of Mounjaro. But then I tried it and it works. The biggest surprise is that it helps quiet the food noise in my head. Before Mounjaro, I would have intense dialogue in my head about food. If I ate French fries, I would yell at myself in my head, ‘WHY did you eat the French fries?’ ‘You’ll never be skinny if you eat that.’ If I didn’t eat the French fries, my inner dialogue would be; ‘Why didn’t you eat the French fries?’ ‘Life is too short to deny yourself pleasure.” Whatever the situation, my brain would go into overdrive. And the Mounjaro helps that.

Losing weight is funny. People go crazy telling you how great you look which sort of has the implied insult that you looked like shit before the weight-loss. People also love to ask you how far you are from your goal weight. As part of my embrace of myself at any and every size, I’ve tried to avoid picking a goal weight. My natural instinct after decades of dieting is to pick a number that’s just too unrealistic. Why set myself up for failure? I need to trust my body to tell me what weight it’s meant to be.

Another thing I’ve noticed lately is everyone I know seems to either be on the juice or trying to get on it. I was at a social thing with some friends the other day and there were 7 people- men and women- who had been in the wedding party for my good friend. We all mentioned we were on a weight-loss drug and loving it. We all looked healthy and fit. But that does seem like a high-percentage for the entire group to be on the drugs.

So as far as the goal weight goes, I think I’m expecting the weight-loss to slow down when my body is ready. I’ve been sharing about my weight-loss journey on social media and some of my followers have been DMing me to ask me questions or to share their experiences with me. I must admit, I love it. I’m happy to tell people I’m on it and happy to recommend it to anyone who’s interested in trying it. I feel a bond with my fat friends and folks who have weight issues. I’m happy to support them and am grateful for their support too.

Substack has really reawakened my interest in art history. One of the first accounts I followed was Katy Hessel who wrote the amazing book The Story of Art Without Men, which is just what the title proclaims: a history book about art through the ages but unlike the Art History book you read in college, this book talks exclusively about women artists. We’ve been taught that there are never any talented women artists featured in museums because there were no successful or talented women artists back in the day. Well, it turns out that was a lie. Hessel’s book has exposed me to incredible artists from every stage of history. Thanks to Hessel, I now know about Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola and India’s most amazing modern painter Amrita Sher-Gil, just to name a few.

I was very excited to read in the newspaper recently that the National Gallery in Washington DC had bought Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy by Artemisia Gentileschi. It’s their first piece by the artist and I was happy to see such a prestigious museum buying art by women artists. In many ways, it was that painting that inspired my recent weekend jaunt to DC for a little museum hopping. The National Gallery is an art lovers’ dream. They don’t just have one Rembrandt, they have a room full of Rembrandts. The most elite museums in the world are lucky to have a single Vermeer, and the National Gallery has 4. It’s a non-stop cavalcade of masterpieces by all the icons of art history. (There’s only 1 Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery but then again there’s only one in all of the Americas).

Artemisia Gentileschi was lucky to have been born in Rome in 1593 because Italy seems to have been one of the few countries at that time that women could become artists. Bologna especially seemed to produce many female artists including Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Properzia de’Rossi, Maria Ormani and Catherine of Bologna. The last two were Augustinian nuns as well as artists. Artemisia was also lucky that her father, Orazio, was a successful artist because having a painter father was the easiest way to become an artist yourself in those days.

The museum had made room for Gentileschi’s Mary Magdalene and it was gorgeous. She really knows how to make women look beautiful and powerful. I was surprised to see that they put 2mpaintings by her father, Orazio Gentileschi, on either side of Artemisia’s work. Just when you think we’re on our way to gender parity in elite museums thanks to a new work by an iconic woman artist, they add two paintings by a man.

I’m not suggesting that male artists be banned and I actually think it’s sweet to have the father’s work next to the daughter’s.

Nonetheless, 11% of the art in the permanent collection of the National Gallery is by women artists. We need to do much better than that especially in modern museums!

On my way to DC for this little museum weekend, my friend Scott (who was driving) and I stopped in Baltimore to visit the Walters Art Museum. Baltimore is a great city with some wonderful art to see. I had never been to the Walters but in researching great museums in DC and the surrounding area, I found the Walters and saw they had a great collection of Italian renaissance art including a gorgeous piece by Sofonisba Anguissola, one of my new favorite artists I’d learned about from Katy Hessel’s book. Sofonisba came from an aristocratic family in Cremona, Italy and her father felt that young ladies should be cultured and develop talents as artists, poets and musicians. Her parents had 7 children, 6 girls followed by a boy.

The Walters Art Museum has a gorgeous painting by Sofonisba called Portrait of Marquess Massimiliano Stampa. It’s a portrait of the 9 year-old son of a powerful Italian family, the Stampas, who is seen posing with his sleeping dog. I saw a photo of the painting in the book on Anguissola by Cecilia Gamberini that I ordered after reading about the artist in Katy Heller’s book. The painting immediately reminded me of the famous portaits by Bronzino, so elegant and dignified. I just had to stop in Baltimore and see this portrait in person. It was definitely worth the trip. I had my friend Scott take a photo of me in front of the portrait and although I look cranky and sad in the photo, I promise I was super excited to see it. (if you’re interested in reading about this museum, I recommend the book Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur by Stanley Mazaroff)

Now a day or two later, I was in the West Building of the National Gallery (the modern section) which, as previously mentioned, is a treasure trove overflowing with incredible art. Thanks to an incredible donation from Robert and Aimee Lehrman, the NGA has more than 20 pieces by one of my all-time favorite artists, Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), the king of assemblage who lived in Queens with his mother and disabled brother. He rarely left New York City but his art is filled with glamour, romance and sophistication. He’s most well-known for his shadow boxes which feature collage and assembled found objects. Honestly, he was a genius who’s work just feels magic to me. So I was thrilled to see that the NGA had 20 pieces. I was speechless when I saw a Cornell box called Untitled (Medici prince) from 1953. It featured a large blue tinted version of Portrait of Massimliano Stampa by Sofonisba Anguissola that I’d just seen a day before at the Walters Art Museum of Baltimore. Obviously, the name is wrong because the boy in the painting is not a Medici prince but that’s not a surprising mistake. What was surprising and delightful to me was that my long-time favorite artist, Joseph Cornell, obviously loved my new favorite artist Sofonisba Anguissola. It reminded me that there is a lot of magic in the universe and we’re all connected.

I’ve talked before here on Substack about people who have passed away that have had a major impact on me. Sometimes a very close loved-one and sometimes a person I hardly knew but that had an impact on my life. Today I want to talk about someone who was a little bit of both.

