"How you feeling, Birmingham?"—Britney Spears greets the audience at the final stop on her "Piece of Me" tour. Alas, she wasn't in Birmingham—she was in Blackpool. Oops, she did it again. And we won't even discuss the Madonna-esque British accent. But you'll hear it in action on BillyMasters.com.
Back in 2005, a pair of Judy Garland's ruby slippers used in The Wizard of Oz were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota—which gives you a pretty good idea of the security at that museum. In a caper analogous to the famed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist of 1990, the friends of Dorothy broke into the museum late at night through a window and purloined the pumps, which are estimated to be worth between $3-5 million! Anonymous tipsters told the feds where to find the fancy footwear in a sting that lasted a year and crossed four states. The shoes were eventually recovered in an undercover raid in Minneapolis. Oh, the humanity!
And yet, somehow Kevin Spacey, Steven Seagal and Anthony Anderson are escaping the long arm of the law. After extensive investigation by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, the charges against all three men have been dropped. When it came to Spacey, the statute of limitations had passed. In the matter of Anderson, the wronged party refused to cooperate ( and we all know what that means ). As to Steven Seagal ... eh, who cares.
With all the drama going on with Harvey Weinstein, it's no surprise that Project Runway was lost in limbo. While the show will be returning to its original home, Bravo ( after 11 seasons on Lifetime ), there will be a major change—no Heidi and no Tim. Quelle horreur! "After 16 incredible seasons, I am saying 'Auf Wiedersehen' to Project Runway, a show that I was honored to host and help create," said the ever-modest Klum. She was less sad to announce she's starting her own competition fashion show on Amazon and that she's poached Tim Gunn as her sidekick. I guess that means more Milano and Mizrahi. What's getting lost in the shuffle is that Zac Posen simply took himself out of the equation.
It's the end of an era. After 63 years, The Village Voice is a thing of the past. Although the weekly print edition stopped last year, it remained an online entity. But recently, Peter Barbey, who bought the paper three years ago, gathered the staff and told them the news: "Today is kind of a sucky day. Due to, basically, business realities, we're going to stop publishing 'Village Voice' new material." And that's that.
It's easy to point fingers, but certainly online publishing, social media and hookup apps are contributing to the decline of print media. Interestingly enough, while one publication is shuttering, an app is expanding. According to filings with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Grindr is planning an initial public offering—meaning it will be on the stock market.
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? In an uncharacteristically charitable move, I will share the good news first. Wigstock 2.HO was a HUGE success. While I personally believe the show was stolen by the legendary Lypsinka, one must give credit where credit is due—Neil Patrick Harris slipped back into Hedwig's pumps effortlessly and put on a fantastic set, totally earning all plaudits he received for his interpretation. And earlier in the day, he, David and their kids manned the wig cannons and shot wigs out to the capacity crowd—which was super-cool.
That said ( here comes that bad news ), during an appearance on SiriusXM a few days before Wigstock, he pissed off quite a few people with what he felt was the downside of playing Hedwig: "The limping of the wrists, the cocking of the hip, the tits out and the ass out, and sort of walking with a sway and sort of the overt femininity of the characterization that I had—that was hard to get into my whole body without feeling like I was mocking it initially. I didn't want to feel like I was pretending." When asked if the transformation made him feel less masculine, NPH said, "for sure." At that point, Mrs. NPH ( David Burtka ) felt compelled to chime in, "I like manly guys." Yeah, because when I think of the epitome of masculinity, my mind immediately thinks of Neil Patrick Harris. Bitch, please. Be that as it may, I will post Lypsinka's and Hedwig's numbers on BillyMasters.com.
Elsewhere on the air, kooky Alex Jones is under fire. It seems that he had his phone in hand while doing his radio show, which also broadcasts live-streaming video. According to an eagle-eyed viewer, while Alex was promoting his line of health and wellness products, his phone was on a page titled "Naughty tbabe Marissa Mi," a reference to Marissa Minx, an Australian transgender porn actress. But, wait—Alex can explain this all away as only he can. And he did it on live radio, so there's no question what he said: "I saw a couple of news articles about that, it's ridiculous. I was, like, looking for some reporter we're trying to hire today and punched in some number and porn popped up on my phone. Everybody has had porn pop up on their phone hundreds of times. I probably had porn menus pop up 500 times on my phone. There's two types of people: people who look at porn and people who lie about it. But I wasn't looking at porn on my phone. I don't take phones on air that I look at porn on. Thank you for your call." All I got out of that is that he sometimes enjoys trans porn on his phone—but not necessarily while working.
When Jones may be expanding his repertoire, it's time to end another column. Of course, you'll always find the best gossip ( and pretty pictures ) on BillyMasters.com—the site that's telling you it's not going. If you have a question for me, send it along to Billy@BillyMasters.com and I promise to get back to you before Alex Jones hits on NPH! So, until next time, remember: One man's filth is another man's bible.
