My two fellow print
reporters and I tried as we could to grab him as he came down the press line,
but due to a combination of our neighbor, a time-squandering BBC News TV
reporter who seemed to like the sound of his voice, and an unhelpful aging
publicist who resembled a Gringotts goblin, our attempts at scoring a juicy
quote were fruitless.

A
topic that bore slightly more fruit was decidedly carnivorous—the fact that
Congress had just lifted a ban on horse meat, which of course was relevant
considering the main character in War Horse is a steed named Joey. I say
slightly more fruit because the spectrum of answers from the assembled cast
members and their famous friends ran from an instant “God no!” to “You’re
joking.”

The
former came out of the young actress Celine Buckens’ mouth, the latter
from dashing Brit Tom HIddleston’s. I also asked Buckens, who makes her
debut in the movie playing a French girl named Emilie and had never visited New
York before, for the top five things she wanted to do in the city: “Oh! I’ve got to go to
Central Park, do a little shopping, got to go see – walk down 5th
Avenue. I’ve got to go to the Empire State Building. One last thing… go to
Dylan’s Candy Bar!”

I
congratulated her on omitting Times Square as a destination, like a real New
Yorker would, and moved onto Hiddleston, who said he’d been here many a time. He
seemed determined to give me the name of a restaurant he’d loved down in the
East Village, even as I wanted to make the most of our brief red-carpet
rendezvous and move on. “Aha!” he said, having found the relevant memory starter
in his Blackberry. “Lil Frankies.”

Unlike Hiddleston, guest of
honor Tony Danza did not seem to want to cooperate—or help—us reporters.
After a press buddy of mine asked whether it’s too hard for him to have animals
because he gets attached to them and then they die, he said:  “It really is.
You’re going to make me start crying about Harry, and then Harry and George. We
humans get attached to them, and they become family members, and unfortunately
their life spans are even shorter than ours. I don’t even want to go there. It’s
on the other side of the e-ticket ride.”

I
was lost at this point, and I think my friend was too. “You’re not listening to
me,” the Boss accused my friend.  She insisted she was. “This is like
Interviewing 101 right here,” he said, exasperated. Then she stumbled by asking
if Tony would ever go on Broadway, given that this is a movie adapted from a
B’way play… adapted from a book.

“Would I ever go on
Broadway?” Tony said, shaking his head. “That’s it. Fuhgeddaboutit.” She
backpedaled, telling him she knew he’d been on Broadway before but wanted to
know if he’ll “ever go in the future.”

“Too late,” he said,
addressing her by name. “You didn’t listen, and you did a bad question. I gave
you a shot too.” When it came time for him to give me a shot, I asked what it
was like to work with Lady Gaga in her Thanksgiving special.

“Zero for two!” he exclaimed
and walked off, and I instantly knew it was Tony Bennett who did the Special,
not Mr. Danza. So between my last name mix-up and my lady friend’s ill-phrased
question, we had struck out.

Tony Danza’s a tough crowd,
despite his soft exterior. He may have brought pink tissues to this premiere
knowing that Spielberg was going to make him cry, and he definitely has
a soft spot for animals, but it was us reporters who wanted to cry after he
wouldn’t excuse our garbled questions.

While
designer Carlos Campos is known best for his well tailored men’s
suits, he also has some awesome opinions on pop culture. I ran into the stylish
Honduran – and some Project
Runway stars – at F.I.T. Couture Council’s Fall
Fashion Cocktail soiree,
held in the elegantly appointed Cub Room of the Soho Grand Hotel.—

When asked if he was dressed to impress at such a swanky fashion event,
he told me: “You know, I dress a lot for myself. I try to impress myself
every now and then. Today I was just at work, I really didn’t have time to go
home. But I always keep a nice jacket. And so I just said, hey, let me put this
jacket on, and I just came here.”

When
I brought up the recent controversy surrounding People’s selection of Bradley Cooper over Ryan Gosling as the “Sexiest Man Alive,” he admitted he’s
more of a George Clooneyman. “I
always go back to George Clooney,” he confided. “I don’t know why, I think it’s
because he’s been the sexiest man alive for forever, so I still think he’s the
sexiest man alive.”

But
don’t take Campos for gay – he just has a healthy appreciation for
good-looking men. He’s actually into cougars like Demi Moore. When I informed him that
she and Ashton Kutcher had finally announced their divorce, he was
crestfallen.

“It’s
kind of sad,” he lamented. “They were such a cool couple. And it worked for a
while.” He paused, and continued unprompted. “I wish I could find a cougar.”
Really? “Of course! Who wouldn’t want a cougar in their life?” A sugar momma? “I
just want a cougar. I don’t know what that means.”