If you asked me who the nicest person I’ve met in life was, I wouldn’t hesitate to say Tom Murrin. He wrote about off-Broadway theater and performance art for Paper for many years and he was an incredible playwright and performance artist himself. His had several aliases including the Alien Comic.

Tom was always so excited to tell you about some crazy new kid who had an improv group or performance piece happening in the East Village. Three future legends he wrote about at the beginning of their careers were Amy Sedaris, Amy Poehler and Bridget Everett. Miss Sedaris did incredibly hilarious shows as part of The Talent Family, with her brother David and her friends who eventually worked with her on the cult comedy show Strangers With Candy. Tom wrote about Miss Poehler when she was part of Upright Citizen’s Brigade. Bridget was potty-mouthed downtown cabaret sensation for years before her incredible HBO Max show Somebody, Somewhere.

As if being the sweetest man in the universe and working hard to bring success to downtown performance divas wasn’t enough. Tom also had a fascinating back story.

Tom was born in Hollywood, California and he loved his hometown and home state. He was so proud to be from there. His father was the right-hand man of Howard Hughes so from the time he was a kid, Tom had many run-ins with Hollywood legends. We both had a good laugh when he told me about the time Jane Russell came to the Murrins for dinner. Tom’s mother had just painted the toilet seat in the powder room and when Jane excused herself, she was gone for quite some time. Mrs. M went back to the powder to check on Jane who said, “Thank God you came back!” The almost-dry paint had acted like glue and poor Miss Russell was glued to the toilet seat!

Tom had gone to Law School in his younger days and was a big handsome strapping guy back then. At some point he realized the law wasn’t his calling and he got into playwrighting. Once Tom showed me an old yellowing newspaper clipping that featured a gorgeous photo of screen goddess Ava Gardner, wearing glasses, seated at a nightclub table looking very unhappy that she was being photographed. In the foreground a hunky young man in a suite was rushing towards the camera, fists clenched ready to beat some photographer ass. It took me a minute to realize that the chivalrous hunk was Tom in his younger days. Tom pointed out that Ava had told him if you want to disguise your appearance, sunglasses are too obvious and people will assume you’re in disguise. Regular glasses with clear lenses are the way to go.

Tom’s best friend from home was Teri Garr and at one point to make some extra money he was babysitter for his good friend’s son who went on to be an Academy Award Winning actor. Maybe you’ve heard of him: Leonardo DiCaprio.

Tom used to come by the office regularly to drop off his magazine stories- (always early!), pick up mail and catch up with everybody. He was always smiling and we were always so happy to see him. At one point he hadn’t come in for a while and we were a little worried about him because Tom was always so consistent. He always told us if he was going home to Hollywood for a visit. Finally, Tom came in one day, smiling like always but looking terrible. He was obviously very sick although none of us mentioned it. We were upset but still happy to see Tom. When we heard a few weeks later that he had passed away, it felt like Tom had stopped by that day to say goodbye. What a beautiful gift for him to give us his friends and co-workers.

There was a gorgeous memorial service for Tom that had me sobbing and I must admit that when I think about Tom and remember what an incredibly unique sweetheart he was, I usually cry. But they’re tears of joy and gratitude for having the unbelievable luck to know such a gem of a guy.

In addition to his theatrical pursuits, Tom also loved to make paintings and other art. Many of his pieces are on view in the video room at Howl Gallery on Bowery. Here are a few of them.

Back when I was in my early 20s, in pre-internet NYC, porn stars were mythic figures. In the pre-internet days, you had to buy your porn either in an adult bookstore or through a catalog. You couldn’t just go on-line and google your kink of choice and get a million links to free hardcore scenes.

I used to go out almost every night when I was a hard-partying gay-about-town in the 90s. Saturday was usually the only night I stayed home. Tuesday night meant Jackie 60, the soiree hosted by Chi Chi Valenti and DJ Johnny Dynell. I’ve always believed the name came from the NY Post cover story of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis turning 60 in 1989. Jackie, as we called it, was the classic downtown NYC combination of fabulous freaks, drag queens, rockstars, precocious party people and generally anyone who loved to have a good time. Gays, straights, bisexuals and beyond, all mixed and mingled happily.

One Tuesday, I was there with my muscle hunk friend and Paper colleague, Hamid. We both loved to dance and were very social. That evening we noticed two hunky dudes; one a muscly regular guy in overalls and a shirtless guy with tons of tattoos and a bandana made into a doo-rag.

Hamid happened to be standing right next to them when one of the two hunky dudes said to the other, “It’s all part of being a porn star!”

Now in those days, porn stars were really famous. The gays all had their favorite stars who were signed to various porn studios in the old Hollywood style. Falcon was sort of the MGM of porn studios and had all the mainstream blonde muscle hunks.

The muscly regular guy at Jackie 60 turned out to be Ryan Block and the other was named Dragyn and was known for BDSM. I asked to take their photos saying I worked at Paper and I liked their look potentially for our party page, Cultural Sushi. We started chatting and we admitted that Hamid had overheard that they were porn stars. Since this was the time before cell-phones, I guess Ryan told us we could reach him at his hotel.

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I think Dame Edith Sitwell might be my all-time favorite most glamorous woman you’ve never heard of. Don’t get me wrong. I love all the women I write about, or at least, find them fascinating, but Edith really scores 10s across the boards, as far as I’m concerned. Her look is absolutely unique and individual.

Edith once describer herself this way: “I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.” She went on to say, “I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty...But I am too busy thinking about myself.” Not what I consider the typical conversation of your average upper-class woman born in 1887.

In a way, Edith was a chip off the old aristocratic block of her family. And yet, she and her two younger brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell were touchingly devoted to one another their entire lives. Their parents, on the other hand, did not live in connubial bliss. Edith had a particularly unpleasant relationship with her mother who lived beyond the family’s means despite them being rich. She was eventually involved with some shady financial dealings and charged with fraud. Her husband, from whom she had become estranged, refused to help her financially to resolve the case and she ended up in Holloway Prison, the famous jail where the infamous and beautiful fascist Diana Mitford, ex-wife of Brian Guinness, was incarcerated during WWII along with her husband, Sir Oswald Moseley, head of the British Union of Fascists.

Edith’s mother, Lady Ida Denison was a highly aristocratic beauty as the daughter of the 1^st Earl of Londesborough and granddaughter of the 7^th Duke of Beaufort. She wasn’t particularly overflowing with maternal urges.

