WOWers, World of Wonder Co-Founder Fenton Bailey, Executive VP of Development Tom Campbell, and WOW Report Editor James St. James have collaborated with reality TV guru and friend of WOW, Andy Cohen, on a weekly Top Ten Countdown of the things from the past week that make us go…WOW!

It’s a pop-culture obsessed hour complete with colorful diatribes, opposing opinions, and a dissection-like discussion that will make your drive home from work more fabulous!

You can now WATCH us recording the WOW Report in our gallery storefront on Hollywood Boulevard, just across the street from Hollywood’s oldest restaurant Musso & Frank!

This week, we’re counting down the top ten stories of 2017 that made us go WOW!  We air TODAY at 3PM EST on SiriusXM, and again at 3PM PST (that’s 6PM EST). You can also catch the show on the SiriusXM app!

Let’s get started…

10) Sam Nunberg – Off the Rails?

We discuss swamp-thing Sam Nunberg and his allegedly drunken media meltdown this week.

Skip forward to Sam Nunberg – Off the Rails? @01:39

9) Good Girls on NBC 

Is the new television show Good Girls – about soccer moms who become criminals – NBC’s next big hit?

Skip forward to Good Girls on NBC @06:07

8) Andy Warhol: Prints of POP 

Fenton recently saw Andy Warhol prints from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family at the Palm Springs Art Museum.

Skip forward to Andy Warhol: Prints of POP @09:48

7) Sundays with Alec Baldwin 

Did you see Sundays with Alec Baldwin – Alec Baldwin‘s new talk show that aired after the Oscars on Sunday night? You can watch it here.

Skip forward to Sundays with Alec Baldwin @18:49

6) Netflix Pick: Baby Ballroom 

ITV premiered their show Baby Ballroom about child ballroom dancers and their pushy parents last summer in the UK, and now you can watch it stateside streaming on Netflix!

Skip forward to Netflix Pick: Baby Ballroom @23:08

5) Bowie’s Son’s Mute is a Scream!

Also streaming on Netflix is Mute starring Alexander Skarsgard, Justin Theroux, and Paul Rudd and directed by David Bowie‘s son Duncan Jones.

Skip forward to Bowie’s Son’s Mute is a Scream! @26:15

4) When Oscar Slays: RIP Russ Solomon

Did you hear about the death of Russ Solomon, founder of Tower Records? He passed away last Sunday while drinking whiskey and watching the Oscars. He was 92.

Skip forward to When Oscar Slays: RIP Russ Solomon @33:23

3) The Boy Who Poops Eggs

There is a boy in Indonesia who is pooping chicken eggs! Doctors aren’t sure if he’s swallowing the eggs, sticking them in his rectum, or something stranger altogether! You’ve gotta here this.

Skip forward to The Boy Who Poops Eggs @38:48

2) NPR’s Trump Stories on Embedded Podcast

Fenton is obsessed with Trump Stories which is part of NPR’s Embedded podcast. The stories are even crazier than the man who lived them.

Skip forward to NPR’s Trump Stories on Embedded Podcast @41:17

1) Ace of Face: Madonna’s Skin Care Line  

Madonna recently held an in-store promotion for her MDNA skin care line at Barney’s in Beverly Hills, and WOWlebrity Kyle Holden was there! He joins us to give the 4-1-1.

Skip forward to Ace of Face: Madonna’s Skin Care Line @47:30

Resistor of the Week: Stormy Daniels

Our resistor of the week this week is Stormy Daniels who sued our scumbag President! Atta girl, Stormy!

Skip forward to Resistor of the Week: Stormy Daniels @52:52

Listen in at 3:00PM EST and again at 3:00 PST (6 PM EST) on SiriusXM! Or listen whenever you want on the SiriusXM App!

And be sure to give your ears the gift of THE WOW REPORT on Radio Andy SiriusXM EVERY Friday.

Do something this weekend that makes YOU go WOW!!!

A legend, star and icon LYPSINKA is going to perform and WE ARE LITERALLY DYING.

The legendary spoken-word lip-sync master, Lypsinka is appearing as a special guest with RuPaul’s Drag Race season 9 champion Sasha Velour at her NYC drag show Nightgowns.

Lypsinka, known best for her spoken word lip-syncs will be sure to dazzle at nightgowns alongside a myriad of queens known for their performing chops. Don’t miss the show, kittens, this will definitely be one to write home about.

The next Nightgowns is 3/14, at 7:00 and 10:30pm. Tickets will go on sale this Friday at 5pm EST (will tweet link). Special guest, Lypsinka pic.twitter.com/vfwYa24Mzo

— Sasha Velour (@sasha_velour) March 7, 2018

If you haven’t already check out Lypsinka’s youtube for some wonderful content!

Watch some of her performances:

Martin Shkreli broke down in tears and asked for “your honor’s mercy” in court.