Despite
Carlos’ heterosexuality, everyone knows you can’t avoid the homos at a fashion
party. As I made my way outside for a smoke, I spied a gaggle of made-for-TV
designer gays lighting up beside me, including Project Runway’s Joshua McKinley and Viktor Luna alongside The Fashion Show’s Jeffrey Williams.

McKinley
told me that he, Luna, and Williams are all good friends. What about Anya, who took the crown from him and
Luna? “We talked earlier today!” he told me. Did she deserve to win? “You know,
I think she’s a good candidate for the winner position,” he said. “But I also
firmly believe that it’s not always the winners that go on to do the greatest
things. I think landing as the runner-up or second place is a really good
position to be in. But I like all different positions.” We’re taking that
little hint to mean he’s versatile in fashion and in romance.

McKinley
and Luna also keep in touch with fellow contestant Olivier Green, though Luna is tighter
with him than McKinley. “You know, I like Olivier but he would always say he was
scared of me, and my eyebrows.” Writer’s note: his eyebrows are quite manicured.
“But the funniest thing is Olivier actually puts more product on his face than I
do at all.”

In a lot of ways, a red carpet is like a crime scene. As officers of the peace, the P.R. people keep the snoopy reporters and photographers at a safe distance from the fashion-crime-committing celebrities, and the barricades put the gawking public out of eyeshot. In a fabulous Poparazzi column, debonair gossipeur Ben Widdicombe’s comparison was to a war zone, with photographers as “heavy artillery,” television crews as “cavalry,” and print reporters as “light infantry” hoping to “stick a ball-point pen into a celebrity body while it’s still warm.” His aphoristic conclusion: “That’s probably why the red carpet is red: to soak up the blood.” —

For Hollywood events, Widdicombe’s comparison is spot-on, but this Monday night at the 12^th annual celebration of an organization called Only Make Believe, my crime-scene metaphor might have been more apt. After all, longtime Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-stars Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay were reunited upon arriving for the event. Meloni, who played tough-guy Elliot Stabler on SVU for 12 years till he was cut at the end of last season, was honored by the charity with their first-ever OMB Child Advocacy Award. His onscreen partner Hargitay showed up—completely unbeknownst to the reporters and PR people on the red carpet outside Shubert Theater.

If it was a crime scene, though, the pair were certainly not in character. Meloni handed Hartigay something, and then she screamed, “Chris!” and began belly-laughing. From my faraway perch, I couldn’t make out the laughter-inducing object, so I approached Mariska for some role reversal. On Law & Order: Red Carpet Division, I got to be the interrogating officer. What was all that laughing with Meloni about? “There’s so much history there. There’s just so much. You’ll never understand it!”

Mariska had high praise for the charity, Only Make Believe, which sends actors to perform at children’s wards in hospitals, where chronically ill and terminal kids often live. “I’m here because of Chris, but I’m also here for such an incredible organization. Unleashing creativity is just such a huge process of healing. They inspire the kids in such a way where they forget their circumstances for a moment. I’m a huge advocate of healing, and doing it joyfully.” In addition to amazing hair, the lovely lady also has a sense of humor. When I asked her about her recent motherhood—she has adopted two kids in the past year—she joked: “Yes. I have 42 children.”

Meloni proved to be a jokester too when, during the gala’s Broadway-style show in the Shubert Theater, he pretended to be too busy with new projects to show up to receive his award, airing a hilarious parody video in his “absence.” What’s better than seeing bad-cop Meloni doing Broadway, singing a showtune version of the Law & Order theme song? He also roughs up a number of people, Eliott Stalber-style, and I must say that his guns are still looking quite nice. Hasn’t let himself go in his unemployment! I respect that.

Mariska and Chris weren’t the only two ex-co-stars reliving their star-crossed pasts. Also having a mini-reunion were Professor Snape a.ka. Alan Rickman and his seven-time pupil Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). Neither of the Brits did interviews on the red carpet, perhaps because the press in the U.K. is so shitty to public figures (see Rupert Murdoch phone-hacking scan for evidence). Both are currently in New York for Broadway roles: Radcliffe is just finishing up his run in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Rickman is just kicking off Seminar, in which he plays an acerbic English professor. Since the charity sends actors to children’s wards in hospitals, Radcliffe joked during his and Rickman’s brief on-stage cameo, “We know first-hand how great it is to bring magic into the hearts and imaginations of children.”