Edith’s father was known as a classic English eccentric. He was only 2 years old when his father the previous Sir Sitwell died and he became Sir George Sitwell, 4^th Baronet. Before he turned 5, Sir George allegedly proclaimed on a crowded train, “I’m Sir George Sitwell, Baronet. I’m 4 years old and the youngest Baronet in England.” He grew up to write several books including the History of the Fork and Acorns as an Article o

f the Medieval Diet. Edith suffered from Marfan Syndrome, a genetic condition which caused her to be very tall with long limbs, long fingers, joint issues and chronic pain throughout her life. Her parents forced her to wear an iron brace in attempts to correct a curvature in her spine and her father, who was obsessed with what he considered Edith’s unattractive profile made her wear a brace-like contraption on her nose. Is it any wonder that, as an adult, Edith spoke on the program Face to Face, telling host John Freeman that her childhood was intensely unhappy.

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I’ve always loved weddings. That might be housewifey of me but I don’t care. I just love families coming together to celebrate love. I usually cry but they’re sentimental tears of joy.

The funny thing is, I don’t just enjoy the weddings of my own loved ones, I’m also obsessed with royal weddings. Regular followers of my work know I’m a huge devotee of royal history with a particular interest in Queen Victoria’s grandchildren. (Due to the currently hideous levels of income inequality in the world and the Epstein Files, however, my previous monarchist affections are giving way to thoughts of ‘Bring out the guillotine!” but that’s a post for another day.)

My point is I love and adore royal weddings of history and feel compelled to share some of my favorites with you. Near the top of my list, I would have to put the wedding of Princess Beatrice of Great Britain, youngest child of Queen Victoria, to her handsome hubby Prince Henry of Battenberg. Beatrice was the Queen’s trusted assistant and old meanie Victoria was horrified at the thought of her baby girl forsaking her daughterly duties for something as selfish as her own personal happiness. In fact, when Beatrice told Victoria that she was in love and getting married, Victoria stopped speaking to her child for 7 months.

I love the Battenbergs. They were the product of what’s known in the royal world as a morganatic marriage, meaning a royal marrying someone not of ‘equal birth.’ In this case, Prince Alexander of Hesse married Countess Julie Hauke. You’re probably thinking, ‘Wait. A countess isn’t fancy enough?’ Well, those were the rules. Alexander’s sister, Marie of Hesse, was Empress of Russia so, despite being morganatic, the Battenbergs were majorly connected.

There were 4 Battenberg sons and one daughter, all very good-looking. They were some of the hunkiest princes around, morganatic or not. They bring to mind the men of the Coburg family, who were so sexy, they were referred to as ‘the Stud farm of Europe.

One thing I’ll say for Queen Victoria, she wasn’t a huge snob like many royals of her day. No, she was totally fine with Liko (Prince Henry’s nickname in the family) being a Battenberg. She just wasn’t fine with her daughter marrying anyone. In fact, the Queen approved of one of her favorite granddaughters, Victoria of Hesse, marrying Liko’s brother Louis and another granddaughter, Viktoria of Prussia, falling in love with a third sexy Battenberg brother, Sandro (but that pair was broken up by evil Prince Bismarck and the Prussian family’s anti-morganatic snobbery.

Luckily eventually cooler heads prevailed and the Queen approved of the match, as long as the couple agreed to always live with her mother and for Beatrice to continue her assistant work.

It’s funny that as much as I love weddings, I really dislike wedding gowns. I appreciate that on a woman’s wedding day (or a gay’s), she should look exactly how she wants to look and she should feel like a princess, even if she isn’t one. Beatrice wore a simple ivory satin wedding dressed trimmed with her mother’s wedding lace. Her mother’s wedding veil was held in place with a diamond circlet with large diamond stars. She also had sprays of orange blossoms, myrtle and white heather in her hair.

The wedding happened on July 23rd, 1885 at St. Mildred’s Church, Whippingham, Isle of Wight. Of course, one of the Queen’s favorite homes, Osborne House was located on the island. I must say that while I enjoy the love triumphing in the end aspect of this wedding, what I love most about it is the bride having many of her adorable nieces as bridesmaids. The front row is three little Edinburgh princesses Ducky, Missy and Sandra. Middle row Maud of Wales, Alicky of Hesse, Louie and Thora of Schleswig-Holstein and back row Louise of Wales, Irene of Hesse and Toria of Wales. The two men in the back are Liko’s brothers Sandro and Franzjos who were groomsmen. (for the record the full-names are: Victoria Melita, Marie and Alexandra of Edinburgh. Maud of Wales, Alix of Hesse, Marie-Louise and Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. Louise of Wales, Irene of Hesse and Victoria of Wales. Alexander and Franz Joseph of Battenberg).

The marriage was a happy one and they had 3 sons and 1 daughter (who grew up to be Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain). Sadly, Liko died tragically of malaria while serving in the British military in Western Africa’s Ashanti War. He was only 37. Princess Beatrice lived to the ripe old age of 87, dying in 1944.

It’s early March 2026 and it’s time for a Fat and All That check-in. I’m still on Mounjaro and week two of 7.25 dosage. I must say that this dosage has not knocked my socks off. Even the first week I wasn’t feeling it 100%. This is where being a recovering addict can complicate things. I’m always thinking I need more, more, more. If the bottle says take 2 Tylenol, I think I need 3. Then again, I weigh over 200 lbs so I supposed my body does need more of certain medications.* Actually after writing this I spoke to a friend who’s on Mounjaro and he said he was convinced the 7.25 dosage was a placebo. I was happy to hear that because it’s easy to feel like I’m insane for feeling like I need a stronger dose. I guess I need to trust myself.

I really don’t like talking numbers when it comes to weight but on some levels it’s the clearest way to measure progress. When I got on Mounjaro I weighed 240. At my fattest, I had been 260. I’m 5’7” and 59 years old. Yesterday, I weighed myself and I was 214 so I’ve lost 26 lbs. I’m feeling good. I’m loving my Parkinson’s medication. I need to do lots more cardio which is the best thing for people with neurological disorders. Cold and snow certainly seem like good excuses to stay home instead of schlepping to the gym. But the weather this week has been gorgeous. I need to remind myself that every time I go to the gym, either for an appointment with my trainer or some cardio, I always feel better and healthier afterwards. I just need to do it.

I also need to really lay off the sugar. Honestly, refined sugar is the devil. It’s so addictive and it’s total poison. I once gave up sugar for 4 months and I felt totally incredible but giving it up was harder than when I gave up heroin and crystal meth. Sugar or disgusting chemical sweeteners are in everything we put in our mouths in America from ketchup to toothpaste. So many of the processed foods in America are illegal in Europe because of the nasty chemicals. The sweeteners are so addictive! If I’m just eating whatever I feel like I honestly am happy eating bread, French fries and candy. Talk about a dietary disaster with zero nutritional value! Why does garbage taste so good?