“I was never motivated by money. I was trying to grow my stature and reputation. There is no government conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli with my disgraceful and shameful actions.”

Judge Kiyo Matsumoto offered Shkreli a box of tissues during his boo-hoo remarks. Referred to as “Pharma Bro” or “The Most Hated Man in America,” was sentenced for defrauding investors of his hedge funds and for manipulating the stock of his pharmaceutical company, Retrophin.

Prosecutors asked for Shkreli to be sentenced for 15 years claiming he

“stole money for his personal benefit”

and was solely motivated by

“his own image.

He is about to turn 35 years old. He’s a man who needs to take responsibility for his actions.“

His defense attorney, Ben Brafman, loved and hated the guy too. He told the judge,

“There are times I want to hug [Shkreli]…There are times when I want to punch him in the face… he cannot always control awkward, inappropriate behaviors.“

The Pharma Bro was most famous for taking the 62-year old drug Daraprim, used to treat newborns HIV patients, and jacking up the price 5,000 percent while CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals in 2015. Price per pill went from $13.50 to $750 each.

Shkreli then basked in his own infamy. He bought a $2 million dollar and one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, publicly bragged about how he owed a Picasso painting, and offered a bounty of $5,000 for anyone of his 70,000 Facebook followers who could provide him samples of Hillary Clinton’s hair while she was on her book tour.

The album and the painting were taken as part of $7.36m of assets seized by the courts, and his nasty Facebook post about Clinton cost him his bail for

“solicitation of assault.”

Matsumoto said, while revoking his bond in September,

“He doesn’t have to apologize to me. He should apologize to the government, the Secret Service and Hillary Clinton.”

Brafman said that he’ll be filing for appeal, but in the meantime, he’ll reside in prison—away from the stock schemes, pill prices, rap albums, and social media platforms that got him there.

Martin Shkreli’s own lawyer said, “There are times when I want to punch him in the face…”

(Photos, YouTube; via Daily Beast)

Lopez repeated her iconic green dress at a free concert in the Bronx in the summer of 2014

Lopez in Versace look is nothing new. She put the label on the red carpet map with that iconic green plunging neckline dress and she still wears custom pieces for her performances. At the 2015 Met Gala, she was the guest of bfs, Donatella.

The Instagram post strategy seems to have worked too. The two pics alone already have over 2 million likes.

A clip of the new video is below.

Watch.

More #BTS #seacaboelamor disponible hoy!! @spotify @abrahammateo @yandel

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Mar 9, 2018 at 2:18pm PST

#SeAcaboElAmor #newsingle #nuevamusica out today!! From @abrahammateo @yandel and me!! check it out on @spotify

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Mar 9, 2018 at 12:27am PST

Fun day w these two guys shooting our video for our new song!! @yandel @abrahammateo #seacabóelamor look for song out on march9th!!!

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Mar 7, 2018 at 6:07pm PST

#BTS #seacaboelamor on iTunes now!

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Mar 9, 2018 at 2:06pm PST

(Photos, Instagram; via Vogue)

Josh Altman
Laura Dolgen
Carrie Underwood
Christian de la Fuente
Chuck Norris
Danny Pudi
Edie Brickell
Emeli Sandé
Emily Osment
Eva Herzigova
Haifa Wehbe
Jasmine Guy
John Hamm
Lance Burton
Neneh Cherry
Olivia Wilde
Paget Brewester
Paul Haggis
Prince Edward
Rick Rubin
Robin Thicke
Shannon Tweed
Sharon Stone
Timbaland

Always important to flex the arm when taking pictures driving a boat and make sure when pretending to talk on the phone that you don’t show the home screen

A post shared by Josh Altman (@thejoshaltman) on Feb 24, 2018 at 10:16am PST

She’s baaaack! Griffin posted this Thursday on Twitter about Gucci’s latest runway show featuring models carrying their own heads…

“I’m dipping my toes into touring again even though the Trumps and nobody wants me to work again. I just booked today, I’m going to do a show at Carnegie Hall in New York and I’m also going to go right to Trump’s back yard and do a show at the Kennedy Center.”

After the show she posted on Twitter,

“Great news – I’m heading back to Carnegie Hall in New York! Tickets will be on sale next week.”

Griffin watched her career disappear after she posted a photo of herself last May holding a bloody severed dummy head with a Trump mask. Talk about REAL TIME? She said TMZ,

“reported my show cancellations in real time.“

She thanked Maher for standing by her.

“I really want to thank you for being one of the first and only people to publicly say what happened to me was bullshit.”

She said she was under investigation by the Department of Justice for two months, is on Interpol’s No Fly list and was detained at every single airport on her 23-city overseas tour.

“That’s the administration we have now. I really believe, it happened to me, it could happen to you and other people or people’s kids or relatives. It could happen, it’s kinda crazy.”