On the red carpet, co-hosts and Addams Family co-stars Brooke Shields and Brad Oscar both voiced their deep support of the organization. I asked Shields how she chose to support this charity, seeing as I’m sure a lot of organizations are gunning for her celebrity endorsement. “If we said yes all the time, I would be saying yes to every Monday night. Brad and I have worked together before, and I really respect and love him. He said, ‘Look, I just want to show you this.’ He showed me some footage, showed me some literature, and it just felt like the right thing to do.” Brad had his own special connection to Only Make Believe—his partner and fellow actorDiego Prieto helps put on the shows for the kids.

At the John’s Pizzeria afterparty, there were fried mozzarella wedges and vodka cranberries in abundance, but no Mike Myers, who skipped the red carpet but made the show. Apparently he just had a son named Spike two weeks ago, and I thought that would be nice to talk about, in the spirit of People mag. Khalimah, the charming hostess at John’s, gave me another scoop, saying that Alan Rickman had briefly shown up earlier but was “dragged out by two old ladies in red pants.” Love it.

Of all the celebs at the show, only Meloni and Hargitay made the post-show celebration. I chatted with Meloni to see if he really did have any new projects post-L&Obesides playing a general in Superman. He pulled out a classic line (my dad loves this one): “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” So, you see, afterparties can be quite akin to crime scenes too.

Follow Evan on Twitter at @EMulvz and send him tips here.

Yes, I know: “fag hag” isn’t exactly the most delicate way
to talk about a lady who loves her gays. How else to say it? I like “friend of
a friend of Dorothy”—rest in peace, Judy—but not fruit fly, which evokes an
extra bitch who tags along with gay men who secretly want to see her put into a
Saw mansion. There’s also rice queen,
for Asian fag hags, but that begs confusion with the gay men smitten with
yellow fever.

In any case, theater-’mo-in-a-woman’s-body Debra Messing, of Will & Grace fame, is coming back to your television next
February for a show called Smash and,
never one to be typecast, is playing a virulently anti-gay female motorcyclist
who goes around town “smashing” sodomites with a bloodied rainbow flag.
Kidding. She’s playing a Grace type again.

D-Mess hit the red carpet this Sunday for the kick-off gala
of the New York Musical Theater Festival, which NYMF publicists used to create
“the first public outing of the cast of Smash!”
In the show, Messing plays Julia Houston, a struggling lyricist trying to make
it big on Broadway. Her writing partner, composer Tom Levitt, is apparently a
homo played by guy-who-divorced-Sutton-Foster Christian Borle.

At the step-and-repeat, Debbie Dancepants made a point of
pretending to be Chrissy’s BFF, so much so that other reporters and I were
wondering what the fuck was going on. I quickly Wiki’d Mess Mess and saw that
she had been married for over 10 years to some dude named Daniel Zelman who she
met on her first day of graduate school at NYEw, which threw me into
gossip-reporter mode: a scoop! Debra Messing is cheating!

Then I looked up Smash
and saw that various gay blogs had picked up on the fact that Messing’s
male co-star was to play gay. “Who Will Play Debra Messing’s Next Will?”
pondered an After Elton writer. (I imagine he wrote this post in his diary
while lounging in a canopy bed, pink pen with a feather on its end poised on
his pursed lips.)

On the carpet, Messing was aggressively in character.
“Should we make out?” down-with-the-gays Deb joked as she held Chrissy close
for a dramatic, hand-on-his-chest pose. She and Borle did interviews with TV
stations together, Borle’s hand clasped firmly around her waist—which prompted
me to wonder where her wedding ring was. To me, their charade came off more
newly minted boyfriend-girlfriend than “Hay Gurl, whatchudoin”.

Before I could stuff my voice recorder into their faces and
ask why they were being so narwhal-unicorn, the two twirled away at the
fumbling publicist’s request. Good thing they got seated for dinner early,
because the presentation didn’t start until over an hour later.

For what it’s worth, the show is going to be much more than
just a thespian wet dream. A friend of mine who’s seen a screener took umbrage
at my myopic G-Chatus (“Debra Messing is playing a fag hag… again.”) and
typed at me, unprompted: “It’s a great show, fag hag or not.”

That surprised me, since “Smash” doesn’t have much Hollywood
brass backing it. It germinated when a little known director named Steven Spielberg asked has-been
producing team Craig Zadan and Neil Meron—who, not so coincidentally,
were honored at this NYMF gala—to make a TV show about the backstage,
behind-the-scenes goings-on of a Broadway play.

An odd choice for Spielberg, since Zadan and Meron have only
produced two Broadway features—both disastrous flops. I mean, who saw Chicago or Hairspray?
Straight women? Gay men? Metrosexuals? Pretty small target audience there.