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Diana Vreeland was famously quoted as saying, “The best thing about London…. is Paris.” And I’m going to borrow a variation on that theme and tell you, “One of my favorite things about living in New York City is Philadelphia.” It’s amazing that a quick one-hour train ride gets you to another fabulous city which is perfect for the kind of cultural field trips I love. Philadelphia is full of colonial history. Betsy Ross’s house, Benjamin Franklin’s house, the Liberty Bell. There are world-class museums: the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Calder Gardens, Rodin Museum and, of course, the Barnes Collection. And those are all in the same neighborhood.

Philadelphia also has an incredible culinary scene with some of the best restaurants around. (Some of my personal favorites include Monster Vegan, Vedge and Talula’s Garden). I always eat like a king when I visit the city of brotherly love, thanks to my Philly friend Erik Schut who takes me to all the most delicious destinations.

Over the summer, some highly-cultured homosexual friends and I decided to zip down to Philadelphia to check out the Alexander Calder Gardens which had just opened. In addition to gardens featuring Calder’s signature sculptures, there’s a small museum building with rotating exhibits. It’s a wonderful addition to the Philadelphia art scene.

The Barnes Collection is honestly one of my favorite museums. Founded by Dr Albert C. Barnes in 1922, the goal was to expose people from every social class to art. Dr. Barnes collected one of the most impressive collections of impressionist and modern art in the world. A few jaw-dropping numbers: 179 Renoirs. 69 Cezannes. 46 Picassos. 59 Matisses. 7 Van Goghs. The wild thing about the Barnes is Dr. Barnes arrangement of the art in “ensembles” covering most of the wall, interspersed with wrought-iron fixtures, antique furniture, jewelry and sculpture.

I’ve been to the Barnes a handful of times and for some reason on this most recent trip, I noticed some works by less well-known artists that I hadn’t noticed before. I’m always on the look-out for women artists and I’m disappointed the Barnes doesn’t have more women represented. Although the museum has done big shows on Berthe Morisot, Suzanne Valadon, Marie Laurencin, Cecily Brown and Mickalene Thomas.

Here are some of the pieces that surprised me on this trip.

How fabulous is Girl with Cat by Hélène Perdriat? It might be a self-portrait. Hélène, who was born in France, painted tons of self-portraits when she was young. She was very ill at 21 and continued painting portraits of herself, her family and friends. After recovering, she married a Norwegian artist, Thorvald Hellessen. She showed her work in Oslo, Berlin, Paris and New York. I’ve never heard of her but plan to do a deep dive on her immediately.

This might be my favorite painting in the whole museum. Dr. Barnes bought this painting in 1950 and wrote to a friend, “I strongly urge you to arrange to come to Philadelphia… to look at a large number of paintings done by Hankins. He is the most exciting painter I have seen anywhere in the past several years—exciting because he is not only a real painter but as individual an artist as Matisse, Klee or Miro. He is also as definitely modern as any of these contemporaries, and I believe he is destined to go places.” Hankins was born in Russia and emigrated to America as a teen. He studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and two of his paintings ended up in the Barnes Collection, He died in his early 60s while on vacation in Miami Beach.

I was excited to see three paintings by Edith Dimock. She was married to artist William Glackens who was very friendly with Dr. Barnes. Edith showed in the legendary 1913 Armory Show. She had a very successful career. She and two other women artists shared a studio in the Sherwood Building in NYC and had weekly open houses. They became known as the Sherwood Sisters. Her daughter, Lenna Glackens, was also an artist and this little painting of hers is on display at the Barnes.

It was nice to come across two paintings by an artist of color, Horace Pippin. When Pippin died in 1946, the New York Times called him “the most important Negro painter” in American history. His work is in the collections of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney. The above painting illustrates a gospel story while the below painting is called Supper Time and shows a scene from the every day life of black Americans.

Karl Priebe was a white artist from Wisconsin who was very attracted to black culture. He was a longtime friend of Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Langston Hughes, Carl Van Vechten and Dizzy Gillespie. He was part or a loose group of artists known as the Wisconsin Magic Realists. I think Miss Chalfont is a pretty modern painting for 1947.

The surprise about this Renoir was that I actually like this painting. The Barnes has truckloads of Renoirs, which are not my favorite. But something about this one, I like. That concludes our little tour of surprises at the Barnes Foundation. I can’t wait til Spring for another Philadelphia field trip.

When I was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, I never saw any celebrities. Well, I did see Yul Brynner on stage in The King and I and I saw lots of famous musicians in concert but somehow that didn’t really count. My first concert was Billy Joel at the Rosemont Horizon. I think I was 12 or 13. That same summer I saw REO Speedwagon at Poplar Creek. Them being on stage made it feel inaccessible even though I was in the audience. A story my mom loved telling when I was a kid was how she saw Kim Novak at the premiere of her film Jeanne Eagels which happened in Chicago. I thought, God if I’m lucky, one day I’ll see a Hollywood superstar too.

In my youth, celebrities were different. This is before cable tv when there were only 3 networks. Back then so many fewer people had tv shows or were movie stars. Nowadays it feels like there are so many more celebrities than there were in my childhood. Also, the suburbs were certainly not a place off-duty celebrities would hang out waiting to have a run-in with me. Once I moved to New York City (and traveled to celebrity-filled destinations like Los Angeles, London, Paris, Mumbai, Cairo and Madrid) it’s been a cavalcade of celebrities. The funny thing is that while I love meeting today’s bold-faced names, there’s still nothing that compares to meeting one of the famous stars of my youth. Back in those days, being famous really seemed like a truly outstanding achievement and I assumed I would never, ever get to meet someone famous. That’s why I nearly died of excitement when I met the one-and-only Marie Osmond, backstage at her show at the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

Donny and Marie had a variety show in the mid-70s that had fun costumes, ice-skating, celebrity guests like Ruth Buzzi and Paul Lynde and musical numbers. I loved it. Marie was a little bit country and Donny was a little bit rock n roll. I had a few records of Donny and the Osmond brothers; One Bad Apple, Go Away Little Girl. Marie had recorded the old song Paper Roses and it went to #1 on the country charts. I begged for the 45/single for Christmas but my mom got me the original 1960 version by gay hater Anita Bryant.

I ended up following Marie her whole career. The country music years, the tv talk show, selling dolls on QVC. She was such a sweetheart when I met her. And I have to add that Donny was also charming and delightful.