Asked whether she lost friends over the controversy, Griffin said,

“I’m down to three gay guys and you, but I hear you’re fluid.”

And she said Trump’s son, wanted her ruined,

“And Don Jr., like of all people Don Jr., that frickin’ Cro-Mag, that barely human whatever his deal is, he goes on Good Morning America and says we don’t just want to ruin Kathy Griffin’s career, we want to decimate her. And that was like months after the photo.

I’m not decimated.“

Maher asked if she had regrets,

“If you had to do it all over again, I assume you wouldn’t take the picture…”

Griffin came back with,

“I’d do Mike Pence.

I’m kidding! Ten months I’ve waited to do that joke! Ten months!”

Watch.

Great news – I’m heading back to Carnegie Hall in New York! Tickets will be on sale next week. If you want the first crack at the best tickets, join my email list and you’ll get a head start!

Link to sign up: https://t.co/2ABuYJyTUt pic.twitter.com/aDlo189KV8

— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) March 10, 2018

(Photo, scene grab; via Deadline)

Olympian and it boy of the moment, Adam Rippon, has been doing the talk show circuit and he just sat down with the Huffington Post‘s Noah Michaelson for Build NYC. They chatted about lots of topics including glasses versus contacts and who HIS role model was growing up. (Spoiler alert; It’s Ellen.)

Michaelson posted on Facebook,

“Today Adam Rippon chatted with me about that Oscar harness that launched a million tweets, how he feels about being labeled ‘our first nationally recognized and respected faggot‘ and a bunch more. I found him incredibly genuine, a total sweetheart and to top it all off (and there is absolutely nothing humble about the following brag) after our chat he told me how ‘incredible” my body is –which, coming from an Olympian, isn’t too shabby of a compliment for this old guy.”

Watch.

Having a leather moment at #oscars2018

A post shared by Adam Rippon (@adaripp) on Mar 4, 2018 at 9:32pm PST

The TV at Nellie’s gay bar on Thursday was tuned to VH1 for RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3. As Nancy Pelosi sashayed in, someone yelled

“Naaaancyyyy!”

Guests paid $25 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to be there and they wanted hugs and selfies.

The bar’s owner Doug Schantz said,

“Back when I came out, gay bars I went to didn’t even have windows. Who would have ever thought we should have someone like Nancy come here, and be on this show?”

Pelosi has always been a supporter of LGBTQ rights and was criticized for even mentioning the AIDS epidemic as a priority when she came to Congress 30 years ago,

“Every time I went on a show, the first question was ‘Do you believe in gay marriage?’  And I would say, ‘Yes, because I don’t believe in discrimination of any kind.’“

Trump has called for a ban on transgender people in the military and eliminated protections for transgender students in public schools and Pelosi said to the crowd at Nellie’s,

“We are very saddened about some of the things that have happened in this administration in rolling back protections and opportunities and the rest “We are very sad that we don’t have a Congress that will reverse that.”

Someone shouted:

“Yet!”

She agreed,

“Not just yet.“

When Pelosi appeared on the TV, dressed in a white suit and heels, the crowd around her hooted and applauded, drowning out RuPaul’s intro.

Her husband, Paul Pelosi, who stood beside her said he had never seen Drag Race,

“It’s a little wild, but I’m from San Francisco.”

RuPaul finished the segment bidding farewell to Pelosi,

“I have one thing to say. YOU BETTA WEEERRRK!“

I would only add one thing to that, if you value your rights, this November,

“YOU BETTA VOTE!“

‘Werking it’ in DC with Nancy Pelosi at the official @rupaulsdragrace Watch Party @nelliessportsbar L-R Photo Laura Wood Habr, co-owner @crocs19thstreetbistro ; Nancy Pelosi, @nancypelosi Senate Minority Leader; William Fadely @fadelyw | Ocean Advocate Climate & Energy Campaign Responsible Fishing Campaign @oceana #werk #ProtectOurCoast #dragyourselftobrunch #### Pelosi a life-long supporter of LGBT rights wasn’t shy to tell the tea while meeting the Queens and said that “People sacrifice so much in our country for people to have the right to vote, It’s a blessing. But we have to use it. If you don’t vote, you don’t count — and you count.”

A post shared by Drag Yourself To Brunch CROC’S (@dragyourselftobrunch) on Mar 9, 2018 at 3:40pm PST

Had the opportunity to watch @nancypelosi on @rupaulsdragrace with Nancy herself!

A post shared by Farouk Ophaso (@fophaso) on Mar 8, 2018 at 5:56pm PST

Just another Thursday watching @rupaulsdragrace with @nancypelosi who is a guest on the episode with @babyoclide and @wymclok #skyentology #skyentology2018 #stolipride #government #political #loveher and everything she does for our #lgbt community @rupaulofficial

A post shared by Skye Paterson (@skyentology) on Mar 8, 2018 at 5:04pm PST

Girls night with @nancypelosi to watch @rupaulsdragrace. Sashay, you gonna get that gavel back #SpeakerPelosi #VOTE #YouBettaWork!

