Superficial

by Andy Cohen

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015

  Cold as balls. Brandi didn’t take my advice about skipping last night and sent a scorched-earth tweet—“@Andy I think I’ve taken enough abuse on WWHL I dare you to pick on someone else! I’m fucking over it! It’s just bullying at this point!” On the show, Al said maybe there will be a big storm on Monday, so I told Daryn to order another ticket back from Miami for Sunday. I called Al “Matt” on the air. Met my neighbor who lives above the new apartment, who told me that I owe him a lot of money because he could’ve started a bidding war with me for the apartment, and he didn’t because he figured I would keep going up but he could have and almost did but didn’t and it went on and on and on. So I thanked him. John Mayer feels terrible for cancelling now that he is trying to book The Late Late Show, which he’s hosting next week and I’m appearing on. I told him Martha cancelled after he did because she only wanted to go on with him and he felt even worse. Booking sucks.

  On the way to 30 Rock I got an email from Brandi wanting to know what she did to make me hate her so much and informing me that she drinks on occasion when there are cameras around so that something will happen on the show. I sent her a very reasonable and measured email back and I think she may have wanted me to go nuts on her instead. Bravo cast two docuseries around groups of women in Dallas and Potomac, Maryland, and I had a meeting with Jerry, Shari, Lara, and Frances about whether or not we should make them Real Housewives or something else. I’m on the fence about Dallas because it seems like we should’ve done it in 2010. Potomac seems totally unexpected but Shari and Frances worry it seems like we are trying to punk people, that the location might sound lame. I like the unexpectedness of it. We joked about calling Potomac Real Housewives of 20854, trying to make that ZIP code hip. Ratings are coming in and BH had a season high, but it looks like Brandi is done.

  I went back to the Clubhouse, where we taped Tony Goldwyn and Jennifer Nettles. The virgin Bachelor was behind the bar, and I had so much fun playing with him. Went home, walked the dog, and met Keith Marshall for a drink. I love meeting up with old high school friends who I don’t get to see much. Then to the Time Warner Center for a party for Jason Blum’s doc The Jinx, where I saw Tommy and Jon Alter, who are like a father-son double punch of media. I have known Tommy since he was a kid. That would be a good radio show, the Alters fighting about politics. Even though they’re all on the same team, I wonder if they fight? Sat with DVF, Barry, and their crew. Talked to Sandy Gallin at the end of the night and he said he and I are so alike, I’m the only person besides him who still meets up with high school friends.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015—SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2015—NYC—MIAMI

  Welcomed back drinking and welcomed back my hangover. The plane to Miami was Jews of all shapes and sizes. Hickey and I went straight to the Delano’s pool, where Soledad put us in the corner by the bar, which seems like it’s gonna be great but the truth is it’s obscured by palm trees and there’s a lot of traffic. They were shooting interviews with two telenovela stars who were concurrently repulsive and hot. #Repulhot. (I don’t think it works.) Had a perfect nap, then went to Michael’s Genuine, recommended by Padma. The way the go-go boys dance at Twist is just basically shifting their weight from one leg to the other and then turning around and looking at themselves in the mirror. They also each look damaged in various ways.

  Reports from RHONY in Turks and Caicos have been coming in every morning of the week and they’re spectacular. I couldn’t make this shit up.

  Woke up to an email Friday from Al Roker saying if it were him, he would fly back on Sunday, so it looks like the storm could be bad on Monday. I put off the decision. The pool scene greatly improved for the rest of the weekend and we watched a really chubby woman in a string bikini get progressively sloshed as the sun moved across the sky. She could barely walk by 4:00 p.m. every day and threw down her wine like it was water, which made me feel better about what I was consuming. By the way, just back to drinking and already I feel bloated and sugary and am sleeping less well. So why do I do it? I have to go to LA this week, and I texted Cher that I have a proposition for her and will be there Thursday and would she consider having an audience with me and if not would she talk on the phone. She said, “Cool!”—one of those non-answer answers.

