Musto (R) takes a breather with Bugs photo: Vince Mustillo

Darlings, that's what good a snow, uh, sales job Tourisme Montréal has done for this cold winter town over the years.

So we burrowed underground and came upon a dollar store.

"Oh my God!" Michael exclaimed. "Dollar stores are porn for me!"

So in we went.

Then two weeks ago Musto - his just-published new collection of columns and essays is called Fork on the Left, Knife in the Back (Alyson Books) - sent me an invite to come up to NYC to attend a party hosted by his good friend Joan Rivers at the 230 Fifth Avenue penthouse.

I drove up to the Big Apple with my partner-in-crime Bicente who always looks fabulous when he vogues behind a steering wheel. On the drive up we boogied to Candi Staton's great '70s-era disco hit Young Hearts Run Free and when we arrived at our first hotel, the quite nice Renaissance on Times Square, we spilled out of the car like two Solid Gold dancers.

In other words, we fit right in.

That evening at the penthouse party, every media whore in the city tried to bask in Musto's stardust. Until Joan Rivers arrived.

As the New York Post's Page Six column reported the next day, "Rivers was in a feisty mood hosting Musto's party at 230 Fifth to celebrate his 25 years at the Village Voice. While being introduced by gender-bending comic Murray Hill, who joked that 'he' was the only straight guy in the room, Rivers grabbed the mike and declared, 'I'll do my own fucking introduction!' She then proceeded to announce to the crowd, 'I am John Rivers.' Also at the party were Ugly Betty star Michael Urie, Real Housewives star Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, and every drag queen in town."

I sat on a sofa guzzling vodka with Bicente and another old friend, Montreal film publicist Puelo Deir, who co-founded Montreal's Divers/Cité Festival back in 1993, and whom I introduced at the party as the opinionated "Larry Kramer of Montreal" to the Godfather of Outing, author and radio host Michelangelo Signorile.

I even bumped into New Yorker Blane Charles, who as Montreal drag queen Mochasheena used to be the coat-check bitch at Business on the Main. Then in the mid-'90s Blane organized Divers/Cité's World Ball for Unity. All this happened after Blane was bailed out of jail by artist Keith Haring (who would die of AIDS in 1990) after being arrested at an ACT-UP demo in April 1989.

In fact, NYC was full of Divers/Cité old-timers: Besides me, Puelo and Blane, Elana Wright was across town working at the United Nations.

Small world, eh?

Nursing hangovers the next morning, Bicente and I transferred to the Ace Hotel NYC at 29th and Broadway in the gritty wholesale district. Located in the former Breslin Hotel, which dates back to 1904, the new boutique hotel is all about youth and hip design team Roman and Williams that has journalists from every major publication worldwide - including GQ, Wallpaper and Out magazines - swooning.

Oasis was blaring on the speakers when we walked in, the hotel's shabby-chic lobby was filled with gorgeous young people sipping lattes and working on their laptops, and the metrosexual staff looked so fabulous two hotel guests actually mistook me for a doorman!

Anyway, The Ace upgraded us into their most beautiful suite, a ninth-floor loft twice the size of my Montreal apartment, and better appointed!

We'd leave The Ace only to see Valerie Harper give one of the great performances of her career as the late gay icon, diva and hard-partying star of stage and screen Tallulah Bankhead, in the new Broadway play Looped at the historic Lyceum Theatre. The play is still in previews and opens officially on March 14 but already The Hollywood Reporter has raved, "Valerie Harper is a revelation! Matthew Lombardo's riveting new play is as funny as it gets!"

To wit, Bankhead once famously said, "My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine."

On this night I was so inspired by Bankhead that, after the play - no, there was no woman involved - I bought a bottle of Mr. Bubble at Walgreens at Times Square. You should have seen the look on that cashier's face as Bicente made a beeline for the exit!

Then we cabbed it back to The Ace where I guzzled vodka martinis in a steaming hot bubble bath.

Those are not pictures you will see in Michael Musto's column, but as Tallulah Bankhead herself once wryly observed, "The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it."

Essential buttplugs Visit the Renaissance Hotel at www.renaissancetimessquare.com and the incredible Ace Hotel NYC at www.acehotel.com. New York's Museum of Modern Art (the MoMA) is currently hosting a very packed Tim Burton exhibition and you can book tickets for Looped online at www.loopedonbroadway.com.

Also, when in New York, visit the Official NYC Information Center located at 810 7th Avenue in midtown (where I recommend you buy a discounted CityPass to visit city attractions). Surf to www.nycgo.com.
 
 

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