A post shared by Andrew (@a_tav) on Mar 8, 2018 at 5:07pm PST

Live shot of me explaining to @nancypelosi who the woman on my shirt is. It’s @trixiemattel!

A post shared by Jeff Crooks (@jeffreyjcrooks) on Mar 8, 2018 at 5:14pm PST

BEST #internationalwomensday EVER! Watching the episode of #rupaulsdragrace that Leader @nancypelosi guest stars in WITH SPEAKER PELOSI herself!!! YAAAAAAAAAS! #YouBetterWerk @rupaulsdragrace @nelliessportsbar #gay #lgbt #democrat

A post shared by Blake Bergen （小贝） (@bbergen) on Mar 8, 2018 at 5:18pm PST

Each #NationalComingOutDay, we celebrate the incredible progress the LGBT community has made to ensure that full equality is shared by all, no matter who they are or whom they love. Sadly, we celebrate this day while the Trump Administration engages in a mean-spirited and malicious campaign against LGBT Americans. But make no mistake: in the courts, in state legislatures and in Congress, Democrats will fight relentlessly for the rights of all Americans to live full and honest lives.

A post shared by Nancy Pelosi (@nancypelosi) on Oct 11, 2017 at 11:04am PDT

(Photos, Instagram, VH1; via The Washington Post)

In this extended clip from Thursday night, all of the 5 ladies featured some blazing couture.

Category is: Red For Filth

• Bebe Zahara Benet’s club kid queen meets “Who Is Ornacia?” look

• Kennedy Davenport’s blood diamond pageant perfection

• Morgan McMichaels‘s Scottish tart serving high fashion

• Shangela’s spikey dress inflated as she walked
(Inspired by Lady Gaga, see below.)

• Trixie Mattel‘s bookworm apple goodness was baked in

Don’t miss the season finalé of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3, next Thursday at 8/7c

Watch.

(Photos, screen grabs; via VH1)

Via YouTube

March 11, 1957– The Lady Chablis:

‘”Two tears in a bucket, motherfuck it.”

The Lady Chablis was already famous in Savannah, but she became world famous because of the fabulous book, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil (1994) by gay writer John Berendt. It became a NY Times Bestseller for 216 weeks and remains the longest-standing NY Times Bestseller.

It gave Chablis the spotlight and she was invited on news shows and she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey who had the most popular daytime talk show.

In 1996, Chablis published her own book, a memoir, Hiding My Candy, and she played herself in the 1997 film adaptation of Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil directed by Clint Eastwood, starring John Cusack and Jude Law, where she was the best thing in the movie. She became one of the first trans people to be accepted by a wider audience, and her fame brought attention to Savannah’s LGTBQ community.

Berendt said that Chablis could be playful and humorous, but she was also very tough. Berendt:

“She said, ‘Don’t be fooled by this dress I’m wearing’ when Clint Eastwood announced he going to make the film. Chablis made an announcement of her own. She said, ‘If I’m not cast as myself in that movie, there won’t be a movie.’ So, he cast Chablis as Chablis.”

During her audition, a casting director had the temerity to compare her to Whitney Houston. She slapped him so hard that her nails drew blood. But she got the role.

In “Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil” Warner Bros via YouTube

Berendt’s book is ostensibly about the scandal surrounding the shooting of his male lover by a prominent Savannah socialite, Jim Williams. But, it is actually a slightly fictionalized focus on the cast of characters that Berendt encountered in the atmospheric Southern city: a voodoo priestess, a man who ties live flies to his lapels and a piano player who could play 6,000 songs on request. Chablis was easily the best character in the book and film. Berendt:

“She’s the one that people asked me about most often. At that time, trans people weren’t that well known and weren’t that well understood. There weren’t that many in show business. And she was one of the first to be accepted by a wider audience.”

Her birth name was Benjamin Edward Knox, but she legally changed it to The Lady Chablis. She was brought up by her grandmother and an aunt. Benjamin’s mother had gone to Chicago, to work as a nurse. Benjamin did not meet her until he was nine-years old; he met his father when he was 12.

In the book, Berendt describes first meeting Chablis, hoop earrings jangling, she sashayed into his life as she left her doctor’s office following a hormone injection. Berendt:

“She had both hands on her hips and a sassy half-smile on her face as if she had been waiting for me. Her big eyes sparkled. Her skin glowed. A broken incisor tooth punctuated her smile and gave her a naughty look.”

He offered her a lift home, during which she confided that she was a showgirl. She told him:

“Mama got pregnant when I was 16, and she wanted a little girl. She intended to call the child La Quinta Chablis but she miscarried. I said, ‘Ooooo, Chablis. That’s nice, I like that name’. And Mama said, ‘Then take it, baby.”