  Saturday night we went to Jon Jay’s celebrity-bowling charity thing for the Boys and Girls Club of Miami. He is an angel. Matt Holliday was there with his wife and I finally got to chat with him and his enormous forearms. I met a pretty-boy pitcher for the Marlins. From there we went to the Palace. I was asleep by midnight.

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2015—MIAMI—NYC

  It’s never fun leaving Miami, yet I always feel like putting a match to the town as I head to the airport. I may or may not have gotten a little misty saying goodbye to the pool staff at the Delano. They are so nice. I got in a little tussle with an Instagram commenter who said, “Why did you even get a dog in the first place all you do is go on vacation. You say he likes his babysitter but he wants to be with YOU!” I said I actually keep him in a cage in the basement when I leave and he loves it. Everyone has a fucking opinion. Came home, walked the dog, and went to Marci Klein’s for the Super Bowl.

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015

  I dreamed that Hickey was in a movie with Marie Osmond and Oprah and I made him late for his shoot, and then that I was on tour with John Mayer and I made him late for something too. We were in St. Louis in a van. I tweeted last night that the Super Bowl commercials were so depressing I felt suicidal, which led to a stream of tweets all day from people demanding an apology, saying I had offended the mental health community by joking about suicide. (I didn’t apologize.) It was snowy and slushy and rainy today and so I went for it and had a can of SpaghettiOs in honor of Jimmy Fallon’s triumph last night after the Super Bowl. It was glory in a bowl. Delightful. Delicious. I don’t know when the last time I had them was, or when I will ever have them again, but the taste brought me back to the thousands of cans of SpaghettiOs I ate at the kitchen table at 7710 West Biltmore Drive. I wasn’t a latchkey child—my mom didn’t work, and I had an older sister, a housekeeper, and plenty of friends—but for some reason I only have memories of “fixing” myself SpaghettiOs alone at that kitchen table, using nacho-cheese Doritos as spoons to make the experience as rich as possible. We taped Tom Colicchio and Busy Philipps, then were live with Tom and Katie from Vanderpump Rules. It felt fun to drink on the show again. And I buried the lede—I’m going to Cher’s house to pitch her the radio channel on Thursday! I set it up with Liz.

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2015

  Wacha got a few notches cuter today. It’s incredible.

  Cher texted twice to see what I want to eat and drink when I come to her house. I said don’t worry about it, but she really wanted specifics. So I said Whispering Angel and she said, “Whispering What!?”

  Had a pre-interview with John Mayer for The Late Late Show, then I texted him and said don’t make them only talk about what I discussed in the pre; you should go off the cuff. During the show I went off on the RHOBH for saying “my gays” eighty-five times. I did a little teachable moment, saying, we are not your accessories, we are not purses, you don’t own us—next time sub in the word “blacks” and see how it sounds.

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015—NYC—LOS ANGELES

  My dream was that Anderson and I were going to do our show and I had a really crazy Stevie Nicks costume on with a witchy blond wig and I kept saying that people might not recognize me. He kept wondering why I didn’t take it off, but that didn’t seem to be an option for me. The rant about gays not being accessories is getting picked up all over and people are either saying I’m right, or I’m too sensitive, or how can I criticize my own show when I am an executive producer of it, or why am I criticizing the RHOBH and not Kathy Griffin and NeNe. So I dunno.

  Flew to LA, changed at the hotel, and went to CBS Television City to do The Late Late Show with John Mayer. A little scandal broke about
Brian Williams and a helicopter today; I called Harry Smith to find out what happened. Among other things he said that people’s memories are funny things and we all remember things differently, and it reminds me of what I misremembered in my first book about being alone with Dan Rather in Utah when the private plane sank, and then later saw on Bill Madison’s Facebook page that he was there too. I cut Rather’s assistant out of the whole story! Hung out with Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, who were in the dressing room next door. I can’t get over how much I see Chrissy Teigen. She’s everywhere. She wanted Housewives dirt, and I gave her everything she needed. And she helped me pick out my shirt. John Mayer, as a host, has a really slow, nice mellow tone about him and an understated, calm delivery. It was all I could do not to rip the show out of his hands and start hosting it myself, waiting for him to get to the next topic. I’m such a backseat host.

