Michael Musto Runs Into Fran Lebowitz

If true Musto needs to leave Fran alone. Just stop, Michael.

I know nothing about him, but this makes him seem like a tiresome little wench.

He’s witty, she’s smart, kind of love that they’re feuding.

Fran is timeless while Michael Musto has been irrelevant for years.

She admits she loves to hold grudges and try to get revenge. I wish more people were out in the open about those kinds of emotions. Instead of: "I forgive him and set myself free."

[quote] upon which I noticed that Fran was still standing by the entrance, looking like a cigar store Indian!

I once saw her doing the same thing outside Bar Pitti while I was walking by. I felt like I was the only person who recognized her.

Watch your back, Michael Musto

and sleep with one eye open

[quote]I noticed that Fran was still standing by the entrance, looking like a cigar store Indian! It was so creepy and weird, if fascinatingly so.

She probably was outside smoking both times and Michael made a big deal out of it.

I don't think she's ever hidden her sexuality — when asked about it in the 1980s she said "I cover the waterfront," which was probably unacceptable to Musto because unless you say I'M G-A-Y in public he's not happy.

I would ignore anyone who gave me "chirpy hello".

Why bother with either of them, dear? They’re just a couple of faggots long past their prime.

At least it wasn’t a big a disaster as his run in with Candice Bergen.

You'd think people would, at the very least, recognize her from "Law & Order" where she often played a judge (against type, of course).

Let Fran live!

Maybe she just doesn’t like you Michael. She’d hardly be in the minority.

On Candice Bergen:

“ I spotted Candice Bergen at an event on Little Island tonight, so I rushed up to tell her I’m a fan. It’s very rare that I do that since I’m usually assuming my professional writer’s capacity, but I always felt she was underrated as an actress and was dying to tell her. I’m not talking about stuff like Murphy Brown or her Oscar nominated Starting Over, I’m talking about movies and plays she’s done where she was wildly underappreciated for her gifts.

Well, I introduced myself and said, “I love your acting. It’s so direct, with no filter or artifice. It just comes right out and you’re always playing a real person. I loved you in The Women [movie remake] and in The Best Man [Broadway revival].”

She looked like I was putting her on.

Mickey then swung around and said, “See, we have this movie club where we watch weird, offbeat movies…”

“I’m sure you do,” deadpanned Candice, who looked ready to spew.

Someone then shot a photo of me and her together and I muttered, “Well, maybe some of the movies aren’t the best, but you’re always the best thing in them.”

And again, she looked over it—either she thought I was mocking her or she simply couldn’t believe anyone really liked her in those projects--so I crawled away in horror.

I will never approach a celebrity as a fan again. But I still adore her (and I also find her first memoir, Knock Wood, to be one of the most brilliant books ever written by a celebrity).”

- Michael Musto, June 6, 2024

"I'm sure you do" ...okay, that makes me like her even more.

Op is a loser

Two ugly people

There's something dignified about an aging female celebrity who refuses to indulge a sycophantic queen.

I get what she reacted the way she did. I’ve been around Musto and Boardman and they give off a bitchy vibe that would make me think they were fucking with me if they ever said anything nice,

What or where is "Little Island" in these anecdotes?

I've never been able to like Musto since I heard about him throwing a fit at a film festival a couple years ago during a COVID peak when they told him he had to wear a mask or leave and he left instead of putting on a mask

Little Island is on the Hudson River. It’s this park with cool paths and things, and they have concerts there.

It’s been around maybe 4-5 years.

Two passive-aggressives met.

Maybe she's working as the hat check girl? New York is expensive.

Oh thanks. Of course, I've seen pics of Little Island. And is Cafeteria a hip restaurant over there?

Is a restaurant hip if dinosaurs Musto and Lebowitz are patrons?

She’s an uneducated buffoon and he’s a weirdo.

It's not really the scorpion and the frog scenario.

Maybe the scorpion and the toady?

Fran is an out lesbian.

Who doesn't ignore Michael Musto?

[quote]She’s an uneducated buffoon

She's more intelligent than you could ever hope to be.

She’s a weirdo, and he’s an uneducated buffoon.

R25 wtf? Why would you call her an uneducated buffoon?

Little Island is the brainchild of Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller.

Cafeteria is not particularly hip.