In a building originally built in 1893, Savannah’s Club One was Chablis’ home. She was very first entertainer for the club, famous for its drag revues, officiating at the grand opening in 1988. Thousands of visitors come to Savannah, visiting the locations from the book, including Club One. Hundreds of her fans pack the club each year on her birthday.

Chablis has long supported the Savannah community. She worked closely on various campaigns for the American Diabetes Association, donating thousands of dollars raised by her performances to the cause. She was the headliner for Savannah’s very first Pride celebration and hosted their Miss Gay Pride Pageant. She performed for, donated and contributed to many LGBTQ charities throughout her career.

Much has changed as far as acceptance in the LGBTQ community of Savannah in the past two decades and many southern queers give Chablis much of the credit. Chablis was a trailblazer for Savannah, especially in the black and transgender community.

At the premier of “Midnight” photo via YouTube

She never wanted to be called a drag queen. In her shows, she joked that she was a rich white woman. She didn’t like labels; she had a no-nonsense style and attitude that inspired a lot of people and she showed trans people how to live their truth. She was unapologetic.

Chablis said that certain labels were hurtful to her because she spent much of her youth being bullied. Getting to the point where she was comfortable in her own skin was something she had to fight for, like wanting to be referred to as ”she” rather than ”he”.

Chablis:

”You have to remember that there was a time when I was a young, gay black man living in Savannah. That was during a time when the black folks shopped on Broughton Street and all the whites went to the mall. There were no jobs to be had unless you got lucky and your uncle died or a cousin moved away and you could take their job. … Those were hard times for blacks and gays in Savannah, and I try to remind the youth today that they were lucky to have people like me to pave the way. I didn’t know what it’s like to be a woman, and I don’t try to pretend to be a woman; I just try to be who I am without all the labels people try to put on you. After the book came out in Savannah, it was really hard because all my life, since I was like 14 or 15, I had always lived as a girl – not because I wanted to be a woman or anything, but because that is the only way I feel comfortable.”

”But, all of my life I had been able to go out in public and just be myself and all of the sudden I’m being labeled as the black drag queen, and I had really never heard that before… and it affected me mentally. For two years I became a recluse. If I had to fly somewhere, I would fly as ‘incog-negro’ as possible so no one would recognize me. Finally, I just had to own it.”

With NeNe Leakes and the Real Housewives, Bravo via YouTube

She owned it. One of Chablis’ last appearances was on Bravo’s The Real Housewives Of Atlanta in late 2013 when the housewives traveled to Savannah. The wives stopped by Club One and got schooled. Afterwards, she was in talks with Bravo to create her own show. But, she became ill and had to slow down. She was taken by pneumonia in September 2016 after spending a month in the hospital. She was just 59-years old when she left this world.

Chablis:

 ”I did what I did then, but when I knew better, I did better!”

Anthony Davis
Alex Kingston
Anton Yelchin
Benji Madden
Bobby McFerrin
Christopher Rice
David LaChapelle
Elias Koteas
Eric the Midget
Joel Madden
Joey Buttafuoco
John Barrowman
Johnny Knoxville
LeToya Luckett
Lisa Loeb
Melissa Rycroft
Nina Hagen
Nina Hartley
Peter Berg
Rupert Murdoch
Sam Donaldson
Terrence Howard
The Lady Chablis
Thora Birch

A post shared by Anthony Davis (@antdavis23) on Jan 4, 2018 at 12:36pm PST

Photo via YouTube

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) wrote several collections of poetry and a novel The Bell Jar (1963). She is noted for her intense coupling of violent or disturbed imagery with the playful use of alliteration and rhyme in her work. Plath remains one of the most admired poets of the 20th century. By the time she took her life at 30-years old, Plath already had a following in the literary community. After her death, her work attracted the attention all sorts of readers, drawn to her attempt to catalog despair, violent emotion, and an obsession with death.

Intensely autobiographical, Plath’s poems explore her mental anguish, her troubled marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, her unresolved conflicts with her parents, and her own vision of herself. She hungrily took on the subject of social restrictions on individuals. Plath laid bare the contradictions that tore apart appearance and hinted at the tensions hovering just beneath the surface of the American way of life.

Plath’s life and work showed a compassion and empathy for the trials and persecution of her gay friends and colleagues, and she likened what gays and lesbians endured to the Salem Witch-Hunts. This was the Cold War era, when the government and academia sought to remove those from society whom they deemed undesirable.

On March 7, in honor of International Women’s Day, The NY Times dedicated an entire feature to something long neglected: Obituaries for women. As the newspaper noted:

”The NY Times published thousands of obits since the paper’s founding in 1851 and the vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones.”

To even the scales ever so slightly, the NY Times editors crafted obituaries for fifteen historically significant women that have been overlooked, including photographer Diane Arbus, LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson, and Plath.