How did the obscure Spielberg reach out to them? “A phone
call,” Meron told me. “I think it’s based upon the work we’ve done, in terms of
television and feature films,” added Zadan. “And when he wanted to do something
that had the DNA of Broadway musicals for TV, we were very very
pleased to have gotten that phone call.”

I did want to stay for the gala’s big celebrity appearances
on stage—a Katharine McPhee song and
the presentation of the award to Zadan and Meron by Harry Potter (stage name: Daniel Radcliffe)—but after being strung
along about snagging a seat by the gala’s PR team—I was very, very pleased to
get on the train back to Brooklyn Heights.

– Evan Mulvihill’s Bash Compactor runs as a monthly column in Our Town Downtown...

Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Horatio Sanz discuss their hilarious Halloween costumes. The Citibank CEO runs away from my questions at a fancy fall gala. This month’s Bash Compactor makes $1.75 million a year but doesn’t want to talk to you.

Celebrity Impersonators

The Upright Citizens’ Brigade has opened a new East Village location, and original UCB co-founders Amy Poehler and Matt Walsh hosted its grand opening in October. The “Parks and Recreation” star introduced skits from up-and-coming comics with Walsh and fellow ex-SNL cast member Horatio Sanz, and she was often seen audibly cracking up by herself, beer in hand, while the rest of the audience was fairly silent.

Amy told me on the red carpet that she didn’t have a costume picked out for Halloween and that she planned to “take it easy” this year since she dons costumes so often for her day job. But when Walsh asked her what her costume was going to be during the show, she said she was thinking about going as Sue Mengers, the recently deceased L.A. super-agent who hosted star-studded salons at her house for celebrities, like Barbra Streisand, Cher, Faye Dunaway, and many of their famous friends.

Walsh didn’t seem to know who Mengers was—and neither did anyone in the crowd except me, since I was the only one cracking up—so Poehler explained. “She was this old Hollywood agent, and she was like so cool,” she deadpanned. “She had this fuckin’ mansion where she invited famous people. And she only talked to famous people.”

Walsh’s costume idea was similarly off-the-beaten-path: “Last year I was a Washington General. That’s the team that plays against the Harlem Globetrotters. I thought that was genius, but not many Americans got on board.” Sanz quipped back: “You should’ve had a black person play a Harlem Globetrotter. Just pay him 100 bucks to follow you around.”

Sanz’s costume idea: “a Che Guevara T-shirt. I put my head through like a T-shirt, and I wear a T-shirt the whole night.” Of all the costumes discussed, only Poehler’s two kids’ ideas sounded pedestrian: “A pumpkin and a policeman.”

From Chelsea to Bed-Stuy

My Halloweekend plans took me to an afterparty for the popular S” show. Part-performance art, part-theater, the regular show has audience members walk through twenty-plus rooms in the sprawling 40s-era “McKittrick Hotel.” Masked and asked not to interact with the actors, you’re an invisible voyeur watching various actors play out their roles. For the “film-noir formal” themed after-bash, I dressed as homo Humprey Bogart, with a sparkly sequin fedora and the requisite tuxedo. Everyone else at the party was dressed just as historically accurate, and it felt like we were in a totally different time era. What a warp!

Runaway Pandit

Citibank CEO Vikram Pandit did not want to talk to this reporter at Accion’s 50th Anniversary Gala, where he was honored for Citi’s financial support of the microfinancing charity. I figured the guy made $1.75 million this year and my taxpaying ass bailed him out a few years back, so he might throw me a quote or two.

Not so: my first attempt ended up with the classic “let’s-talk-about-you-not-me” deflection tactic, with Pandit asking how long I had been a reporter. After finally getting to my question for him, he said he was too preoccupied with taking photos with Accion board member Diana Taylor (Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend) to talk.

After photos were done, I gave it one last try. News reports that day said hackers had released personal information of Pandit’s on the Internet in retaliation for the arrest of Occupy Wall Street protesters trying to close their accounts at a Citibank branch, so I asked if his cell phone had been compromised. His handler blocked the interview, and he simply walked away.

For her part, Diana Taylor would not discuss Occupy Wall Street, but she did have a comment for Pandit’s villainous hackers. “It’s ridiculous. It’s horrible. It is absolutely horrible that people don’t have better things to do with their day.”

“What’s disgusting? Union busting!” screamed the protesting Teamsters outside of Sotheby’s Yorkville digs this past Monday. While they recently lured younger Occupy Wall Streeters to their cause in a robust protest outside of Broadway’s “The Mountaintop,” the Teamsters’ numbers tonight were thin, although the 10 union members present were certainly leveraging their whistles, megaphones, and loud voices to create quite a ruckus.