  Went to meet Bruce for a drink at the Beverly Hills Palm and Jimmy was there with Lorne Michaels and Ron Meyer. I told Jimmy about the SpaghettiOs in his honor and mentioned to Lorne where I just was. He said everybody thinks they can host a talk show. Talked about Malibu traffic patterns with Ron Meyer because I’m going to Cher’s house tomorrow and I can’t figure out what time to leave. He is surprised Cher is seeing me because she isn’t seeing anybody. Ryan Serhant from MDL was there with Jenn Levy, quite randomly, and he made me really stressed about finding an apartment. I need to move in less than a month! Dinner at Bruce and Bryan’s with Tate Taylor and his boyfriend. Among other things we talked about Brian Williams, ISIS, Mississippi, and molly.

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2015—LOS ANGELES

  The day was a slow march until I went to Cher’s, and as I watched the Brian Williams thing grow and grow I spent much of the day trying to figure out what is the scandal that’s going to bring me down. I watched Housewives cuts and left for Malibu at three. We got there with time to kill, and I realized I was going to Cher’s empty-handed so I went to Maxfield to look for a gift. I figured a candle was the way to go, but you can’t just bring Cher a rinky-dinky candle so I found one of those oversized Diptyque ones that Kelly and Mark gave me for Christmas—it was like five hundred bucks. The guy at the counter said, “Don’t tell me—you’re going to Yolanda’s.” I said, “No, Cher’s.” I felt about as cool as I could. He nodded, unimpressed. Indeed, there were palm trees everywhere and the gate is very thick wood, and my mind wandered to Cher’s Sanctuary line of home goods. Her assistant took me around the house, which is gothic, with endless views of the Pacific, and has a tennis court. Paulette appeared, then the shrimp plate and Whispering Angel appeared, and then Liz Rosenberg, who said they were all just watching the “Living for Love” video that premiered today and did I want to watch it? I told her I could only focus on one diva at the moment (and left out that “Living for Love” is maybe my least favorite Madonna song ever), and then in walked the diva of the moment wearing black kind-of harem pants and a T-shirt and a cutoff hoody. I called her massive living room (with stone archways and vaulted ceilings and a view of her infinity pool and the Pacific Ocean) “understated.” She said it is not understated, and I said I was kidding. We settled in and talked about her health, her hatred for reality TV, how hard it is to find Whispering Angel (did Cher actually go looking for that bottle?), and how bad the sun is for you. I explained what’s going on with Brian Williams, then I explained the Harper Lee book controversy.

  This was all small talk ramping up to my pitch, which she brought up by saying, “Do you want me to say no now, or should I wait to hear your pitch?” Finally, I said, I’m launching a radio channel and it’s going to feature people who I care about, who I want to listen to, and who are passionate. And you have so much to say and so much you care about and I would like you to do a monthly radio show from your house where you talk about whatever you want. At this point she perked up, and Liz perked up. “I think it’s a good idea,” Liz said. Cher was worried about coming up with topics, and I said, well, it could be anything and we can find people for you to interview. I said I would even do a couple with her if that somehow made her feel better. “Like Andy and Cher?” she asked. Exactly! And, I told her, you can do it from your house and not have to worry about makeup or anything. She started talking about people who hate her, and how more people might hate her if she really started letting her opinions rip. I said everyone loves you, are you kidding, you sold out five stadiums in NYC last year and could’ve sold out five more.