Alvin Baltrop, photo from “Gay Sex In The 70s” directed by Joseph Lovett, via YouTube

After the persecution and repression of LGBTQ people in the 1950s and 1960s, the counterculture revolution of the late 1960s brought about many cultural changes, especially attitudes about sex. Public nudity became more accepted. In the post-Stonewall era, these new freedoms gave rise to the Gay Rights movement.

The West Side Piers were where many gay New Yorkers gathered in the late 1960s and 1970s, the place where the new sexual freedoms were often played out.

“Exterior View Of Day End” (1977)

Of course, not everyone was into getting it on outside, yet the options included going underneath the then-elevated West Side Highway or heading to the West Side piers along the Hudson River near Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District. The dilapidated piers, neglected by the city in those years, were a lawless frontier. Gay men, homeless youth, transgender people, and hustlers all co-existed in what must have been a labyrinth of architectural decay, a place where a guy could find sex anytime of the day or the night. They were also a forgotten part of the city that played host to drug selling, prostitution and suicides.

If you would like a taste of the era, try Edmund White’s Nocturnes For The King Of Naples (1978)

Friend (The Piers), 1977

It couldn’t last forever. By the mid-1980s, the structures had all been torn down as the plague had struck and the city began to demolish areas of “potential contagion.”

Powerful, lyrical and controversial, Alvin Baltrop‘s (1948-2004) photographs are a poignant reminder of a long-forgotten moment in history, a groundbreaking exploration of clandestine Manhattan gay culture in the 1970s and early 1980s. The piers were an environment where Baltrop seems to have taken advantage of his eye for the formal qualities of a photograph line, scale, geometry, light, and shadow.

“Interior With Man” (1976)

Baltrop documented this scene, unflinchingly and obsessively capturing everything from fleeting naked figures in mangled architecture to scenes of explicit sex and police raids on the piers.

His work is little known mostly because unflinching subject matter, but his talent cannot be denied.

While the outside world saw NYC as the glamorous playground of Warhol and friends and the disco era, Baltrop captures the city’s gritty flipside.

“Male Figure Smoking” (1978)

Untitled,1978-80

“The Pier” (1976)

Baltrop was born in the Bronx and spent most of his life living and working in NYC. From 1969 to 1972, he served in the Vietnam War and began photographing his comrades. Back in NYC, he enrolled in the School of the Visual Arts from 1973 to 1975. After working as a street vendor, jewelry designer, printer, and hung out on the bank of the Hudson River on Manhattan’s West Side, where he would produce the bulk of his photographs.

Untitled (1980)

“Super Cream” (1980)

Baltrop knew most of the people he photographed, and they often volunteered to be photographed. The boys and men at the piers often confided in him about their relationships, their housing status, and their work.

He struggled to make it as a photographer, facing racism from the white gay art world. Gay curators often rejected his work, accused him of stealing it, or stole his work themselves. His work was only shown once while he was alive.

Baltrop was diagnosed with cancer in 1999. Poor, sick and without health insurance, curators exploited him for their own financial gain. He died on February 1, 2004.

“American Beauty” (1969)

Navy Sailors (1969)

Untitled (1980)

Since his passing, Baltrop’s work has been show at major galleries in the USA and Europe, including Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Bronx Museum of the Arts.

His life work is a snapshot of gay, African-American, and New York City history. Baltrop’s work is collected in a hardbound book Alvin Baltrop: The Piers (2015).

Photographs courtesy of Alvin Baltrop Trust and Third Streaming.

Perry at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards

Sister Catherine Rose Holzman

CBS News reported that Friday, Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, 89, collapsed during in court. Archbishop José H. Gomez wrote in a statement on her passing obtained by People,

“Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, IHM passed away suddenly today at the age of 89. Sister Catherine Rose served the Church with dedication and love for many years and today we remember her life with gratitude. We extend our prayers today to the Immaculate Heart of Mary community and to all her friends and loved ones.“

Just hours before her death, Holzman along with Sister Rita Callanan spoke out against Perry to Fox 7, marking the first time the nuns had spoken to the press since 2016, when a L.A. judged ruled against them, clearing the way for Perry to purchase the property. But designer and entrepreneur Dana Hollister (owner of Echo Park’s Brite Spot Diner), interfered with the sale of the property to Perry, according to the jury’s decision.

This legal fight over the sale has cost Perry more than $2.6 million in lawyers’ fees but jury ordered Hollister to reimburse more than $1.5 million of that.

To make the sale go through, Perry was going to provide the church with a new retreat for priests and but the sale on the property fell through.

The nuns had been given in 1972, had tried to sell it to Hollister as the Archdiocese was working out the terms of a sale to Perry, who plans to share the home with her mother and grandmother. If it seems odd to want to buy a convent, it wasn’t originally one. The sprawling compound was by architect Bernard Maybeck as the private residence of auto dealer and broadcasting mogul Earle C. Anthony in 1927 in the now trendy Los Feliz neighborhood.

