Why Is Michael Musto Important?

This is Michael Musto's 20th year entertaining us with his Village Voice column, "La Dolce Musto," and because reading his shrewdly hilarious observations and smooth segues every week always cheers us up and makes almost palatable living in a world full of Bushes and Schwarzeneggers and Scientologists and doormen and Ashlees and homophobes and Republicans and publicists and Falwells and Cruises and American Idol, we thought we'd show just a little appreciation for him, the funniest man on earth, and ask a bunch of people to tell us why he's important to them.

Simon Doonan: If you took Dorothy Parker, Little Edie Bouvier, Nina Hagen, Hedda Hopper, Peter Lorre, Cindy Adams, Tiny Tim, Iris Murdoch, Marty Allen, Fran Lebowitz, and Charles Nelson Reilly and threw them all in a giant blender you would still not come close to creating a dip as insanely delicious as La Musto.

Gabriel Rotello: Because he’s a gay goombah who’s hip without being snotty, who’s honest without being mean, who satirizes nightlife and celebrity while still loving it, who’s militant without being a big old bore, and who’s been a totally fucking hilarious wordsmith since before you were born – and he keeps on ticking! Plus, he can REALLY SING! Is any of that important? I don’t know, but he makes me laugh, and that’s VERY important.

Patrick McMullan: He's the wickedest wit of the East. He's been a good friend for over 20 years and he's the godfather of my son. He's a New York original and he is one of the grooviest people I know.

Laurie Pike: Musto is important because his column has more literary zing than any other. You read his fun, faggotty poop and afterwards you feel elevated rather than dirty.

Albert Crudo: Because he is, that's why. Musto has single-handedly had his nose up the veritable twat of downtown nightlife for the past 20 years without coming up for air, and has lived to tell about it. He's dutifully gone to every smarmy dive, every rank, damp, depraved hole-in-the-wall – mingling with freaks, twisted sisters, and nightmares that others cross streets to avoid – to check out and accurately report in full gristly detail for those too lame, too squeamish, or too "fabulous" to see for themselves. Plus, he's had the balls to wear whatever outfit I made for him – without question.

Jeannette Walls: I hate Michael Musto because he's so much cleverer than I am.

Bill Coleman (Peace Bisquit): Michael is like that supernova parent whose attention you alternately crave and despise. He's been a purveyor of everything hip and noteworthy for so long with an unflinching wit, wry cynicism, and unique insight that he's (rightly so) become an integral part of our pop cultural fabric. Michael's our necessary bridge between the denizens of downtown and the shiny happy mainstream. Just like Amanda Lepore's tits, he's been around, doesn't seem to move, but manages to keep getting bigger and bigger.

Amanda Lepore: He is the Warhol of gossip.

John Bartlett: Michael Musto is important because he, like a good Birkin bag, has transcended time! He is the voice of my '80s, '90s, and is an even more crucial link to the social history of downtown Gotham than ever before. Musto is the must-have voice of my generation.

Robin Byrd: Because he's Michael Musto!

The Lady Bunny: I've often been stung by what Michael has written about me in "La Dolce Musto" but I have to laugh it off because I love reading the hateful things he says about other people so much. After 20 years it's still the first page most people flip to.

Janet Charlton: Not only can he write, but he made polyester shirts and riding a bicycle seem cool.

Cintra Wilson: Michael Musto has consistently been the best wit and witness of New York's trash-fabulous nights. His Wilde-like commentary preserves, for me, that brash, crackling, haute-punk elan that has always been the most fun and toothsome aspect of downtown New York energy – that nasty, tasty edge that remains heroically impervious to fearful conservatism and good taste. When Musto shows up in his dinosaur coat, you know the party has true bohemian credibility – to my mind, a most precious and undervalued currency. Bloomberg should appoint him Cocktail Czar, because he is unquestionably a beloved New York landmine.

Guy Trebay: Who else can warp a pronoun like he (she?) does?

Bernard Zette: Life is cyclical – Michael Musto is important because as the author of the longest running commentary on the New York Scene he has a hand in the past and an eye on the future. And without him, Diana Ross would be a little less of a diva.

Janice Dickinson: Michael Musto is important because he is a voice of this generation. I look up to him with all my heart as a writer as well.

