Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture, Andy Cohen [the best books to read txt] 📗

Louis and a classic rock radio station in Boston (where I worked the switchboard and felt like Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati, except that I was nowhere near as hot as Loni Anderson and way more efficient), so maybe I was spoiled with regard to internships. And maybe spoiled in general. I had decided already that there was absolutely no way I’d ever work in radio. My plan was to graduate, move to a small market, and become a reporter and local anchor. So it all seemed pointless and for naught.

Graciela, Amanda, and me. No, that is not a pot pipe in my hand.

My life in London became a balancing act. I spent most of my time hanging out with Amanda and Graciela, doing stupid things around London like smoking buckets of hash and going to all-you-can-eat pasta nights at Fatsos in Soho. One night Graciela dared me to slide down the median of what was probably a four-story escalator in the middle of a packed tube station; I did it and cut my hands to bits. I was in massive pain, but to us it was hilarious and proof that I was completely under Graciela’s spell. I was—and am still—powerless to resist her dares. Decades later, when she was sitting in the audience of Watch What Happens Live, Jimmy Fallon was the guest, and during the commercial break she dared me to do a large shot of Maker’s Mark. Jimmy looked at me like I was a madman to be considering this dare, but with the clock ticking down the seconds until we were back live on the air, I had to comply. She’s like a Siren!

When I wasn’t acting like a fool with my girlfriends, I was checking out gay spots around town on the DL. I had an affair with an aspiring pop star. In my rearview mirror he appears absolutely ridiculous, but at the time, he was spectacular—Mr. Barrel Chested Gay UK 1988. He’d recorded a truly pathetic techno cover of the Petula Clark classic “Downtown,” but his total lack of talent did not dissuade me from loving his angular A-Ha look and enormous chest. Concurrently, I feigned interest in Rebecca, a red-haired beauty (I liked Gingeys even then) in our program, who had a crush on my roommate. Thus, she was safe. (And there’s that word again.)

I was also quietly empowered by some of my openly gay classmates. I remember running into one of them one morning on the street. He told me he was just coming home from his night and that it was “wild.” He winked and walked away. I couldn’t imagine being open and cavalier like he was. Later he invited me to his flat with a bunch of his friends, and we all watched Sudden Fear together. At the time, sitting with a group of gays watching a Joan Crawford movie seemed downright revolutionary. Now it sounds like a Sunday afternoon.

The dark side of my initial forays into the gay world was that I was absolutely terrified that I was going to get—or had already gotten—AIDS. I questioned every scab, cough, bruise, cut, and cold sore as though it were the beginning of the end for me. It was 1988, and the AIDS crisis was generating massive paranoia and uncertainty. Being gay seemed to go hand in hand with AIDS, like an inevitable one-two punch.

*   *   *

As I went on with my double life, letters kept arriving from home:

September 1988

Dear Andy,

Well, by now you are quite the experienced traveler. I saw Jackie and she sounded as up about the trip as you. Can you take a Shakespeare course rather than a politics or some kind of English art course at least?? Are there any Jewish kids there? I can’t believe that your damn coats and your polo towels and that damn white sweater are lost. Furthermore, it was not insured—can you believe it? Hopefully the tracer will find it. You better find a flea market and buy yourself a coat or you’ll freeze. We have tickets to “Les Miserables” on the 15th, which is the evening we get to London. If you could get tickets to Phantom on Nov 16th, that would be fabulous. I do not wish to pay scalpers prices. The play we must see is Lettice and Lovage. Will you see about tickets to that and MasterCard them too? It’s a comedy with Maggie Smith. I am so damn mad. I forgot to set the recorder in my room and didn’t change the clock on the recorder in the basement back from daylight savings. So today I have 2 recorders and no soap! Palmer really set up Natalie and Jeremy to make them look guilty as hell. Nina had a baby boy. Erica’s on a long trip. Nothing else major is happening.… Well, I hear the garage door opening and it is your dad. We love and miss you and look forward to hearing about all of your experiences. Don’t forget to keep the journal. Have the time of your life.

LOVE MOM

A letter like this, brimming with the wonderfully mundane details of my former existence as a closeted mama’s boy, now filled me with dread. The longer I was in London the more I knew that I was living a lie and that there could be no going back to my old life.

My anxiety intensified with each day. I honestly believed that if I chose to be open about my sexuality, I would be shunned by everyone I loved. It sounds so melodramatic now, but at the time, the decision of who to tell and when loomed like a life-or-death question.

To make matters more complicated, there was an added and potentially uncomfortable energy around my relationship with Graciela. We were in the midst of a love affair that happened to be absolutely devoid of any physicality. I hungered to be around her. She made me laugh, surprised me, stimulated me, and I wanted to tell her everything.