“This is our normal night crew,” Teamsters Local 814 President Jason Ide told me. “During the daytime we have about 30 to 40 guys.” They’ve been organizing against Sotheby’s refusal to grant union members benefits and raises, all while the company posts record profits, bumps its CEO pay, and hosts star-studded events like Monday’s “Take Home a Nude” auction, which raised $800,000 to benefit scholarship funds at the New York Academy of Art.

“We’ve been locked out for 2 and a half months,” said Ide, whose boyish looks made the 30-year-old seem even younger than his mostly older fellow Teamsters. “We’d like to come back and do our jobs and work as art handlers. I actually worked as an art handler for 6 years before I was president of the union. But the company won’t let us unless we take big concessions.”

The various socialites, art-world heiresses, and bona-fide celebrities assembled on the seventh floor of Sotheby’s for the benefit auction didn’t seem to pay much mind to the Teamsters. “One sympathizes,” said NYAA board chair Eileen Guggenheim when asked if they were putting a damper on the evening. “Although one doesn’t seem to be related to us. We don’t really know what their issues are. But I think everybody’s mood is high.”

It was hard not to be cheerful in such a lavish environment. Where the Teamsters outside had an aesthetically unappealing giant blow-up balloon—a fat cat dressed in a business suit, holding a helpless worker in its paw—we had quail egg hors d’oeuvres on polenta cake with caviar, world-class artwork selling for up to $45,000, and the likes of Padma Lakshmi, Marcus Samuelsson,Angela Bassett, Nicole Bassett, Andre Balasz, and Sean MacPherson.

Not all attendees were as accommodating of the protesters as Guggenheim. Richard Blumenthal, vice chair of the board of trustees for the NYAA, said a Teamster spat on him because he refused to take a handbill. When asked if he sympathized with them, he said, “No, I don’t sympathize with them! They’re one of the most crooked unions out there, and they have been from the very beginning.”

Expected till the day of, Blake Lively failed to show, perhaps because she is off in Boston continuing her ragtag romance of Ryan Reynolds. Hopefully Karl Lagerfeld won’t be too peeved at her for skipping out on the event, though apparently Chanel employees are already upset that she’s the face of Karl’s handbag line. An unexpected visit from Mary-Kate Olsen certainly upped the celebrity factor of the room. The young billionaire—probably the wealthiest person in the room—failed to bid on anything at the auction, and refused to let me snap a pic of her with leather-daddy/architect Peter Marino.

I then asked if she’d talk a bit—another “no.” Not even about her sister’s movie—a softball topic if there ever was one. “It’s so hot in here,” she said, changing the subject ever so subtly while she fanned herself with the night’s playbill. After fanning herself for 5 minutes, she finally took off the huge fur vest that was likely the cause of her heat issues.

Other interview turner-downers included Angela Bassett, who grabbed me by the arm and fabulously said to me, “Not right now, honey. I need to shop!” before jetting off to the live auction. I’m assuming she came post-performance of “The Mountaintop,” in which she’s co-starring with Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Martin Luther King Jr. in it (and whom I spoke to two weeks ago).

Coincidentally and ironically enough, the play’s already been the target of the Teamsters’ ire because it’s part-financed by Sotheby’s evil overlord/chairman of the board Michael I. Sovern. (I did search for him on behalf of the Teamsters, to try and stick him with some hard questions, but after asking two old men if they were Michael Sovern and getting blank stares, I gave up my quest.)

Also declining interviews was Padma Lakshmi, who had two publicists ready to shut down any snoopy reporters who gave it the old college try. Padma yukked it up with buddy Eileen Guggenheim, but didn’t bid on anything this year, unlike last year, when she, Eileen, and I had a funny little meet-cute over her winning bid for an Eric Fishl piece. I also had a funny little chat with Robert Verdi last year, but my milquetoast editors at New York Social Diary, who I was covering for, cut out his off-color line. This year it happened again, but I have the liberty of virtually printing all his dirty talk. I leave you with my and Robert’s little chat from this year, in its entirety.

Me: You always give me pretty funny stuff.

Robert: Funny shit, I say funny shit.

Did you see the Teamsters outside?

I did!

Did you take one of their pamphlets?

I did not. I’m all for tyranny and conspiracy against the Man. I think it’s fantastic. I think there should be more conspiracy. I think people are conspiring against me, quite honestly.

Oh really? Who?

I dunno. Everybody. The entire television industry, but whatever.

Why is that?

I don’t know! I think I’m totally hateable for some reason.

Do you want your own TV show?