Annie Flanders: 1975 - A powerful, energetic, brilliant force filled our Soho News office in the form of a young Columbia student named Michael Musto. 1982 - A powerful, energeic, brilliant Musto wrote some of the most hilarious pieces for our fledging Details magazine, always meeting his deadline. Then we had to share him when the Village Voice wanted a great voice. 1985 - Fighting off the police, he sang "16 Candles" to me as promised at the outlaw party on the Brooklyn Bridge for my birthday. 1993 - The Gossip Show on E! spawned an instant television personality. Last week - A powerful, energetic commentator on Countdown filled my house with five minutes of hysterical laughter. For 30 years I have been lucky enough to have this Musto with gusto in my life. There is no stopping him – I can't wait to see what the next 30 years brings.

Lauren Ezersky: He's the heartbeat of the hip generation. He knows what people want to know about.

Daniel Franseze: Michael Musto is important because when he is at a party you don't act like an asshole so no one will read about it in his column. And when you see someone else act like an asshole you know your friends will believe you because he will write about it in his column.

Jon Epperson (Lipsynka): Because he knows about the existence of the Doris Day movie Caprice.

David Keeps: When I first moved to New York, there was a columnist at the Village Voice named Arthur Bell, who wrote a column named "Bell Tells" that might've been the gayest thing I'd ever read except for the stash of After Darks, Interviews, and tawdry smut I had acquired at Detroit area bookstores and secreted away in my basement Spin Art studio. Well, Musto out-gayed the very out and gay Bell. But what really set him apart and continues to do so is his unerring sense of the enduring value of hardcore gossip. Michael did not invent the blind item – the litigation-proof way of, say, calling a certain top-grossing movie star a member of a cult with a penchant for administering fellatio in elevators – but he may be the first name-brand columnist not employed by Confidential or Hush-Hush to devote an entire page to such saucy sort-of revelations. I don't know how he does it, how does he do it?

Anita Sarko: Mikey is important because he makes malicious delicious, blesses no-news months with his infamous blind-item bonanzas, is a Broadway Baby, and bakes a boffo lasagna. If he wasn't my brother and gay, I'd marry him.

John Waters: Because he's smart, funny, and his use of sexual politics makes him the best social columnist in New York.

Lauren Zalaznick: Michael was the first person I was aware of who took the fairly long-standing newspaper concept of "gossip," merged it with a "fringe is cooler than mass" sensibility, and made it all seem inclusive and conspiratorial with you as a reader, even though you knew you couldn't stay up that late and wouldn't be let in even if you could.

Sheila Nevins: If he even mentions you or your work, even if he brushes by you and says "Hello," you know you've crossed the line from dull into hot. And not just any hot. Solar hot with bangles and sequins, hot, hot. Eclipse-like hot, not blinding but see-through. Fire. Truth. Fire in the Belly. Truth. Hot Truth.

James St. James: Because he mentored me when I was just a wide-eyed freak, fresh off the bus, and gave me a VIP education in the art of being fabulous. Because he's the smartest, funniest person I've ever met, and because just being around him makes you think faster, try harder, and dig deeper so as not to be left in the dust. Because underneath that brittle bitch exterior there's another brittle bitch, but underneath THAT there's a gentle little nerd from Brooklyn who had a dream, and still can't believe it came true. Because in 20 years there will be streets named after him and statues erected in his honor and then you'll be sorry you laughed at his Bozo couture and haystack hair. So, a toast! To Musty! A true New York original, and the best we've got! Who loves you, baby?

Holly Woodlawn: Oh honey, because Michael has the most wonderful voice. Since he was my child in The Sound of Musak – I forget if he played Doe or Ray – to singing "16 Candles" at my 30th birthday at the Limelight, he has the most wonderful voice. Not many people know that.

Bryan Rabin: Michael Musto is important because he is the wittiest historian with razor-sharp sensibilities. He writes about deeply superficial things with a deeply intelligent point of view.

Richie Rich: Michael Musto is the Johnny Carson of our generation. I am itching and waiting for him to have his own talk show. For now I will hold my breath and still open my big mouth.

Rudolf Piper: Now that I am fortunate enough to be living in Rio, safely out of reach from M&M's fangs, I felt very tempted to say some terrible things about him, why not ? Much to my surprise and dismay, nothing of that kind managed to come to my mind! And I find that to be almost...detrimental – I don't know if to me or to HIM! M&M is definitively a NY Proust, indulging in A LOT of other people's time lost! If there is any NY celeb that has any inner fears and doubts, M&M will certainly turn these doubts into certainties! M&M is this apostle of social-fiction, capable of transforming a celebrity's personal Hell into everybody else's Heaven!

Lorna Luft: Michael knows everybody! And if he doesn't like you or you are stupid enough to piss him off YOU ARE FINISHED!!!

RuPaul: Michael Musto is the only addiction I don't have a 12-step program for!

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