Cafeteria is where you go at 4am when you're drunk AF and the bars are closed. Get a little food in you before you go home to pass the fuck out.

This thread is giving 2004 DL.

I've never understood why people want to eat after drinking too much in the bars. Shouldn't you be puking in the alley?

Ugly

[quote] She's more intelligent than you could ever hope to be.

Honey, unlike Fran, I actually graduated high school. The woman is a well-known idiot.

His apt is utter trash

I'd never encroach on Lebowitz's cigarette time.

Shut up and fuck off r36. Plenty of highly intelligent people drop out of high school and for all sorts of reasons.

I met Candice Bergen in 1998 while I was twenty-five feet in a tree stringing lights for the holidays. She was extremely pleasant. I was told not to talk about her career, so I asked about her father. She had one of his original Charlie McCarthy dummies in her family room. At the time, she lived across the street from Gabe Kaplan, aka Mr. Kotter. He gave us the stink eye as he pulled into his driveway.

Musto and his apartment are filthy, seriously.

Just them within five feet of each other is comical. They are both freaks, though Fran is the more entertaining of the two.

The title of this thread sounds like the start of a joke.

Musto smells and wears filthy clothes. Like pecker tracks on his pants.

What’s “pecker tracks”, precious? What’s “pecker tracks”?

The Oddest Couple

I remember the grime on his kitchen cabinets and around his front door when he did that apartment tour. I think he's clueless and doesn't even see the filth.

[quote]I've never understood why people want to eat after drinking too much in the bars.

You'll have less of a hangover if you eat before you go to sleep.

Cafeteria was the place you went after a night of whoring in the West Side Club. In 2004.

I still love Cafeteria, good food, and fun memories of the early 2000s.

I also encountered Candy Bergen, she came up to my partner to admire his outfit (he was in drag) and I said hello and she gave me a look of death.

Mickey Boardman is so fat and toad-like, the fact he’s now the editor of “PLAYGIRL” (ONLINE!!😂) has made us all laugh for months. Considering he’s a hag who can’t see his penis, and I’m sure the only sex he can get, he pays for….what would HE know about ANYTHING??? Oh I forgot, he had more estrogen pumping thru his veins before he became a menopausal cunt.

[quote] I've never understood why people want to eat after drinking too much in the bars. Shouldn't you be puking in the alley?

For some reason, you just do become hungry. I remember going out for breakfast at maybe 4:00 a.m. after a night of drinking and dancing. It's the dancing (exercise) probably, that made me hungry.

Booze can make a lot of people hungry. Like r52, back in my bar/club days my friends and I would hit up a diner at the end of the night when we were all drunk AF.

R28 has delivered what has to be the most devastating retort ever delivered here .

Drunkeness loosens inhibitions. People overspend, gamble too much, have sex with people who'd otherwise be unacceptable, get married, and overeat. Eating a lot (but not binging) was my thing. Full meal required.

I want a My Dinner with Andre sequel with these two

Does Fran choke him out during her last cigarette, as the waitstaff removes the untouched Baked Alaskan plating

Team Musto here. I find Lebowitz a bit overrated.

Musto team.

I favor Lebowitz.

Musto, aside from being criminally ugly, has the face of a gay man walking through a fish market on a hot day. And he always alternates between haughty and fawning, haughty, fawning. If you glare back at him as if he were something unpleasant found on the underside of a shoe (and who can help but to do?), he scurries right along. I reckon Leibowitz figured this out donkey's years ago.

He was a proto-Andy Cohen in so many ways.

Fran has undoubtedly come upon him many, many times in the last 40 years of going to parties in New York. He admits he snubbed her before this encounter, so I assume she didn't give a shit about snubbing him back.

R55. What did you order??

So, after SO MANY DECADES, Michael Musto still failed to learn proper social skills? Duh, says anyone in the "know" the little losers last "tactical" salvo for fame and clicks.

Wondering why he doesn't have a Substack. Or is he too uninvolved or stupidly naive to the world to shut up to improve his financial standing. Maybe Substack rejected him.

The next Feud: Big Showdown on Little Island!

[QUOTE][R55]. What did you order??

Fried fish (I think it's cod) and shellfish stuff, mostly, with fries, with plenty of cocktail and tartar sauce!!! Clams, of course fried for happiness!!!

