by Andy Cohen
I got to St. Louis and had a nice hangout with Blouse, who is always a happy sight. I love coming home on a day when Blouse will be at the house so we can catch up about any number of local (what’s going on at my Aunt Judy’s) and national (Beyoncé) current events. Blouse didn’t like the Clubhouse wedding at all. She thought—among other things—that the guy’s tuxedo looked funny, and she was kind of right. Then I told her that I was licensed to marry and I would marry her and Eddie, her boyfriend. She didn’t really like that idea and it kind of drove her from the room. Or maybe it was when we were saying my mom should be the bridesmaid at Blouse’s wedding. I should’ve asked her take on leaving that bug for Neicy. I don’t think I could leave a bug for Blouse. She’s family.
At the game, the Cardinals put us in this suite with Jim Edmonds—a Cardinal legend—and it was so cool being with him. My mom very sweetly—and a little too loudly—whispered to me with half-pursed lips, “Maybe he’s on YOUR TEAM!” I knew he wasn’t because his last wife tried out to be an OC Housewife. And I doubly knew he wasn’t because he was with a hot girl who happens to be the sister of a hot guy I know in NYC. (Hot siblings are the best.) We were seated like twenty-five rows behind Em and Rob, and my mom spent much of the time riding the way that her son-in-law was ineffectively waving his homer hankie. My mom kept saying, “He’s PUSHING the RALLY TOWEL. He’s not WAVING it. Look at your sister! She doesn’t even HAVE a rally towel. WHO DOESN’T TAKE A RALLY TOWEL when they go into the stadium? They’re FREE! It’s the PLAYOFFS!” Incidentally, I was waving my homer hankie like my life depended on it.
Everybody in St. Louis, all they talk about is how great St. Louis is. The hostess lady in the suite asked me if I lived in LA and I said no, I live in New York, and she said to me very earnestly, “Why, may I ask, would you ever leave St. Louis?” She was completely baffled at the idea that someone would leave St. Louis, just stumped. If she didn’t get immediately why I might leave St. Louis to live in New York, I wasn’t going to be able to explain it to her. I bowed and slowly walked backwards.
With great flourish the dessert cart arrived. I was too into the game to indulge, but my mom was in the suite taking photos of every angle of the damn cart to show me, or whomever. She kept saying, “You can’t BELIEVE this thing! You MISSED IT!” When I was ready for dessert a few innings later, they went and got it for me. (I reluctantly conceded to my mother that it actually was an amazing dessert cart.) The game was tied back and forth and went into extra innings. My dad hit the wall at the top of the thirteenth—around midnight—when it somehow dawned on him that it could go on forever. He was like, “What’s the end game here? When are we going to leave?” and my mom enthused, “When someone CROSSES HOME PLATE, that’s when we leave! We are waiting for A RUN TO BE SCORED on either side.” I told her to lay off him; the man is eighty-one and made it to midnight. I asked my father if the conversation could be deferred until the Cardinals batted, and, thankfully, they won the game. I promised Cardinal legend Jim Edmonds he could bartend on WWHL in November.
I was supposed to meet reliever Jason Motte for a whiskey but it was 1:00 a.m. and we decided not to. He is a Twitter buddy. The truth is I just want to be friends with baseball players. I am 100 percent in awe of them. Consuelos once told me that baseball player starfuckers are called “green flies”—so I guess I’m one of them. (Maybe I’m a fruit fly?) I was also DMing Motte, who has a beard, asking if he was upset about this guy on the Dodgers who I thought was stealing his look, and he was so nice about it. He said, “Oh, he is a great guy” or something, and here I was trying to instigate a fight with this Dodger.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2013—ST. LOUIS
I realized this morning that the moral of the Glamour magazine story is not that they cut all the juicy material for fear of hurting their relationship and promoting positivity, it’s that I am a nasty bottom-feeding shit stirrer. Here I am thinking the worthy parts of this article are the parts where she is trash-talking Madonna and dismissing Katy Perry. Am I, in fact, a promoter of negativity among women (an accusation I’ve heard before) as well as between baseball-playing men? Is this the person I have become? No! I’m an enthusiast! I swear I am. A drama-loving enthusiast.
