by Andy Cohen
I Skyped with parentals and it turned out that Mom was pissed about the April Fools thing; it apparently brought up all her residual anger from the Shawnee Indian prank years ago. So that didn’t go as smoothly as it seemed and maybe I should stop pranking her. Nah.
I brought Wacha to WWHL and gave him a huge frozen bone marrow to keep him occupied in my—now fully decked-out—office. He loved it in there and after the show I hung out and drank with Rashida Jones for ninety minutes. She is beyond cool and fun.
The jury-duty lady was supposed to come to the show tonight and didn’t show! I should send her a summons for something!
MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014
There is maybe going to be a doorman strike in NYC and they have a sign-up for residents to man the door, so I signed up for a Monday slot, three to five. I am oddly excited to be a doorman. I was a great waiter when I was in college; I think it’s a similar skill set.
Took Wacha to the dog run first thing this morning and it’s a godsend. He was mellow all day from having run. I had my own great workout and then we taped an early show with the cast of Southern Charm. Thomas Ravenel kind of announced his candidacy for Senate in the state of South Carolina. But he also kind of didn’t—if Lindsey Graham is the nominee then he’s gonna run, is what he said. So, OK, I still maybe don’t get it, and that’s probably why my mom doesn’t want me going on Bill Maher.
I went with Graciela, who had a bad tummy, to see Lady Gaga perform at the final night of Roseland. We saw Gayle King, who was sitting with Gaga’s mother, who told us that Gaga was running late. (You feel special getting that kind of intel straight from the mouth of the mother of the Gaga.) Graciela and I were trying to remember all the shows we had seen over the years at Roseland—I listed a few B-52’s gigs, several Broadway Bares, a few premieres, and there was a Madonna thing, but I knew I was missing something really gay. It turns out Grac had been christened “Maxi Halson” (her early nineties alter ego) at the White Party at Roseland. That was monumental.
The show was pretty great, although I wanted her to talk less and sing more. She climbed right up to our balcony when she sang “Bad Romance,” but Grac was in the toilet and missed the whole song. My highlight was “Applause.” We went backstage and while we were waiting schmoozed with Rita Wilson and Patty Smyth. I asked Patty if her husband was still wearing the Björn Borg underwear and she said he’s all over them.
Gaga took a while to come out because she was changing into a completely different Gaga look with new makeup, hair, and dress. I killed time by flirting with her huge straight bodyguard. I made her bow to me (I am Zeus, after all) and she did. I gushed about the video and she said it’s something everyone will recognize as great in ten years. She may be right. Maybe it went over everyone’s heads; I know when she explained it to me I realized I hadn’t really gotten it at all and I was in it.
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014
Good news: Angela, Rashida’s friend who lives on the eleventh floor, signed up to man the lobby with me. So I dodged some bullets there.
Got a top secret phone call from Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King; they want to use me on the premiere episode of The Comeback, which apparently involves Valerie Cherish trying to make a pilot for me. I am dying. I LOVE The Comeback and would’ve been thrilled if they were simply calling to tell me that it was coming back. They told me not to tell anyone at all, and I am busting at the seams.
I did Kathie Lee Gifford’s podcast and used it as an opportunity to coax her onto her soapbox about various things. I love it when she preaches the gospel of anything, for instance, “Please don’t get an animal if you can’t take care of it, please don’t have kids if you can’t deal with it.” Just life stuff.
Clay Aiken called me asking to put my name on a benefit for his congressional run. What is the appropriate response? I haven’t been schooled in this particular etiquette. I know nothing of his platform or really anything about him. I said yes, but that I couldn’t attend the actual event, which is the truth.
I got a two-hour afternoon massage and took calls and did work during it. It was very Sandy Gallin.
Taped a one-on-one with NeNe tonight. She said she actually wasn’t mad about the Paula Patton seating. The live show was Aviva and Carol Leifer. I was off my game and made a terrible Betty Ford joke when I said the drinking word. I said that it was her birthday and if she had taken better care of herself she would’ve lived to play the drinking game. OK, now I think it’s actually pretty funny.