No, no. I watch porn.  It’s just more entertaining than anything I could ever do. And it involves some very interesting acrobatic moves.

I never can print this stuff.

How come? I always give you porn.

I tried to get something in the New York Social Diary last time, and they cut it out.

They refused? They never did it?

Yeah.

That sucks.

I asked, “Do you come here often?” And you said something about coming often.

I know. I always make gross jokes. I remember.

And then I had that thing about RuPaul, which I sent to the Daily News. You said that Heidi Klum was channeling RuPaul with her Halloween costume last year.

I was right! They didn’t run that?

No, they did. 

Oh, it slipped.

No, it was there.

No, I mean, it slipped, I didn’t mean it. I meant it, but I didn’t mean it.

Yeah, we weren’t supposed to bring our voice recorders into that party, but the red carpet was so ridiculous, all the reporters just descended and hunted for quotes.

Here?

No. At the Heidi Klum party.

I was gonna say, that’s ridiculous. These people wanna be recorded. Especially this one… [points to the lady in front of us, Joanne Herring, a Houston socialite who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in “Charlie Wilson’s War”]

I thought she [Joanne] was Joan Rivers.

Which one?

She’s right there, with her back to us. [I point] You have to see her face.

Oh, they all look the same, once you’ve been cut up and put back together. It’s like… you can’t talk about her behind her back either because her ears are there.

We’re literally talking about her behind her back.

But she can hear. She can hear. She’s genius.

So no plans for TV?

I always have plans for TV, but TV isn’t making plans for me, so I’m going to have to take them by storm.

How about Bravo? What about Andy Cohen? Have you tried him?

Oh, Andy Cohen wouldn’t put me on TV. He doesn’t want to put anyone else who could be competitive with him on television.

Oh yeah? You think you could take him down?

Oh yeah. Have you seen the gay men he puts on the channel? Care to review that? Think about it for a second.

Have you watched the A-List on Logo at all?

No. I don’t really watch television, so it’s not specifically against any show. I just don’t watch any show. I do try to watch the Real Housewives, the recaps on Hulu. Cause I like people who pull hair and scream and call each other names. It makes me feel comfortable, like I’m at home.

Who’s your favorite one?

I don’t have any favorites. I can’t pick favorites. That’s like trying to pick a favorite shoe. I like them all for different reasons.

Are you going to buy any of the art tonight?

I have been collecting art for several years now.  I focus my investment capital in the art world and in the art market. So, yeah, maybe.

Is that risky for you?

No. I actually have a really good eye. I mean, what do gay men invest in? We don’t have children like we’re gonna put through college.

Some do.

Yeah, but that’s just boring. Why would you waste good money on children? Why would you buy a spicy child when you could buy a spicy piece of art?

I don’t know. I can’t answer that.

No more spicy babies. I mean, I’m going to travel far and wide to buy a spicy baby from a far corner of the universe? To hell with that. I’ll buy a spicy nude.

You don’t have to go so far to get a baby. There’s plenty of ones right here. I don’t think you need to go so far.

Art is the only thing that’s hung in my apartment, if you know what I mean.

Send Evan tips at d.evan.mulvihill@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter!

Alright, only the last one is true, but I wanted to make a dramatic entrance. This is, after all, my first monthly Bash Compactor column for Our Town Downtown, though attentive readers may recall my escapades from the New York Press column of the same name. On the slate this month: Emeril Lagasse blames me for making him miss his “second mother’”s funeral, some homos throw a tragic Mr. Gay New York pageant and Julianne Moore orders her son some tasty balls.

Cooked Up
I don’t want to heat the waters with Emeril in the wake of his personal tragedy, but when I met the ur-celebrity chef last week, he rubbed me with a bit of sour lemon juice instead of with a sweet Louisiana Cajun marinade. Having read the news that the lady who had inspired and taught him to cook had passed away two days earlier, I asked if he’d be taking time out of his busy schedule to pay his respects.

“Unfortunately, I’m talking with you right now, so I won’t be able to make the funeral,” he said.

Maybe I’m jumping on a pedestal here, but if I had to choose between showing my face at press events (to shill a Macy’s Thanksgiving cookbook) and attending the funeral of the woman who sparked my lucrative livelihood, I’d cancel my contractual obligations and hightail it to the funeral. But perhaps I just have an overblown sense of gratitude. BAM!