The trick is getting piping hot food home, right!!!

I love a few slices of pizza after drinking!

I actually wouldn’t mind Datalounge being more like it was in 2004.

29 years of being worse than last year!

R67- What was the Datalounge like in 2004?

It was the blog era, so the links were more diverse without the walled gardens of social media.

The WW2 generation was around, as were an unknown amount of regular posters who have died.

The self-policing here was SAVAGE. Lackluster posters were eviscerated.

And there's things and people that Muriel doesn't like brought up again, likely for legal reasons, so I'll respect that.

Oh, hey- Fran's wearing makeup. Good, Fran...

I don't care about this at all, but I wanted to say that the "precious" poster at r45 cracks me up everytime I read one of his posts.

I declare r45 to be one of DL's best trolls!!

Post-drinking food (for me, in the past):

Jack in the Box bacon cheeseburger.

[quote] still standing by the entrance, looking like a cigar store Indian

I think she's tremendous.

Cigar Store Indian - isn’t that a racist trope?

Yes, it's pretty much literally violence.

Musto is a tiresome old queen.

Who does that queen think she is, to snub Fran? Musto is a hack, a has-been who never was, a silly deluded queen and a fossil frozen in time. He’s a 68 year old “club kid”, a caricature, a sight gag, and a hackneyed writer.

He's about 10 years too old to be a club kid, too. He just inserted himself into the scene and reported on it.

R78. Amen! His clothes are REALLY filthy and he smells, his “stylist” has severe mental issues that played out in real time as they bickered and sniped at each other on social media. The stylist then spent time in a “nervous hospital”. Musto carried on, scrubbing free meals and swag like he’s done for years. Musto, Boardman, and that REALLY STRANGE Lynne Yeager need to be taken out behind the barn…

R72, technically, a halfling.

I have always though of Fran as being the sort of person who seems just abut to say something funny and then doesn't.

Musto, I have never thought about.

Musto's expiration date was 30+ years ago.

No one rang for her. No one has for years.

R14. I've always liked Candice Bergen. I like her more now knowing her dry retorts aren't scripted for her.

I saw Fran at Whole Foods, the one at 24th and 7th, earlier this year. she lives in the building above it, the Chelsea Mercantile. she was online and mulling over her upcoming purchases, keeping to herself. She is surprisingly petite.

Michael Musto's apartment is shocking in its lack of taste or style. It's one of the many red brick low-rise boxy apartments from the 50s or early 60s that my friend Gary would call 'cookie cutter.' His living room looks like an estate sale. It's just random pieces of furniture that has seen better days, and everything is pushed up against the walls. The only thing that's missing are price tags.

Musto was sort of elven and cute when he was young and I remember laughing at his column back in the 80s. He seems a bit sad now, but so many gay men of his generation do and for reasons that have nothing to do with them on a personal level.

I don't find him as tiresome as Rex Reed although Reed was arguably better looking and is probably the more talented writer.

Fran has never impressed me but I have never minded her. She has the persona of an old and somewhat cranky piece of furniture that seems to add nothing until one day your mother redecorates and it is gone. And you spend the rest of your life very slightly missing it.

r86 you clearly don't know much about Fran. Among other things, she perfectly articulated how AIDS devastated our culture. She has a very astute mind.

R87, that is indeed an astute analysis. I tip my hat.

But the majority of her output is akin to a tweed jacket we never want to stop wearing.

Fran's awesome, though a little goes a long way.

Musto is quite a good writer, for the kind of writing he does. He often was on Theater Talk during their Tony Award predictions and he was very astute. He's got very good taste, at least in the commercial theater.

I couldn't care less about that fatty catty old butterface queen Michael Musty bitching because the fabulous and timeless Fran Lesbowitz wouldn't give him the time of day.

Fran and Martin Scorsese's "Pretend It's A City" on Netflix was great. Fran kvetching about the subway being shut down because a "foul odor" was detected had me howling.

[quote] What’s “pecker tracks”, precious? What’s “pecker tracks”?

I’m assuming he means piss and/or cum stains.

Maybe Michael’s finally coming out as a lesbian!?

Poor guy being stuck with the last name MUSTO

It reminds one of something MUSTY.

He always seemed a bit musty to me.