I told John Hill about The Comeback. I had to.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2014
I have gone to the private dog run every day this week. At ten-thirty in the morning, it is full of straight men who don’t seem to have jobs. Today they talked about Chris Christie, their kids’ school auctions, Mike Tyson, and a TV show I’d never heard of (odd). I felt like I was in a weird club. I actually felt like a bro. They all talk about each other’s dogs too. A lot. And when each new person and dog arrive they make a big thing about the dog: “Uh-oh, here comes Klondike!” Wacha is fitting in well. He is the cutest of them all. And I am being totally objective.
I did a green-screen shoot and photo shoot with Wacha for Bravo this afternoon. He was a little all over the place but they got enough stuff they can use.
Amanda and I had dinner, then saw the Carole King musical, which we loved. The people in the theater were dressed like shit. Just no effort whatsoever. The tickets are so expensive you think it might make people want to dress well, but they go the other way. I ran out during the last song, grabbed Wacha at home, and brought him to the show. The Million Dollar Listing New York guys were on with Wacha—they were all perfect.
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2014
I am 166.4—spitting distance from 165, which was my goal—and now I think I wanna go for 160. I have been working out like a motherfucker and eating protein like a champ. Tomorrow night is going to set me back, though, because I’m going to Sam’s in East Hampton and plan to inhale a medium pizza.
All the talk in the building is about the doorman strike. I tried to get Surfin to come to my Tracy Morgan show but he thinks Morgan mugs too much and doesn’t want to come. What do you really think of Tracy Morgan, Surfin?
Wacha walked his first red carpet. I took him to some ASPCA fundraiser, where I got in a fight with a photographer from Getty who was yelling at me to pose eighteen different ways. I couldn’t because Wacha is a dog and sadly doesn’t pose on command. Daryn came with me and took Wacha downtown so I could meet Liza at RedFarm. I walked her home and it was intensely depressing seeing what’s happened to the Upper West Side—CVS, Marshalls, Starbucks, Bank of America, repeat. How do we stop the cycle of rents going up and everything unique about the city falling prey to greedy developers? And where does it end? We stopped in one of the few independent bookstores left in the city and I bought that Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive. I haven’t read it since I loved it in college. I ended the night with a Tinder date with a guy who works for a magazine. Seems nice and very calm—I couldn’t get a final read on him but he is handsome and smart. I want to see him again.
FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014—NYC–SAG HARBOR
I ran at the gym and the heat was pumping on the top floor, so it was more like Bikram running. It was a gorgeous spring day and Wacha and I drove to the beach with the top down. I spoke to SJP on the way about the two free seats at her Met Ball table. An invitation to the Met Ball is a great one, so we were trying to think of a fantasy guest. Donna Tartt will be on a book tour in Finland and can’t come. I suggested we try to invite a legend to such a legendary event, and the first legend who came to mind was Diana Ross. SJ thought that was a great idea, and we fantasized about Ms. Ross at our table in a dress by Mr. de la Renta. If I wind up next to Ms. Diana Ross wearing an Oscar de la Renta dress at the Met Ball, I will for sure poop my (fancy) pants. She is inviting Ms. Ross. I hope she comes; I just want to watch her all night. We don’t even have to speak.
Went
to Sam’s Pizza with Marci and Andrew. The other night Marci saw an old acquaintance at a book party who asked her what she’s doing these days and Marci said, “Haven’t I done enough?” which is the best ever response to that question. In her case it’s true, by the way. Sam’s was incredible. I killed a well-done medium mushroom and onion, my regular order.
SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 2014—SAG HARBOR
Today I saw the ghost of Esther Rolle. Before that, I took Wacha to brunch—then shopping—in East Hampton, then we went to the beach and just screwed around. It all went haywire when we took a run on Long Beach in the late afternoon and this woman gave me a big smile and it was unmistakably Esther Rolle, getting into a big gray van. She looked older than the Good Times Esther, and also a little Asian, so maybe she was the Asian Ghost of Esther Rolle. When she gave me that classic Florida Evans smile/side eye with her neck rolls bulging out, I slowed down to a gallop, my mouth hanging open. Simultaneously, closer to the ground, Wacha was transfixed by a pile of crushed matzo spread in front of him. Before I had time to process the ghost or the crushed matzo, I saw another pile, and then another pile beyond that. Horrified, I realized that I was in the middle of some Pagan anti-Passover ritual presided over by the Asian Ghost of Esther Rolle. When I turned back to see if she was torching a bottle of Manischewitz, she and the gray van were gone. Now I cannot figure out what the hell was going on, and why there were seven mounds of crushed matzo in the parking lot of this beach.