Jersey Boor
Most of the second annual Mr. Gay New York pageant is not worth recounting, but here’s one part you might enjoy. One contestant, billed by host Dallas Dubois as a power bottom, was asked by judge Michael Musto to “name three adjectives describing himself as an Italian, a gay man and a power bottom.” The lightly roasted Jersey boy, looking like an amateur bodybuilding version of Snooki, was at a loss for an answer. “I don’t know…a people person?” That would be a phrase, buddy. Better send this one back to adjective school.

Moore Balls, Please
Julianne Moore used to be bullied in elementary school. Not for anything serious, really, but her cruel classmates dubbed her  “Strawberry Freckleface.” (Sounds a lot less harsh than Cartman’s crusade against “daywalkers” on South Park.) Anyway, she wrote a kid’s book starring a character called Freckleface Strawberry about it—all by herself. After I asked whether a ghostwriter helped out, she insisted: “You can’t do that.”

Moore, at a Midtown event along with Brooke Shields, Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly to read children’s stories in support of Children of Bellevue Reach Out and Read program, made sure to keep her son Caleb fed. When a waitress came by with a tray of big cheese balls on sticks, Moore jumped at the chance to feed Caleb something to his liking. “All the food here is, like, too spicy or weird,” she frowned, instructing the waitress to find her swoopy-banged kid and feed him the inoffensive cheese balls. Don’t you hate it when your mom does that?

Wall Street Party

The hottest new club around is way, way downtown…on Wall Street. “The music has been great and there are some pretty attractive hippies roaming around,” a friend tells me.

For more, follow the Bash Compactor column online at nypress.com and otdowntown.com.

Actors Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore read out loud at the Starry Night Stories benefit for Children of Bellevue’s Reach Out and Read program. PHOTO courtesy of matchbook

“You girls coming in tonight?” asked Tommy DeFrancisci, aka Mr. Charlotte (all of the men are named after the city they hail from).

“Yep, just finishing this!” I said, holding up my cigarette. “But don’t worry, I promise I’ll do a sufficient job of putting it out,” I quickly added.

“Well, you’d better! ‘Cause I’m off duty,” he joked.

Garon Patrick Mosby, or Mr. St. Louis, joined the conversation and quickly handed us his card, which had two photos of him with no shirt on and included his Facebook and Twitter information.

The scene inside was markedly different. Most of the firemen were still outside, enjoying the press attention, and the club was dead, save for one girl who quickly joined my friend and I. Her name was Carolina Pichardo, and she worked in marketing. We sipped our drinks and flipped through the calendars we’d been given until the eye candy began floating inside, lured by the open bar.

Mr. Charlotte wandered over, drink in hand, and promptly asked me if I had, indeed, put out my cigarette. He was younger than most of the other firefighters, with brown puppy-dog eyes and a goofy, eager smile. He talked nonstop.

“Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame!” he said. “I guess this is mine. Although I’m not making any money for this, so maybe it doesn’t count.”

Mr. Charlotte, like the rest of the firemen, has selected a charity in his home city to which proceeds from the calendar will be donated.

As we continued to listen to Mr. Charlotte’s jokes, another fireman wandered over. “This is Mr. San Francisco, and he’s not gay!” shouted Mr. Charlotte.

Mr. San Francisco, or Kevin Kuhn, laughed wearily at the oft-heard joke. He had big blue eyes and a soft voice. Sipping on whiskey, he talked to us for a bit about being chosen as one of the 12 sexiest firefighters in the country.

“No one is super serious about this,” he said. “We can all make fun of each other, like, ‘Oh, I’m a model now!’” After chatting and resisting the urge to ask them if they would please remove their shirts, we all migrated outside again, where most of the firefighters were still soaking up the attention. That’s where we met Mr. Minneapolis, Justin Reid. Tall, blond, with blue eyes, an adorable smile and big dimples. He had a cute Minnesota accent and was, like everyone else, unbelievably friendly. As he signed my calendar, I asked him if he had traveled to New York alone. No, he said, his wife and two children were here as well.

We continued garnering autographs and chatting with the men—Mr. New York, Philip Sylvester, was from Flatbush, and Mr. New Orleans, Leonard Daigle Jr., had a classic Louisiana accent. But then the calendar’s publisher, Katherine Kostreva, who stood out in a beautiful, floor-length yellow dress, tried to gather the men together for a photo.

As we began heading down the block, we turned to wave goodbye to the hottest group of men we’d ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. Just before I turned my back, Mr. Minneapolis caught my eye and gave me a big smile. I was a pile of mush all the way back uptown.

That’s why I cruised uptown to Morningside Castle for the Enchantment Under the Sea party, designed to replicate a senior prom from 1955. Thanks to being a freak in high school, I never went to my own prom— now I could finally twist the night away.