Sister Holzman just before she died told Fox 7,

“Katy Perry, please stop. It’s not doing anyone any good [and it’s] hurting a lot of people.”

In an interview with the L.A. Times in 2015, Callanan said that the big reason the nuns were against the sale because they didn’t approve of her image.

“Well, I found Katy Perry, and I found her videos and if it’s all right to say, I wasn’t happy with any of it.“

Perry is one of the most successful female artists ever with a net worth of nearly $300 million at the age of 33. She was reportedly paid $25 million for appearing as a judge with Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan on the reboot of American Idol which premieres tonight.

(Photo, Pacific Coast News; via People)

Did you catch that disaster of a finalé of The Bachelor? It’s still on America’s mind.

SNL opened cold last night with a parody mashing up the excruciating breakup between Arie and an unsuspecting Becca with special counsel Robert Mueller (Kate McKinnon) breaking the bad news.

“So, uh, you know that I’ve been struggling a little bit over the last few months just trying to figure this whole thing out and just grasp everything,. The reality is I don’t think I can give you everything that you want right now, and I think you sense that.”

Becca (Cecily Strong) replies:

“So … what? You don’t have Trump on collusion?”

Mueller replies,

“I think I need to explore the possibility that I have a stronger case with some other stuff. I’m just trying to be honest with you in telling you I can’t commit to collusion right now.”

Becca can’t handle it.

“Collusion is literally the only thing that I’ve been looking forward to the past year.”

Watch.

(Photo, screen grab; via Washington Post)

Goldin in front of a “Shame on Sackler” banner in The Met’s Temple of Dendur

Yesterday in The Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, people handed out pamphlets that were designed to look like official Met materials, with the acronym “P.A.I.N.”, Prescription Addiction Intervention Now printed on them. Photographer Nan Goldin started the group to put pressure on Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the makers of OxyContin, and some members of the Sackler Family, the company’s principal owners and big donors to The Met.

According to ArtNews at one point during the protest inside the Temple of Dendur wing,

“Many people along the pool suddenly began to throw pill bottles into the water—there were scores of the little plastic containers—as others whipped out black banners, one reading “FUND REHAB,” the other “SHAME ON SACKLER.” Goldin, brandishing white type-written pages, spoke in short phrases, and the crowd echoed her as a human microphone. She said at one point,

‘In the name of the dead. Sackler family. Purdue Pharma. Hear our demands. Use your profits. Save our lives.‘

The group is calling for them to fund treatment programs and to take other steps to combat the opioid crisis. In the pamphlet, the group demands that “instead of continuing to wash their money in great institutions (like the Metropolitan Museum of Art) they donate their money to helping combat the opioid epidemic.” (Sackler family members have funded projects at Harvard, the Louvre, Tate Modern, and elsewhere, as the New Yorker and Esquire have reported in stories about Purdue’s development and marketing of OxyContin.)

The pamphlets contain statistics about the crisis, like

‘130 people die a day from opioid overdoses,’ ‘at least 200,000 people have died since 1999 from overdoses involving opioid painkillers,’ ‘$35 billion—Purdue profits from OxyContin, the nation’s bestselling painkiller.‘

It also includes a list of demands, among them that the Sackler Family and Purdue should invest 46 percent of their profits toward ending the epidemic, and that they should

‘advertise the dangers of their products as aggressively as they sell them to the public.‘”

In January Goldin published an essay and portfolio in Artforum where she talked about becoming addicted to opioids after being prescribed OxyContin following a surgery, and going clean only after two-and-a-half months in rehab. Goldin wrote,

“The Sacklers made their fortune promoting addiction…the Sackler family and their private company, Purdue, built their empire with the lives of hundreds of thousands. The bodies are piling up. In 2015, in the U.S. alone, more than thirty-three thousand people died from opioid overdoses.”

The Met’s Sackler Wing came about when Arthur M. Sackler was approached by the museum in 1973 about funding the expansion project. Elizabeth A. Sackler, daughter of Arthur, who died in 1987, supports Goldin’s cause, saying that, by the time Oxycontin was introduced in ’95, Authur’s Raymond and Mortimer were the main owners of Purdue, and that none of the philanthropy done by Arthur’s portion of the family has used money from the sale of Oxycontin. (The Met declined to comment on this.)

After the die-in concluded, the group marched out accompanied by guards, chanting all the way:

“Sacklers lie, people die.”

They made their way to the front steps where Goldin stood in front of a banner, held a pill bottle out in one hand, and continued her speech with the protesters gathered around her

“We are just getting started! Read the facts! Read the stats! We’ll be back!“

(Photos, Dung Ngo, Nora Burns; via ArtNews)

Mae West’s Lips Sofa, 1936

The ultimate artist, Salvador Dalí was also a designer who created various objects and furniture.