At Game 2 this afternoon, cousin Josh and I were back in Suite 6 with Jim Edmonds. Tony La Russa threw out the first pitch and I texted him and said great job and he said “Oh, are you here? There’s something I need to speak to you about and it’s a matter of national significance.” I was like whoa, OK … this sounds big, so I replied, “I’m with Jim Edmonds in Suite 6.” He texted back, “I’m on my way.” Wow. The former GM of the Cardinals needs to speak to me about a matter of national importance at Game 2? So in walks Tony, past the St. Louis–loving hostess and her bountiful dessert cart, and starts telling me that the issue is that he “and many other people” feel that I should give the Mazel on Sunday to his buddy Howard Schultz, who runs Starbucks. He and many other people have an opinion about who gets the Mazel? They are doing a petition to register people’s outrage over the government shutdown. And in the middle of showing me the petition, and my wondering when the “national significance” part comes in, he says, “Oh, lemme pause right now because David Freese is about to do something big,” and I turn to the diamond and just like that David Freese hits a double!!! I couldn’t believe it. And his response to my bewilderment? “If I know one thing about something, it’s baseball.” How did he know that was about to happen? It made me feel very inside, but also like the whole thing was fixed. I’m still flummoxed about it. He left and Jim Edmonds started going on a rant about how people should stay out of politics. He’s probably right. I won’t be giving the Mazel to Howard Schultz—it seems like a total shill for Starbucks. If Howard Schultz actually ended the freaking shutdown, I would give him the Mazel. Meanwhile, we won that game and it was a glorious day.
That night I went to Em and Rob’s and my folks went to the symphony. I was giving my brother-in-law shit about the way he was pushing the homer hankie, and Em said the reason she didn’t take a homer hankie was because she knew we were sitting behind her and that Mom would be analyzing her handling of the homer hankie. How smart is that? And so this entire homer-hankie thing reaffirms why I don’t live in St. Louis. I would buckle under the pressure.
At the end of the night, I lay at the foot of my parent’s bed telling them about my day and the game, like I was ten years old. It was really sweet.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2013—ST. LOUIS–NYC
“I beg you to NEVER GO ON BILL MAHER!” My mother was pleading with me at breakfast to never, ever go on Bill Maher’s HBO show, which is a curious, bimonthly refrain from her. She thinks I wouldn’t be able to keep up and it’s her way of being protective, but she’s not getting that it’s a non-issue because they ain’t asking.
Guess who was on my flight home? The effeminate dad and his wife and kids. Actually, he was really butching it up. I think he knew I was onto him. We had a Lord of the Rings reunion on my show with Ian McKellen and Orlando Bloom that aired directly after the RHONJ reunion. Everybody wanted me to talk about the reunion but I had these two huge stars on and I had nothing more to say about RHONJ. We need to shake that show up, but I wasn’t going to say that publicly. I’m sure our ratings stunk. I don’t know that I gave the people what they wanted tonight.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013
I’m going to call what happened today Playing-Card-Gate. Bravo made playing cards for clients, with each face card featuring a different Bravolebrity (I was the Joker, Lisa Vanderpump was Queen of Diamonds), and the person who designed them (who is young and not American) made NeNe the Queen of Spades. He had no idea that “spade” had any bad connotation. We had them all destroyed, but discovered that they’d been sent out to the talent a couple days before, so they’d arrived in Atlanta. I was the lucky guy who got to call NeNe and let her know what had happened. I felt totally rotten. NeNe was incredibly cool. She said Gregg had noticed, but she was just happy to be a
queen. And she is one. Potentially disastrous situation diverted!
I got an email from the guy at Glamour. “We put some stuff back in; I think you’ll be happy,” which intrigued me.