I had dinner at the Lobster Inn with Anderson and Benjamin—I didn’t mention the matzo to them but did tell them about The Comeback, about which they were appropriately excited. There were a lot of talkers in the restaurant—everybody had a big personality and wanted to share it—and one dude and his wife twice pulled up chairs to our table to chat with us, which was incredibly ballsy. Jewish Long Islanders have moxie!
SUNDAY, APRIL 13, 2014—SAG HARBOR–NYC
We went running this morning on a search for the Ghost of Esther Rolle but she and her gray van were nowhere. There were, however, the remnants of the matzo stacks. Went to Brooklyn for dinner at Jeanne and Fred’s. Great to see the boys, who wanted to know “if celebrities get better Wi-Fi than regular people.”
Mad Men premiere was sadly quite boring.
MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2014
I wore shorts outside today and that needs to be noted given all the pain and suffering it took to get to this moment in the year. In said shorts, I sat in front of Bonsignour and that same jackass from last week was taunting Wacha, which makes him bark and go nuts. I told him that Wacha does not care for him at all, and he seemed awestruck, like he couldn’t figure out what he could’ve possibly done to make this dog not like him.
I did a really stupid move at the gym where I was hanging on to a punching bag by my feet trying to pull myself into a sit-up but wound up falling with a thud right onto my back. It felt like I’d been punched. Between that and three long attempts to do a handstand, my body is going to kill tomorrow.
Had lunch with Bruce and after we went to three bodegas to find matzo, placing bets in front of each one about whether they’d have it. One lady thought I wanted juice(?) and pointed me to the cooler; the place on Bleecker and Eighth with the rotating checkers thought I wanted Wasa crackers. So it turns out you can’t get everything at a bodega. Dave and I had a cozy lil Passover together at my house (his family is all in Florida) and he wound up bringing me a box of matzos and we had a lovely seder. I discovered there are less cals in a matzo than in a piece of whole-wheat bread, so that’s my new breakfast. He turned me on to Arcade Fire and we watched a lot of their videos. Jeanne and Fred brought the boys to the show and they seemed to have a blast. I loved having them there; I felt like I had to be funny for them.
I signed Wacha up for Twitter and Instagram. He is @TheRealWacha. @WachaCohen is still taken by a stranger who is tweeting as my dog—which is not weird at all.
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2014
There is an article in the NY Post today that says we’re going to have the most brutal summer ever—horrible humidity and terrible rain—which put me in a foul mood all day. I don’t know when I started letting weather bum me out; it may be because I view it as a sign of the planet falling apart and a precursor to the upcoming apocalypse, or maybe I’m perimenopausal.
The NeNe one-on-one that aired on Sunday night got 3.5 million viewers. We beat the MTV Movie Awards and NBC and ABC. And all I can think of is that NeNe’s gonna want to raise her fee. Oy. I took Joey to J.Crew’s Ludlow store in Tribeca to pick out a suit for his eighth-grade graduation today; he looked so proud when he saw himself in the mirror. It was very sweet. I bought a couple myself. (It’s like they’re giving suits away there.) We had a Friends In Deed board meeting and I am not feeling confident about our June fundraiser. We have a lot of work to do. I think we’re going to postpone it till the fall. (I am a firm believer in postponing things if they won’t be great.)
Before the show I got in a K-hole about our lead-in, which was shitty, then we got word that the temp outside had plummeted and the rain had turned to snow, and I went into a serious funk. Had another date with the Tinder/magazine guy after the show. He has a sweet temperament. We kissed in the (empty) bar at the end of the night. It wasn’t an amazing kiss but I shouldn’t kibosh the whole thing based on a couple bad kisses, right? And it was still snowing to beat hell when he walked me home at 2 a.m. Snowing. Again.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2014
I have tickets to Hedwig Saturday and the question is whether to bring Liza or the date from last night. I would probably have a better time with Liza, but when was the last time I brought a date to a show?
Bruce and I took Barkin to Cafe Cluny for a birthday lunch. Amy Poehler was there and we awkwardly said hi.