Another example of freaking out over the stars of my youth also happened in Las Vegas. My dear friend Ariel Foxman was getting married and his groomspeople (including me) were celebrating his bachelor party with a fabulous weekend in Sin City. Maid of Honor, Lisa, had hooked up fabulous tickets to see Britney Spears, Olivia Newton-John, a crazy drag show and more. The shows all included a meet n greet backstage with the headliner after the show for Ariel and one guest. Naturally, all the gays and gals were clawing each other’s eyes out to be the chosen +1 for backstage with Britney. Meanwhile I had closed my eyes and was praying to the Baby Jesus to please let me be the one to go backstage with Olivia Newton-John. I mean Britney was great but Olivia was the star of Grease! God smiled on me and I was able to meet Olivia and she was delightful. Sure I enjoy the stars of today but for me there’s nothing like the stars of my youth to really give me a thrill.

We’re living through some of the most hideous times in our country’s history and you don’t need me to list the cavalcade of evil and injustice unfolding all around us. You just have to read a newspaper, watch the news (but not CBS News because we’re boycotting them) or log onto social media and you know what’s going on.

As if that isn’t traumatic enough, on a personal level, the situation in the world has made me rethink some of my most basic attitudes about life, history and humanity. I promise I’m not overdramatizing. I get that my personal identity crisis means nothing compared to what’s going on in Minnesota, Gaza, Iran and the Epstein files, but it’s upsetting me, nonetheless.

I’ve always loved rich ladies. I’ve loved their glamour, their style, their philanthropy, their civic-minded attitude. When I think rich ladies, I think icons like Agnes Gund, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lila Acheson Wallace and LuEsther T. Mertz. They live large, give generously and uplift their communities. Even the more party-girl style rich ladies like Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke and Gloria Vanderbilt inspired me with their zest for living.

And who are the rich ladies we have today? Melania Trump and Lauren Sanchez Bezos. Frankly Melania, who’s a mail-order-bride, former low-level “model” and the laziest first lady in American history, makes me puke. She’s a grifter like the entire Trump family who’s never done one philanthropic thing to help anyone. She is pretty and wears expensive clothes that sometimes border on ridiculousness, which I actually like, if I’m being totally honest. I also would love that she’s an immigrant except her husband has unleashed an evil war on immigrants.

Then we have Mrs. Bezos. Now I usually celebrate all types of style, particular when it comes to women. I don’t need to add to the cacophony of criticism of how women look or dress. If you love a bra-top and booty shorts, follow your bliss. There’s always a market for a sex bomb who shows lots of skin. That market is usually horny straight men experiencing a mid-life crisis, but you do you, girl. My problem with Mrs. Bezos is really a problem with Vogue. For decades, Vogue has been exclusionary and snobby. 98% of us are too fat, too old or too poor to be in Vogue. Skinny, rich, nepo babies only need apply. And now after decades of that, we’re served up Mrs. Bezos as a fashion inspiration? As an “environmentalist” who flies to space with her bridesmaids and sails around in a $500 million gas-guzzling super yacht (please read brilliant Louis Pisano’s pieces about this). I get that Anna Wintour has to chase the money if she wants to sell Conde Nast but acting like Mrs. Bezos has good style is an insult to our intelligence. And the idea of having Conde Nast bought by the man who destroyed the Washington Post is not very appetizing.

Yes, we have Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott who are incredible, inspiring women using their wealth to make the world a better place but as far as I’m concerned, I’ll never be able to adore or be inspired by rich ladies the way I once did.

Similar to my love for rich ladies, has been my fascination and celebration of royal families. It started when I read an excerpt of Hannah Pakula’s biography of Marie, Queen of Romania, the Last Romantic in Vanity Fair in 1984. Marie was granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander III. She was gorgeous and glamorous and became the heroine of her adopted country during WW I and then represented them at the Versailles Peace Conference, winning incredible concessions for Romania.

Royal families have been like the most glamorous, historically rich soap operas mixing family relationships with world history, glamour, incredible jewels and pageantry.

And somehow here I am, rejoicing at Andrew Mountbatten Windsor being arrested and booted from the royal family. He and his wife are corrupt grifters who have been embarrassments to the royal family for decades. They both belong in jail. He’s a sexual predator and she’s a corrupt money grubber who both sucked up to Jeffrey Epstein. Fergie took her daughters to visit Epstein just after he got out of jail, with Epstein paying for their travel. She has no shame and zero dignity. Some royal reporters in the UK are saying the daughters are money-chasers like their parents. Others are pointing out that the late Queen gave Andrew most of the money to settle Virginia Giuffre’s civil suit against Andrew so she must have known about Andrew’s activities as a sexual predator.

Another royal with no shame who exchanged jokey emails for years with Epstein is Mette Marit, Crown Princess of Norway who has been an embarrassment to the royal family since before she even married into it. She had a son, Marius, out of wedlock with a convicted felon before marrying the Crown Prince. Not great for the family image but Norway has a modern monarchy and there’s no shame in unwed motherhood. Now, Marius is grown up and facing 38 charges, including raping 4 women. While awaiting trial, more charges were brought against him and their are claims he has a secret love child.

The real problem with Mette Marit is that appears 1,000 times in the Epstein files. In 2011, three years after Epstein became a convicted sex offender, she emailed Epstein. “Googled u after last email. Agree didn’t look too good :)” Still, in her latest “profound apology” to the Norwegian people she said she was “deeply saddened that she had failed to realize early enough what kind of person he was.” Bullshit. She googled him 15 years ago and saw what he was. Her behavior is a horrible blemish on the crown and she should be expelled from the royal family. She has medical issues which make her physically unable to fulfill her duties which is even more reason to strip her of her position.

King Harald, her father-in-law, was hospitalized in Spain and has been in poor health for years. That makes this issue even more pressing. The Spanish royal family has dealt with these type of situations in recent memory. King Juan Carlos was persuaded to abdicate in favor of his son King Felipe, when the father’s unsavory lifestyle and corruption threatened the stability of the crown. Felipe’s sister, the Infanta Cristina, stood trial for corruption and though she was acquitted, her husband went to jail and she was stripped of her titles.

I’ve spent decades studying royal families, visiting their castles, palaces. I have a collection of over 500 books on royal history. Last year when I was in Paris, I took a last-minute day trip to London to see a show of Queen Marie of Romania’s watercolors of flowers at The King’s Foundation in London. I’m not the kind of person who usually criticizes royals, let alone calls for them to be stripped of their titles and prosecuted. Corrupt, criminal members of royal families threaten to sabotage the entire system of monarchy because they make us see how insane it is for people to be given positions of power, privilege and authority based simply on who their parents are. Or who they marry.

