Michael Musto
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By Tray Butle
Friday, October 28, 2005
“I was the original gay, you know,” Michael Musto tells me at B
Bar — making me wonder if I should kiss his ring or something.
But there’s no ring to kiss, just Musto’s tall and imposing posture,
sepia sunglasses the size of dinner plates and a halting conversation style
that shoots out in spurts — not at all what’s implied by reading
the venerated gadfly’s Village Voice column, which is now celebrating
its 20th anniversary in newsprint.
Musto, I can tell, doesn’t like to be interviewed. Partly because he
tells me so. But to honor the writing milestone, we shared a late lunch and
riffed on celebutantes, club kids and the city’s unfortunate lack of sleaze.
New York Blade: So why should we be writing about you?
Michael Musto: Well, I’ve been through so many cultural
changes in the landscape. When I started, it wasn’t OK to make even an
innuendo about a celebrity being gay. There was very little gay content on TV
or in the movies, and what there was tended to be negative. So it’s fun
to now be writing in a world where it’s OK to be gay.
But I was out from day one. The editors told me to do whatever I wanted with
it. From that I took it to mean I could be openly gay and outrageous, and I
could write about outrageous downtown celebutantes, and put them on an even
keel with movie stars. That’s what I’ve always done.
Your column got mean at one point. How do you think it has evolved?
When I first started, I expected gigantic hoopla, people throwing parades
in the street. And that didn’t happen. And it made me bitter. But I painted
myself into a corner by getting so mean. Then by the point where I had cut off
so many people that I was writing about reruns of “Golden Girls,”
I realized I had to start making connections again and show my appreciation
for things. I was always afraid to show I was a fan of anything. I have this
wry, cynical tone. But the reality is, I do love celebrities. There’s
something about me that has a fan mentality, beneath all these layers of cynicism.
Don’t you get sick of celebrities?
I always try to get something unique out of the person. I’m
not so much interested in their current project. I’d rather hear something
a little dark or a little personal.
I mean, yeah, it can be a little tiresome. But is it worse than digging a
ditch or working in a nail salon?
You’re sort of the original alt-weekly scene columnist, and the
first gossip writer who cut through the PR hype. Can we blame you for Gawker?
I can’t say I caused it, but I was definitely a pioneer of snark.
I flew in the face of publicists and the status quo. It was never acceptable
for a gossip column to write something that went beyond the party line of the
press release. Liz Smith is a real cheerleader. But you need a balance. You
need people going “rah rah” and you need people going “boo
hiss.”
You’re notably nostalgic about the old days of New York. Was
gay life really better back then?
For better or for worse, in the ’90s there was no surveillance
on the scene whatsoever. Especially with Michael Alig and the club kid scene.
The good thing about that was that it fostered creativity and outrageous expression.
The bad thing was that there were no boundaries and it obviously went too far.
I do kind of miss — and I dread this word — the “edge”
of pre-Giuliani New York. Much as I can enjoy Times Square and all the grandeur
of the tourist attractions, I miss the sleaze. There’s nowhere to even
observe something dirty going on. I think that’s the true shock of New
York now, that it’s so unshocking.
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