For those of you who’ve never been, Dances of Vice is a peripatetic costume ball for those who love elegant vintage wear and music from the past. This was their fourth anniversary, and welcoming us all in a mint taffeta dress was Shien Lee, elegant creator of the regular nightlife event that attracts vintage wear aficionados with a love for the past.

“How in the world did you get this great venue?” I asked her. The Gothic-style “castle” belongs to Union Theological Seminary, so enchantment was definitely in the air. As I walked in, Matthew Piazzi and the Debonairs were playing some atmospheric 1950s swing music.

The title Enchantment Under the Sea was lifted from the famous scene in Back to the Future in which Marty McFly’s parents exchange their first kiss while he plays Hendrix riffs and smashes his guitar for the stupefied bobbysocker teens. The blue-and-white-streamer-festooned room looked like it was peopled by the cast of Mad Men clad in brocaded party frocks, gloves, wide ties, sharkskin suits and twirling girls flung around by their dates.

DJ Michael T looked snazzy as a hep cat in cream suspenders, pink-and-white striped shirt and blond rockabilly ‘do. “Hey, lady in orange!” I called after a willowy, bespectacled woman mounting the staircase wearing a sherbet-colored dress so lovely I just had to take a picture. I discovered it was party thrower Larisa Fuchs, the Miss Scorpio of the Gemini & Scorpio events.

As the dreamy night came to a close, I ran into Remi Pann, an acquaintance who was heading over to Long Island City for Night Swimming at The Palms, a bash held in dumpster pools with party entrepreneur Kevin Balktick. And they had wheels!

But before we could burn some rubber, we were off to a rocky start.

“The tire’s flat!” he exclaimed. After waiting for AAA to show up, I decided to buzz off. Unlike my tortured prom years, I suddenly realized I didn’t need a partner to boogie. I had nothing to lose. I’d go dancing with myself.

This Friday was to be the
end of my social existence. Spectrograph, an art show that promised to be a deconstruction of sight and sound,
was welcomed by hurricane-like lightning and rain, but that didn’t stop a room
full cyberpunk art aficionados from crowding Devotion Gallery in Williamsburg for the opening last Friday night.
For most, the term “cyberpunk” brings up images of Jolt cola-drinking alterna
teens firing up their 28-baud modems to browse Geocities websites, but
considering Devotion’s edgy, techno-art focus, it seems the most fitting of
labels.

Seeking shelter from the
rain, a small crowd of smoking art appreciators hid under the bubblegum-colored
awning outside Devotion, which advertises “Cristina Unisex Hair and Design.” Upon
entering, I was greeted by a display of tiny neon glow boxes that I initially
mistook for party store decorations. Upon meeting the artist Ted Hayes (aka Tedb0t), I learned that the boxes were indeed
the show itself.

“Our perception of sound
emerges out of lots of building blocks, but we don’t normally perceive it as
that. We don’t normally realize all the components to what we’re hearing.”
Tedb0t, wearing all black and looking like a character from the movie Party
Monster, proceeded to pick up a glow
box and whistle into it, causing the color of the box to shift with the change
in his pitch. Across the room, a little girl who couldn’t have been older than
5 was gleefully laughing into a box that responded by changing colors, only
serving to feed her laughter. This was by far the most adorable thing I’ve seen
at an art gallery.

Neon-frosted cupcakes were
served, along with white wine and bottles of Pilsner Urquell, which partygoers
chomped and sipped as they discussed everything from art to computer hacking.

On the opposite side of the
gallery, photos by artist Maximus Clarke were bound to the wall, displaying two photo sets of people in 3-D. A
table at the front of the room was covered in 3-D glasses.

“There’s no reason why 3-D
should only be used for giant robots or blue-skinned aliens. 3D, as an artistic
medium, has so much unrealized potential. I mean, it’s a whole other
dimension!” Clarke said.

Clarke’s explanation of the
philosophy behind the photos seemed in line with Tedb0t’s glow boxes: Things are
not always what they seem, and there are many components to what we see and
hear. The subjects of Clarke’s photos ranged from the artist himself to author William
Gibson and noted lit-blogger (and Clarke’s spouse) Maud
Newton.

“I think there’s a lot of interesting
stuff that’s happening with technology and art and the intersection between
them, and I think it’s great that Devotion has given it a home,” said Newton.

Before the night ended, I
caught up with hacker/gallery owner Phoenix Perry to discuss Devotion. She told me that maintaining a
gallery in the current economic climate is hard, but doable, and that
Williamsburg needed a gallery that dealt specifically with the intersection of
art, science and new media.

“Anything
worth having is worth fighting for,” Perry said. [Jon Reiss]