Dalí thought art should permeate all aspects of life and became interested in furniture after meeting, famous french designer and decorator, Jean Michel Franck. Around ’34-’35, Dalí used a photo of the actress Mae West, to create a painting called:

“The Face of Mae West which may be used as a surrealistic apartment”

In the painting (left) the face became the room and each facial feature an element: the nose became a fireplace, the eyes were pictures and the lips, a sofa…

This was the inspiration for what became the 3D Mae West Lips Sofa upholstered in “shocking pink” fabric, by designer Elsa Schiaparelli, which was the same color as the lipstick wore by Ms. West.

René Magritte, 1937, Portrait of Edward James

As well as Dalí and Magritte, his collection included works by the greats like Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Pavel Tchelitchew, Pablo Picasso, Giacometti, Max Ernst and Paul Delvaux, among others. Most of the collection was sold at Christie’s two years after his death in 1986.

Conceived by Salvador Dalí and Edward James and executed by Green & Abbott in 1938 as one of a pair of Lips Sofas for the dining room at Monkton House. It sold at auction last year at Christie’s in London for $650,000

The pair of lips sofas in the dining room of James’ estate, Monkton House

Dali & James discussing, “Dream of Venus” for the New York World’s Fair, 1939

As I reported (along with half of the free world) Sally Field took to Twitter during the Winter Olympics to try and set up her son Sam Greisman with Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, after he admitted his crush to her in a text.

Rippon later responded, via BuzzFeed,

“Sam, your mom —I admire her. I’m sure one day we’re going to meet! So thanks, mom.“

Yesterday Greisman and Rippon finally met at the Human Rights Campaign 2018 benefit dinner in L.A. where the Olympian was presented with the Visibility Award.

Greisman tweeted out this pic with his arm around Rippon, echoing his gratitude,

“Thanks, mom.“

Greisman lives in NYC, so how did he find himself at this dinner in L.A. where Rippon was in attendance being honored? Hmm, Sally…?

Thanks, mom. pic.twitter.com/m25Er4EEfD

— sam greisman (@SAMGREIS) March 11, 2018

(Photos, Instagram; via E!)

If you’ve wondered why you haven’t seen Cameron Diaz since her 2014 tour de force as Miss Hannigan in Annie, it’s because she’s retired from acting to focus on family life with her musician husband Benji Madden, 39.

That’s according to her good friend and former Sweetest Thing co-star Selma Blair, who spoke about her pal at the Oscar’s Vanity Fair pre-party in LA last week,

‘I would have liked to do a sequel but Cameron’s retired from acting, she’s like “I’m done”.

‘I mean, she doesn’t need to make any more films, she has a pretty great life, I don’t know what it would take to bring her back.’

Confirms an anonymous Hollywood source:

‘Cameron is constantly inundated with film scripts trying to tempt her out of retirement but she’s just not interested.

‘She’s happy, in love and wants to make the most of her freedom and free time.’

‘Cameron hasn’t wanted to work,’ a source told the magazine, ‘She is enjoying being at home and being a housewife, she would love more than anything to be a mom.’

‘At this point they would be very happy with the miracle of one child,’ the source added.

The actress has previously said ‘nothing else matters’ now she has her husband in her life.

Oh, to retire at 45. Can you imagine the bliss?

(via Daily Mail; photo: Pacific Coast News)

Yes, the image of Bianca Jagger riding a horse into Studio 54 is very glamorous, but pleeeeeeeeeease, kids, do not try to recreate the legendary disco moment at your local watering hole.

A Miami club learned the hard way that horses do not belong at crowded parties when a bikini-clad woman entered the Mokai Lounge club while riding a horse. According to Cosmopolitan, the animal was predictably spooked and threw the woman off its back before trying to escape. A video shows a man trying to restrain the horse after she fell.

Watch below.

WATCH: Mokai Lounge in Miami Beach under fire after video surfaced of a horse inside the nightclub pic.twitter.com/C7Saz3q20a

— Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) March 9, 2018

A Change.org petition has since been started and called on the local police to take action.

“People go to nightclubs to have a good time, enjoy drinks with friends, dance and party,” read the petition. “This environment is by no means a place for ANY animal or wildlife.” The petition currently has nearly 2,900 signatures.

Mokai Lounge was slapped with a police investigation and its license was revoked.

“Due to the acts by Mokai Lounge and their violations of the City Code, the City Manager [Jimmy] Morales ordered the immediate revocation of their business license effective immediately,” read a press release from the city.

The club’s owner, Roman Jones, said,

“The horse is not hurt. The marketing director, who arranged the stunt, that I was unaware of, is suspended without pay. I am cooperating with the authorities.” According to CBS4, there were previous incidents of animals like camels and other horses inside the club.