They put the Cardinals game on the big screen in the Clubhouse before the show. I had my hat on and had a blast watching with my crew. We won. The same four camera guys—Carlos, Rich, Mark, and Nick—have been with us for the entire run of the show, and I love them. Besides being my man behind Camera 2, Rich has worked for Rachael Ray for five years. He told us that yesterday she said, “Hey, camera guy. Get out of my way.” She is on my show Wednesday night. I’m going to try to test her, because two of my other camera operators also work for her and don’t think she knows their names. I am the worst with names, so it was a rocky first year (Deirdre constantly in my ear mocking me) trying to get those guys’ names right. You gotta know your crew! Ja Rule was on the show. He was singing to the audience during commercial breaks.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2013
I worked out and thought I was going to puke. I felt whiskey coming out of my pores. I did a run-through at Grand Central Station for this American Made Awards thing that I somehow agreed to co-host tonight with Martha Stewart. There were people everywhere who were overly enthusiastic and seemed in various states of terror of Martha. She would say, “This teleprompter is horrible. Can you see it, Andy?” and I’d say, “If you can’t read it, I can’t read it!” And then she’d say, “The lighting is terrible. Is it hurting your eyes?” And I’d say, “Whatever is going on with your eyes it’s doing to my eyes.” Then, “God, the audio is terrible. You should have been here last year. It was so bad. I was so mad, I literally think the audio guy is dead. He’s dead. I think I killed him.” And she was laughing, saying, “You wouldn’t believe what I did to him.” It’s obviously so much more fun being on Martha’s side than not. And I was the worst; I just agreed with everything because I didn’t have a stake in the fight. I was the guy saying, “No, you get on the train to Dachau. I’m going to stay with Martha. I’m Christian.” Martha tried to teach me to knit backstage with these huge needles and alpaca wool and I was terrified. I felt like I was having sex and I couldn’t get hard. Except that knitting is not like sex and even the Queen of Crafting couldn’t teach me how to do it.
The awards went fine. Martha is trying to do something important, which is promote American small businesses. I ran into Bethenny and Thom Filicia. And I don’t know what Christie Brinkley has done to her face, but she still looks like “Uptown Girl” from the video. Perfection. She should win some kind of crafting award for it. I saw Sean Avery there and I made a joke onstage about he and I buying two pairs of matching chaps. Martha didn’t know what I was talking about.
Went right from the awards to the show and Sanjay Gupta was on. He was really nervous. His publicist said, “You can be funny with him but don’t be silly. He doesn’t want to play a silly game.” And we told the publicist that this is quite a silly show, so it was going to be hard to avoid that. She goes, “Just don’t make him put a boa on or anything.” So we didn’t make him put a boa on, which was disappointing. My director Sarah wore a Dodgers shirt, so I considered sending her directly to the Rachael Ray show.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013
More Martha today. We were on the Today show to promote her awards. It was unclear how I got roped into the appearance, or what exactly I was doing there, so I decided to just try to be funny. I made my erectile-dysfunction knitting joke and it landed with a thud. Matt looked at me like I was nuts. (I don’t think he could figure out what I was doing with Martha either.) I said I checked the wrong box on Match.com and Martha and I have been dating for six weeks. That got a laugh. It’s the first time I’ve seen the Today show in a long time. It was upsetting because they’re clearly trying to imitate Good Morning America, which is so bad, but number one. The Today show is the Today show for God’s sake! (And I have the right to opine since I gave seven years of my life to the number three morning show.) NBC should just be doing what they do best. Before the segment Martha said to Matt, “Oh, I like the new studio. Orange is the new black.” And he said, “I prefer black.”
I went to this “Giants of Broadcasting” luncheon honoring, among other people, Barry. At the next table were Dan Rather and Bill O’Reilly, so I went over to Dan and he was so sweet. “I’m so proud of you,” he said. Of course hearing him say that made me want to cry, and then he said, “You know, I would love to get coffee with you and just get together and talk and share ideas sometime. No agenda on my part.” I couldn’t believe this was happening: Dan Rather wants to “share ideas” with me. And I was like, “Oh wow. OK. I think a whiskey would be even better,” and he said, “I would like that.” And I love that he said “no agenda.” Hamilton, Michael, Bruce, and I all showed up to see Barry and realized that it was a distinct possibility that maybe he had something more important to do. Hammy was calling his office to get intel. When he did show, his speech was great—he got up and made a joke about how all the people in the room were trying to sue him. Dick Cavett told a great Groucho Marx joke: Marx was once at a terrible dinner party and he said to the hostess, “I’ve had a wonderful time, but tonight wasn’t it.” We kind of all snuck out after Dick Cavett, which was a good thing because I hear it went on for two more hours.
The Cardinals’ march to the World Series continues and I’m being tortured by my cable box. The only channel I don’t get at Bravo or at home is TBS. I have no clue why. I watched the game at Bravo on my computer, and I’ve been watching it on my iPad at home, where it’s four minutes behind the rest of the world. I’m convinced there’s a TBS conspiracy against me. The playoffs is exactly the only time I ever watch that channel.