So here I sit rethinking my feelings about two of my previously most-admired groups: rich ladies and royal families. It’s not easy at 59 but it certainly seems to be the appropriate response to the news of the day.

When it comes to starfucking, I’m a belieber. I find the story behind this photo pretty amusing.

I’m friends with a stylist named Ugo Mozie whom I’ve known for years. He’s styled amazing people like Maluma, Diana Ross and, yes, Justin Bieber. During fashion week, years ago, I got a text from Ugo, asking me if I was going to the Opening Ceremony show. I said I was. He said he wanted to introduce me to Justin at the show. Being a knucklehead, I wasn’t sure who he meant. I thought maybe it was some friend of his so I said, sure. The show was in some cavernous space that was a huge empty room with rows of seats on the outer perimeter and a vast open space in between. The show was running late so we all were sitting there just waiting. Ugo texted and said he was sitting across from me and I should zip over to say hi. So I got up and walked across the room, with the entire crowd watching, to where I thought Ugo was. Luckily, I’m comfortable making a spectacle of myself. I got their and Ugo turned towards his friend and said, “Mickey this is Justin.” As in Justin Bieber. I gagged. Justin was adorable and sweet. Ugo took our photo as everyone in the crowd gawked at us. I quickly walked back to my seat and the show began.

I’m a lifelong soap opera super fan. While I was a toddler, my mother watched Days of Our Lives and The Doctors. I’m turning 60 in October and I still watch DOOL today. A few years ago, the show left its home network NBC to air on the streaming service Peacock. I followed them there. I probably would still be watching The Doctors also except it got canceled in 1982. A few years ago, an online tv station called Retro TV streamed 1970s re-runs of the show. I watched and loved it because I’m a devoted student of soap opera history. I knew that the queen of the show was Elizabeth Hubbard who played Dr. Althea Davis and won the first daytime Emmy for Best Actress. I also knew that a lot of great actors got their start on the show: Armand Assante, Alec Baldwin, Kim Zimmer, Ellen Burstyn, Dixie Carter, Peggy Cass, Ted Danson and Swoosie Kurtz to name nut a few. Over the years I’ve been a regular viewer of almost every soap on TV. The ones I didn’t watch regularly, I kept up with by reading Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly. My favorite shows at one time or another included All My Children, Search for Tomorrow, General Hospital, Another World, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Passions, the Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives. In addition to keeping up with the news in the magazines, I would change the dial now and again to check in on favorite characters or switch shows when I heard about great new characters or wild storylines like the Salem Serial Killer madness on DOOL in 2003.

I love daytime soaps, nighttime soaps, fancy streaming series that are really soaps. Hello, Bridgerton. Heated Rivalry even has a lot in common with soap opera at its best.

And yet, I’m currently boycotting some of the best soaps around because I refuse to watch CBS. It’s owned by David Ellison, a Trumper who has done so much to suck up to our hideous President. Installing Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News and firing Stephen Colbert combined to push me over the edge. I cancelled my Paramount Plus subscription, deleted my TikTok account (the Ellisons also own TikTok) and decided to take all 3 CBS soaps off my DVR season pass- yes I still have cable, I’m almost 60. I watch DVR’d episodes of my show and also stream them, depending on my mood. Every soap has ups and downs but Young and the Restless is a great show. What a cast of legendary divas. Great actors, sexy actors, iconic actors. The Bold and the Beautiful, Y&R’s sister show is set in the fashion world of Los Angeles. Both shows were created by the late Bill Bell, one of the holy trinity of soap opera. Irna Phillips and her two former proteges, Agnes Nixon and Bell. Those three created almost every legendary soap opera and iconic long-running character. Bell’s shows are now run by his son Bradley and while not as great as they were in their heyday, they’re still the top-rated shows on daytime and so fun to watch. CBS launched their 3^rd soap, Beyond the Gates in early 2025. It was created by Michele Val Jean, a black woman who’s had a long and fabulous career in soaps and it centers around a rich black family. I watched occasionally, excited to support some diversity in daytime (and a cast that includes some iconic favorites) but hadn’t gotten fully hooked yet.

I realize my boycotting CBS and not watching these soaps most likely will change nothing. But the ratings for CBS News are down 25%. They lost a million viewers in the first week with new anchor Tony Dokoupil. So boycotting obviously has real effects.

Also, I’m a soap superfan. I’m always singing the praises of soaps and soap stars. I’m a journalist who’s covered many of my favorite soap stars over the years. And I plan to continue to cover and celebrate soaps- unless they’re on CBS. We’re living in a country run by a crew of the most corrupt, cruel and incompetent people imaginable and corporations like CBS, and many others, are collaborating and subsidizing the madness. A serious crisis means we all have to speak out and act like our country depends on it, because it does. My CBS boycott probably won’t be what saves our country from fascism but I’m doing it just in case.

The love story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is often considered one of the truly great romances of modern history but personally, I’ve never been a big fan.

Perhaps it’s because lately, I’ve been rethinking my monarchist attitude. Yes, I’m still fascinated by royal history and Queen Victoria’s children and grandchildren are my special niche but honestly the current insane levels of economic inequality in the world are making rethink everything. Honestly bring out the guillotine! (for the evil billionaires not specifically for royals). Really, hereditary wealth let alone monarchy really does not usually make the world a better place.

I consider myself a staunch feminist. I love and admire strong independent women. But when it comes to historical figures I sometimes find myself judging women in a very non-enlightened 1950s kind of way. I guess, like our society in general, I have been trained to vilify ‘the other woman’ for being a homewrecking whore while never judging the man for his role in the whole scenario.

Let’s take the wives of Henry VIII for example. I’m generally very pro-Catherine of Aragon. I think Henry was a total dick to her. I get it. He needed a male heir and he wasn’t getting one from poor Catherine. Henry’s feelings were valid but that’s a story for another day.

Enter Anne Boleyn. Historically speaking I’ve always considered Anne a conniving slut. Now some of my closet friends are conniving sluts so I don’t mean it as a total insult. But from the time we’re children, we’re taught that the other woman is the villain. Or that the wife is an over-the-hill hag, harridan or can’t satisfy her husband’s needs, figuratively or sexually.

Court life in Tudor England was a hotbed of betrayal, switched allegiances, rival dynasties and general mayhem. The Boleyn family were expert at surviving and thriving and Anne was a brilliant strategist at getting ahead. Until she wasn’t. I imagine her family encouraged and advised her a long the way.