  The sun had set by this point and I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, plus Sandy was throwing a dinner for me back in town, so I said to think about it and I would be in touch. Paulette said, you gotta see Cher’s bedroom! But I felt like I had already overstayed and said I would see it when I come back to do the radio show. I got in the car and immediately regretted not going to see Cher’s bedroom. What the fuck was I thinking? I called Sandy to say I was on my way and he said he had a surprise for me at the house. I walked in and there was my surprise: Dolly Parton. I almost fainted! She had on a wig with hair stacked on top of her head and then little ringlets with butterfly-shaped barrettes keeping them together. I said I loved her hair and she said with a laugh that it took her forever to do, that she’d been braiding it on the bus from Memphis. She said she loves the bus and doesn’t get out the whole way. She writes songs and reads and eats. She said if she gets out she has to be Dolly and she just wants a break sometimes, even though she is really good at being Dolly. She introduces herself to everybody and has unending enthusiasm punctuated by lots of nervous giggles. Having been around her about fifteen times over the course of twenty-five years, I can say that her smell is unmistakable; it’s a combination of dairy and perfume. The rest of the dinner was Stacy and Henry Winkler, Jane Buffett, Anjelica Huston (“Your book sold very well,” she said), Sandra Bernhard, Lorraine Bracco, Frances, Eli, Jeffrey Richman, Bruce and Bryan, Donald De Line, and Aaron Fox and Perrey Reeves. Jeff writes for Modern Family and all the ladies were pitching themselves to him to be on his show. Frances, Eli, and Bruce discussed what would be my downfall. I said I thought it was going to be something with sex, and Eli agreed. Frances said she thought I would say something really un-PC that I couldn’t recover from and she was going to have to regretfully let me go. Thanks, boss. Bruce agreed with us all. Oh, and drugs were mentioned. So we have a menu.

  I got to sit next to Dolly at dinner. My brain was so fried from making witty conversation with Cher for ninety minutes that I was having to reach to make conversation with Dolly because I was essentially interviewing her. We talked a lot about her variety show. She said she didn’t regret doing it, but they were trying to make her pop and she was country. She doesn’t regret anything in life; she just learns from her mistakes. She kept telling me she is not exclusive to NBC, almost like in case I wanted to work with her or something. We talked about the Opry. She said she does it once a year. I asked if Loretta Lynn still performs there and she said she’s not feeling well right now. Asked about Tammy Wynette and she said well, she’s dead. And then someone changed the subject and I got to the point where I couldn’t think of anything to ask.

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015—LOS ANGELES

  Hickey reminded me that I should’ve talked to Dolly about that great clip of her and Kenny Rogers singing “We’ve Got Tonight,” and why didn’t I make a pitch for her to come on WWHL? And why didn’t I go see Cher’s bedroom? So I’m pulling my hair out. Today was the Vanderpump Rules reunion and I was kind of on autopilot. Jake and Angela are in town and, unbelievably, staying next door to me at the Best Western. They came and said hi during the lunch break of the reunion. They can’t get over how classy Lisa Vanderpump is. Jake is so attractive and she looks great but I’m scared of fooling around again. That being said, we all made plans to meet after my dinner with John Mayer. The reunion went until about six and I was fried. Got back to the hotel and there was a painting of Wacha that these fans had dropped off. I wound up cancelling on Jake and Angela. I’m just too freaked out!
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  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2015—LOS ANGELES—NYC

  KJo emailed saying she has a friend who does dog art and she wants to give me a painting of Wacha. I said I don’t want to sound ungrateful but I am overrun with paintings of the dog. I texted Sandy from the plane and he said I for sure did the right thing not asking Dolly to be on my show. Then I texted Cher that I was unhappy I didn’t take her up on the tour of her room, and that I am a fool. She said that I am a fool, but pointed out that she was not the one who invited me and that I can see it another time. Aha—my instincts were correct. Then I texted Hickey, who said being able to text on airplanes is maybe the best or the worst thing that ever happened to me.