I went from the morning with Martha to an evening with Rachael Ray, who brought panini for the entire WWHL staff, carried by her acolytes/slaves. (Sidenote: Why do all the empresses of cooking have acolytes/slaves around them?) She also brought me a sandwich press/griddle, which is something I didn’t even realize I needed, but obviously do. She seemed pretty drunk on red wine and was a total bundle of fun (stained red-wine teeth and all—she’s the real version of Martha, see?). During a commercial break, I tested her to see if she knew Mark and Rich’s names and she did. My faith is restored. I really liked her, actually. For my Jackhole I was going to go off on the government shutdown and I specifically told the guy who bleeps our show (literally there is a guy with a button in a back room) that I would be mouthing the words “fuck” and “shit” so they didn’t need to drop sound, and I mouthed the word “fuck” but I got so carried away that I said “shit” aloud. Luckily they caught it. I called Boehner and Obama “queens” and said that they just needed to go scissor it out. That was my big idea. (Maybe I am ready to go on Bill Maher. Lemme check w/ Mom on that.)
I have such dog fever. I keep staring at Ron Swanson’s picture; I’m meeting him on Friday and can’t wait! On the other hand tomorrow’s Miami Housewives reunion is looming like a storm cloud.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
Adriana freaked out before the reunion taping today because she wasn’t sitting next to me. She told the producers, “Just fire me now if I’m not next to Andy.” I love her. Every time I see her she brings me something from Tom Ford. Usually a tie. Today it was a Tom Ford scarf. It makes me so uncomfortable that she’s spending her money on me. The women were out of control, as out of control as they could possibly be. And there was so much “evidence”—which I do typically enjoy. Marysol pulled out her computer with a video message from her father in the hospital making a testimonial proving Lea didn’t send Elsa flowers. Hmmm. Not sure what that proved.
We finished early and I went to Cafe Cluny to get dinner but walked up to find a crowd in front and lights and a waiter coming out with a plate of food. They were filming Annie the movie, and I thought the waiter was feeding Sandy (because now I have dog fever), but it was “Annie” herself the waiter was feeding, that little girl who was nominated
for an Oscar. I’m all for boosting Quvenzhané Wallis’s career, but does the world need a reboot of Annie?
Lisa Marie Presley and CeeLo were on the show, and Lisa Marie Presley was adamant that I not ask about Michael Jackson. I knew it at the time she was booked but I kept thinking, “I’ll figure out a way to do it,” and before the show she apparently said to the booker herself, no Michael Jackson questions, but somehow the message that she had personally reiterated that didn’t get to me. The celebrity doesn’t usually say something’s off-limits themselves, usually they leave that to a handler. And so the whole show I was ramping up to say something innocuous like “I know that you’ve talked about the deep stuff with Oprah. I just want to know, do you have a happy memory about Michael Jackson?” But she had this look on her face that was so vulnerable and nervous and she kind of broke my heart, she was hard and soft all at once. She told me right before we went on that mine was the only show she was doing. As the interview went on I started to feel like I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t ask the question. I was so glad my better self thwarted the heartless shit stirrer because I only found out later that she had specifically said not to. It is eerie looking at her. She is Elvis with a long wig. She is also very Priscilla. I mean, they’re her parents. It’s not headline news.
I got a two-hour massage after the show, listening to the noise in my apartment and wondering how a dog would feel about it. He’s from West Virginia and I’m pretty sure it’s not noisy there.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2013
This morning Fredrik Eklund took me to see models of the new apartments in the building where St. Vincent’s Hospital was. I consider myself pretty rich and I can’t afford these places. They are four thousand dollars a square foot. Ridiculous. And they’re erecting this building on the spot where thousands of people died of AIDS. Perhaps this is a bad idea all around. I felt rage towards the sales rep blithering about how fast everything was selling. They are characterless, I should add, and won’t be available till 2016, when the guy said everything will be five thousand a square foot. I told him I wanted to go home to my already nice apartment and open the window and jump out. In a nutshell, this is why New York City is going down the drain. In the meantime I have heard not one word about my neighbor upstairs, which is certainly good news for him. I do not want this man to pass away. I want to make that clear. I would like to duplex my apartment but a man’s life is not worth it.