I felt similarly about the Duchess of Windsor, considering her a heartless maneater, hellbent on advancemen. And then I happened to watch a show on BBC the other day called Before They Were Royal, that included an episode on the Duchess. The episode was titled, Wallis Simpson: Femme Fatale. Up to that point, as I mentioned, I never really felt any particular interest in her, except as she related to the “Magnificent Morgan” twins, Gloria Vanderbilt Sr and her sister Thelma, Lady Furness. Thelma was married to Lord Furness and was in the midst of an affair with the-then Prince of Wales when Wallis met him. He had a series of older, married mistresses like Thelma and Freda Dudley Ward. Meanwhile Gloria Sr got taken to court in NYC by her late husband’s sister, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney who was suing for custody of her niece little Gloria, Jr. Thelma and Gloria, Sr were incredibly close and so naturally, Thelma rushed to NYC to be by her sister’s side for the trial which was a three-ring-circus of insanity and featured accusations of big Gloria having a lesbian affair with Nada, Marchioness of Milford Haven, a member of the extended royal family. The trial featured testimony from Gloria Sr’s ex-fiance, Prince Friedel of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his wife, Princess Margarita of Greece, eldest sister of the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Oh it was crazier than any soap opera.

Before leaving for America, Thelma asked her friend Wallis aka Mrs. Simpson, if she could keep an eye on David, as his friends and family called the Prince of Wales, and keep him amused while she was gone. Wallis was happy to oblige and the rest is history. In this instance, my thought was not only is Wallis a predatory slut, she’s a backstabber who betrayed her friend.

Flashback to when she was a child, Wallis’ father passed away leaving little Wallis and her mother, dependent on rich relatives to support them. Wallis parents both came from pretty rich families but you can imagine what it was like to be a widow and single mother in the early 1900s. Women were totally dependent on men whether father, husband or other relative. In 1916, Wallis met her first husband, Winfield Spencer in Pensacola, FL. Win was a navy pilot which in those days, was super glamorous like being an astronaut today. He turned out to be a heavy drinker and rather abusive. Again, here is a situation so many women found themselves in back in the day. You find out your husband is an abusive drunk but if you divorce him, you ruin yourself socially and possibly financially just to free yourself from the rotten husband. If I was stuck in an abusive marriage like that, I’d do anything to get out of it, wouldn’t you?

Walllis ended up going to China where she ended up living a rather independent, adventurous life, my favorite era of Wallis’s life. Some say while she was in Beijing, she met the Italian Count Galeazzo Ciano who later married Mussolini’s daughter Edda and was il Duce’s foreign minister. Wallis allegedly had an affair with Ciano, got pregnant and was left barren by a botched abortion. She eventually moved back to the US and divorced her first husband. This era is my favorite because Wallis was living her own life as an independent and empowered woman. Look at what women had to deal with then (and still have to deal with today). Being sexually liberated before birth control meant risking pregnancy (and STD’s). So, a woman could have her reputation, livelihood and health ruined as a result of owning her sexuality.

Thinking about Wallis, Miss Boleyn and other female giants of history who’ve been dismissed as social climbers, home-wreckers or evil sluts, I’m here to apologize to all of them. Women had so few options historically and about 99% of them depended on a man. Are some women (and men) sluts and social climbers? Of course.

I do believe the Windsors were very much in love. David had a pretty problematic relationship with his mother, Queen Mary, who liked to remind her children that George V was not only their father, he was also their King. David also had a psycho nanny as a child, who abused him, doing things like pinching him very hard when she handed him to Queen Mary so he would cry and thus be handed back to the nanny. Honestly, the psycho nanny and tutor scenario is all too common in royal history. Not very good HR systems at the palaces.

One thing I will say for the Duchess is she was CHIC, gorgeously-dressed and glamorous. While I personally, applaud all those attributes, sadly, those are three things that don’t always work well for royals. Royals are not supposed to be very cocktail party, nightclub, fashion-forward or on-trend.

Look at the Queen Mother, whom many considered Wallis’s arch-nemesis. Wallis allegedly referred to poor the Queen Mum as Cookie. And not because she was sweet and delicious.

Despite re-evaluating my feelings about the Duchess of Windsor in the context of women’s limited life choices during those years, I still don’t feel like it’s one of history’s great love stories. For one thing, they were both more or less Nazis. I recognize my own unfair judgement of “loose women” in the past but we still draw the line at fascists!

If I was asked to cast my vote for the greatest (gay male) porn star of all time, I would absolutely have to choose the legendary François Sagat. The tattoo’d muscle hunk was born in Cognac, France. Isn’t that romantic? He became famous for his tattoos and for being a voracious muscle bottom who seemed to really enjoy his work. His scalp is tattoo’d to look like a ‘fade’ haircut and he used to have a star and crescent moon tattoo on his upper back which has since been covered by other tattoos. Personally, I’m not a huge tattoo fan but I always thought Sagat’s tattoos were the most fabulous. Everything about them was unique and that’s always been the magic of Sagat. He’s truly individual, not like anyone else. He certainly never took himself too seriously which was always refreshing. He might be annoyed at this homage but it’s certainly meant as a sincere tribute to a larger-than-life star.

Porn is what made him famous but he’s always had such star power that he’s expanded into other areas. He’s modeled for magazines, in fashion shows, videos and presentations. He had his own line of sexy underwear. He’s appeared in mainstream movies, starring in Bruce LaBruce’s cult classic LA Zombie as well as being the featured star of Sagat:The Documentary.

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The more I learn about 1930s movie star Ruth Chatterton, the more I love her. A huge star in her prime, she’s mostly forgotten today. Chatterton basically became an actress on a dare. As a teen, she went to a play with some friends and afterwards, she was criticizing the lead actress’s performance. Her friends teased her, saying, “You think you could do better?” She joined the chorus of show and later dropped out of school to pursue acting. She was 16.

She made her debut on Broadway before she was 20. She eventually moved to Los Angeles and got into the movies. It was the end of the silent era and studios were looking for new talent with great voices for their talking pictures. One of Chatterton’s first talkies was the classic tear jerker Madame X (later made into a classic film by Lana Turner). She was a big box office star and in 1930 she was voted the #2 top female star, after Norma Shearer. She was a Queen of the pre-codes, the scandalous era before the production code came into effect, forbidding any immoral behavior like prostitution, homosexuality or pre-marital sex. The code wasn’t fully enforced until 1934 so the era between film getting sound (around 1929) and the code being enforced was an amazing time of wild hijinks on screen. One of my favorite pre-code classics is Chatterton’s 1933 comedy Female. She plays a gorgeous rich, powerful boss of a car company who uses and abuses her attractive male subordinates like a predatory slut. It’s heaven and costars George Brent who was Chatterton’s husband at the time and who went on to costar with Bette Davis in some of her most legendary films. In addition to being a box office hit, Chatterton was loved by the critics and nominated twice for Best Actress academy awards.