We taped Lindsay Lohan tonight for air tomorrow. There was a bet going in the control room about what time we would start taping. It was Price Is Right rules, so whoever came closest to the time without going over won. Dave Stanley won the pool—seventeen bucks. He guessed 8:34 and we started at 8:37. She had a crown, which she decided she was “over” midway through the show and took off. She was incredibly nice and kind of fragile. Her Housewives intro line brought down the house: “I’m through with mug shots and ready for my Oscar.” I kept her cigarette butt and put it on a shelf in the Clubhouse next to Patti LaBelle’s half-eaten Life Saver, and as I write this I’m wondering where we put the fake joint Seth Rogen rolled on the show. I know we kept it. Hmmm.
The live show was a treat: Joan Rivers and Tracy Morgan. I fangirl over Joan every time I get a chance to be with her on TV. I go right back to watching her on The Tonight Show and pinch myself that she’s on my show. Speaking of pinched, you think she’s a little more unrecognizable every time you see her, but then she opens her mouth and whips out some Helen Keller jokes and “It is JUST…” and she is just … Joan! She often brings a list of topics she wants you to talk about and tonight was “death, plastic surgery, Melissa, Kanye West.” It is a joy to set her up to land a joke and watch her kill, and she did. Amanda and Jim were there—he’s a big Joan fan and I got him a pic during a commercial. Tracy Morgan was in awe of her and we kept the after show going for a long time. It was a purely joyous night.
THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014
I’m 165 pounds! I can’t even think of the last time I was this weight, maybe ten years ago. Wacha played with a very barky dog named Bellini at the dog run. Bellini’s mouth doesn’t move when he barks, so I’ve decided he’s a ventriloquist dog.
I hailed a cab to take me to 30 Rock and was all excited when I opened my cab door and it was a LadyDriver wearing Dior sunglasses. I thought we were going to have a breezy fun ride uptown but she was mean as fuck. Scary, actually. She wanted nothing to do with me, my newspapers, my casual convo about traffic and Taxi TV. In summary, she was nasty. Nonetheless I gave her a three-dollar tip on fourteen dollars and she didn’t seem too pleased with that either. Is that actually a really bad tip? I spent
the day at Bravo. It was great to be back there. I need to go more. Julia Roberts isn’t doing WWHL for The Normal Heart in May, so that’s a bummer. I guess that schmooze over Oscar weekend didn’t do the trick. One day …
Went to the Waverly for dinner with Mark and Kelly. Our waiter’s skin was amazing and we bet on his age—Price Is Right rules—and I won. He was twenty-six. I did see the flirty waiter, and after all this time I have revised my opinion of him once again; he’s nice and the fact that he’s a dad has mellowed me about his history of flirting.
FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014
All I really care about is Wacha’s Instagram. I constantly think about what cute photo of him I can post and when. I am obsessing. He is up to 12k followers. This from the man who couldn’t believe it when @GiggyThePom demanded attention from me on Twitter.
Billy Joel is doing a residency at Madison Square Garden—one Friday a month for two years—and tonight Bruce, SJP, and I went. It was phenomenal. I guess Billy likes to leave the second the show is over, so he sees guests before he goes on, which seems efficient but, now that I know how incredible the show is, I would’ve been so much more enthusiastic back there after the show than I was before. We had pre-show energy, which pales in comparison to post-show ebullience. Backstage were Paul Reiser, Barry Levinson, Rosanna Scotto (I love a local news star), and John McEnroe. True to form, McEnroe said he was wearing the Björn Borg undies but that he’s running out. I said I was sure Björn would send him a case and he said Borg is actually hard to track down. I wondered if he wasn’t simply reachable at [email protected] Ha-ha.
I had spent a few nights with Joel around the time Katie Lee was hosting Top Chef, and at that time he was kinda poking me, wondering when we were gonna pick up the show because season one had been such a hit, but I knew we were likely going to let Katie go, so it was a precarious dance. I wondered if he remembered any of it—he didn’t let on one way or another and couldn’t have been a more gracious host. Also they had some gorgeous Barolo back there, which we brought out to our seats and it took us through the night. We were about twenty-five rows back on the floor and I really hit the loser lottery with my seat partner, who was a curly-haired Billy Joel fanatic, amped up to beat hell, flagrantly violating my personal space with undulating dance moves and unyielding passion, which for me begged the question “Is ‘Pressure’ a song worthy of going all out?”