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Loyal readers of this substack probably know that I do enjoy spending quality time with bold-faced names. I love celebrities but I also love anyone who’s a leader in their field: creative people, smart people, philanthropic people, funny people.

Since, I’m lucky enough to meet a lot of these kinds of people I’m starting a regular substack feature called Starfucker Saturdays where I’ll show photos of me caught in the act of celebrity hobknobbing and tell the stories behind the photos.

One of my favorite things about working at a magazine is that publicists and record companies love to send their talent to do meet & greets so we can get to know them and (they hope) fall in love with them leading to covering them in the magazine. It’s great to meet artists and performers and spend some time talking to them and hearing about their lives and projects. That’s how we ended up doing a meet & greet with Cardi B in early 2017. I knew she’d been on Love & Hip Hop but I’d never seen it. When she came in, she had so much star quality and was so fun and charming, we all fell in love with her and ended up shooting her repeatedly over the years. I swear, she’s exactly as fun, wild, delightful and talented now as she was that day. I posted this photo of us on IG and Cardi shared it on her stories. People on the street (mostly fun girls in their early 20’s) would recognize me saying they had seen me on Cardi’s IG.

Later that year, Paper did a party for our Beautiful People issue cover star, Jordan Barrett at Dave & Buster’s in Times Square. It was one of my favorite parties Paper has ever done because it was free games for everyone! Cardi came and it was fabulous to see her! Eventually it got so wild and crowded the police had to shut it down. Other gorgeous and fabulous guests included our cover boys Jordan Barrett with his friends Kaia Gerber and Diana Silvers (2 of my current favorite actors), Gucci Mane, Lady Kitty Spencer, Olympia of Greece, Carmen Carrera and Paris Hilton.

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Something I’m always telling the kids is that they need to keep a journal, especially if they work in a creative field or with fascinating or famous people. I’ve always had an incredible memory, especially for my fun adventures involving famous people. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve regularly been in a situation where someone reminds me of some funny past escapade of mine and I have no recollection of it. For example, once a photographer friend said to me, “It was HIIIIIIIIIIDEOUS!” using a funny cartoon voice and burst into laughter. He realized I didn’t get the reference and said, “Wait. You don’t remember that? Mariah Carey said it to you at a shoot and then we all started saying it all the time.” We were shooting Mariah for Paper in NYC just after the movie Precious came out in which Mariah gave an amazing and critically-acclaimed performance as a very un-glamorous looking school counselor. As Mariah was getting her makeup done, we were chatting and I told her I thought she was incredible in the movie. She smiled and thanked me saying, “I may have been incredible but I looked HIIIIIIIDEOUS!” And no, I did not remember it when my friend said it later.

Now if a celebrity-loving star-fucker like me can forget an entertaining anecdote with a superstar diva, who can guess what else I’ve forgotten along the way? I’ll be 60 this year and as we age, the memory starts to go. Which is why I think we all need to keep a diary or journal of our lives and adventures so decades later we can look back and recall our past exploits. I’ve kept a journal every once in awhile but in this situation it’s all about consistency. Luckily I’m much better about taking photos which is another fabulous way to capture the memories.

Coincidentally, I’ve recently been going through some clear plastic storage bins that I keep under my bed. My friend Drew gave me a home makeover about 25 years ago and filled the bins and stuck them under the bed. He’s a Taurus and has a gift for home decorating. I had never looked into the bins until 2025 and had zero idea what was even in them. It turns out there are photos, ephemera and more from my years in NYC. I plan to post a lot of it here on Substack, so get ready! Actually, the polaroids of me with porn star Jeff Palmer that I posted here were in the bins. I also found an old sketchbook/journal from the early 90s when I was a student at Parsons. There in my own gay swirly hand-writing is: Celebs I've spotted!

There was even a separate list of celebrities I’d seen in Spain, when I lived there for 2 years in the 80s.

Here is the list of NY Celeb Spottings including locations

Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates at Sandra Bernhard’s Without You I’m Nothing

Barry Bostwick

Chastity Bono signing up for AIDS walk (she wasn’t Chaz yet)

Uma Thurman on University Place

Lenny Kravitz at Zona

Ric Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova at Friend of a Farmer

Spalding Gray at MK

Kevin Dillon at 31 Union Square West

Downtown Julie Brown and model Bill Curry at Metropolis Cafe

Rock Hudson’s last lover Marc Christian at Espace

Oscar de la Renta on 7th Ave

MTV VJ Kevin Seal on 4th St

Tom Hulce on 16th St & & 7th

Colin Quinn at Catch a Rising Star

Star of “True Love”

Taylor Dayne at Azzedine Alaia

Dianne Brill at Pottery Barn

OJ Simpson at Jerry’s

Tasia Valenza from All My Children at Trixie’s

Rick Moranis at Lincoln Center

Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue at Speed the Plow (starring Madonna)

Richard Crenna filming in Central Park

Matt Dillon filming A Kiss Before Dying

James Woods at MK

Lara Jill Miller from Gimme a Break at NYU

Timothy Hutton at the Strand

Jill Clayburgh at the Essex House

Donna Karan’s limo

Richard Widmark at Sardi’s

Pauline Trigere

The girl from Vacation

As a bonus I listed Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger whom I’d seen in Chicago and Ted Kennedy whom I’d seen at Atlanta airport.

Some commentary. Remember the store Zona in Soho? Pretentious and horrible. They had beat up tables they claimed had been found in an abandoned barn in New Hampshire or something, selling for $10,000. MK the nightclub got some big names. The day I ran into Downtown Julie Brown, I’d tried out to be a dancer on her show Club MTV. I didn’t make it. For some reason, I think the night I saw Rock Hudson’s last lover, Gilligan’s Island’s Tina Louise was also there. How crazy to see OJ? That was well before he murdered anyone. Remember that Alaia boutique on Mercer St? So fabulous. It’s been an a.p.c store for a million years. Why didn’t I list Madonna if she was the star of Speed the Plow? Or her costars Joe Mantegna and Ron Silver? Did they all not count because they were on stage? Donna Karan’s limo? Really? Then again, the Spain list includes Queen Sofia’s motorcade (I swear I recognized her through the window). Who the hell is the girl from Vacation? Dana Hill? Jane Krakowski? I would recognize either. It’s a mystery!

The point of this whole thing is ‘once a star-fucker always a star-fucker. And if you are going to keep a journal, maybe write about more than just the celebrities you run into as you live your life.