Superficial Read online

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

  This morning at the dog run Wacha slammed into a pole at full speed, squealed loudly, and limped over to me to cry in my arms. It was traumatic and bonding for us all at once. At the appointed time Liza and I arrived backstage at Madison Square Garden, where Shelli Azoff (with bone-straight hair and a manicure to die) grabbed us and said, “You have to meet Don [Henley] and Glenny [Frey].” She’s the wife of his manager, so I guess she can call him Glenny, but then I called him Glenny and for a second it looked like he was going to have me kicked out of Madison Square Garden. But he was cool. Those guys are older gents at this point but they still are who they are, the motherfucking Eagles. Shelli was with Patty Smyth and John McEnroe, who confirmed he was, as always, wearing Björn Borg undies. I wondered if he thinks it’s weird that I ask him every time I see him, but then he got approached by a friend of Shelli’s who asked if he remembered staying at his house in Paraguay in 1980. Of course he did, he said. I felt less bad about the underwear. Shelli took us into the Dolans’ suite, which is right off the floor, and the minute we walked in Liza loudly proclaimed to the entire room of swells: “Oh my God, look how big the SHRIMP are!!!” I think I screamed “NOOOO!” to her in slow motion and asked if she was Thelma Evans on her first trip out of the projects, or a girl who grew up in Malibu. The concert was fantastic. As Liza the walking blurb machine said, it was three and a half hours of “only songs you want to hear.” Joe Walsh killed, that’s my blurb. I didn’t see one black face in all of Madison Square Garden. Maybe no Latinos either. There’s another blurb.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2014

  The West Village is one empty storefront after the next because no one can afford the rents. The old lady from the dog run with the golden retriever had to put her dog to sleep yesterday. I went to see Mark and Kelly’s beautiful new town house on the Upper East Side. Couldn’t find anything to buy in Ralph Lauren. Mindy Kaling and Meredith Vieira were on the show. Loved them both. Mindy and I exchanged numbers. We will wind up making love before the year is over. (Kidding.)

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

  Twenty-five years after I came out of the closet, sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for the results of an AIDS test hasn’t gotten any easier. How can that be? I have only had safe sex my entire life, but once again every scenario runs through my head and all roads lead to the inevitable moment where everything changes. That didn’t happen today, and I breathed yet another sigh of relief. Oh, and my cholesterol and blood pressure are good, news I was sure to email Mom and Dad on their trip through Nazi territory. They love reports on my cholesterol and blood pressure. Dinner with the RHONY producers—the big discussion was how do we reveal to the rest of the women that Bethenny is coming back to the show. One scenario we love is her just showing up at Countess LuAnn’s party in the Hamptons unannounced, kind of an “I’m baaaaaaack!” thing. But we’re having second thoughts because, well, the other women may feel set up—or worse, for a Housewife, excluded.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

  There are no Jews or young people on the Nazi riverboat tour, so naturally my parents are eating each other alive. My mom said it’s all church ladies and they are in a part of Germany full of Christmas stores. I saw the Ninj this morning, then went to the dentist, then to meetings at Bravo. Bill Simmons was there—he’s starting a basketball show on ESPN, and apparently he loves WWHL, which made me go nuts and get defensive and crazy and jokingly ask him if he was here to rip off ideas from us, in a most un-jovial tone of voice. The first thing Craig Ferguson (who was on with Jessica Chastain) asked me was whether I had gone crazy yet. Apparently all talk show hosts do. So I guess I have, is the answer. I got him to say that Macy Gray was the worst guest on his show and when we went off the air, he felt horribly for saying it.

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

  I actually gained weight: I weigh 169.9 pounds; very upsetting. But a great workout. Brought Wacha to Holt for a meeting to go over plans for The Andy Cohen Diaries. It comes out in November. At this point I am honestly so sick of the book and I never want to see it again. Good attitude! Wacha was good in the meeting, running around the conference room, which is the tenth floor tip of the Flatiron Building. (He loves landmarked buildings—maybe because there are rats running around under the floors?)

  We had Liam and Hickey on the show and it was a triumph—I made Liam do so many things. He was like a monkey, poor guy. After, Hickey and I joined Liam at the Boom Boom Room for his premiere party. Seth Meyers lost ten pounds on a cleanse. He’s very thin and I was jealous. Some woman came up to me and told me she wants to develop a lollipop with me—branded freaking lollipops, are you kidding? Branded pot lollipops might actually be a good idea, now that I think about it. Hickey and I went to this horrible bar with go-go boys and some Portuguese dancer named Yugo came up to us and I don’t know what was worse, his teeth or his breath, which told us everything we needed to know about the joint. We were out in ten minutes.

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

  Two women, Debbie from San Francisco and Laura from Chicago, paid an inordinate sum to have lunch with me. It was a charity thing, and they must be pretty rich because they’ve bought charity tickets to WWHL too. Laura had a long, single-spaced list of good questions for me, which we went through (“Which Housewives have been to your house?” “Was Southern Charm your idea?” “Who would you want to sell your apartment from Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles?” “Which guest have you hated?”). At other tables were Hoda and Kathie Lee, Whoopi (I complemented the new View and she said she yelled at Rosie yesterday), and Bethenny. Had dinner with Amanda at this great old Italian place on the Upper West Side. We talked about whether twenty-five years ago we would imagine ourselves to be where we are in our lives now and we agreed it was pretty obvious. Had a two-hour massage very late and, once again, I kept falling asleep on the table.

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

  The pitch with Martha Stewart and Bethenny at Bravo went pretty well. (The show is like Shark Tank meets The Apprentice, with Martha as Trump and Bethenny as Tim Gunn.) Martha was yammering on about hydrangeas. She is going to Newport for the weekend with seven friends, and Frances said “Road trip?” and she said “Yes, but on a plane.” Talked to B about her arrival on RHONY. I said it would seem like we were setting her up to be the villain if we didn’t tell the other women. She suggested telling them that there is someone joining who will be great for the show, and that we think it’ll be good for them to find out who while cameras are rolling, but if they object, we will tell them in advance. I got home and spoke with Heather Thomson, who I’m not sure is coming back to RHONY. So Bethenny’s entrance into the show may be a moot point to Heather—and probably Carole, who isn’t sure she’s coming back either.

  Saw Bridget Everett’s show at Joe’s Pub with Anderson and Benjamin. My highlight was her pretending she was pregnant and Cole Escola coming out in a diaper as her unborn son begging her not to abort him. LoveGun was really fun. Anderson and I avoided that nasty writer who is always writing shit about us.

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

  Read Norman Lear’s book for most of the day. I can’t believe how much he accomplished. Sounds like Good Times was a real pain in the ass to produce. Conversely, The Jeffersons was on for nine seasons and was a completely happy set. Went to Gant and got a shitload of clothes—and by “shitload” I mean three bags.

  Had a spontaneous dinner with SJP and James Wilkie; we tried to go to John’s Pizzeria but there was a line down the block. We found another good pizza joint. Kim Cattrall is coming on the show next week and we hatched an idea for SJP to ring our “doorbell” and come out and give Kim the Mazel of the Day for being so great on Sex and the City. That’d really be something.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

  I opened up the New York Times and saw the wedding announcement of a guy I went on a couple dates with about seven years ago. He was very handsome, with a good job, and
he married another handsome guy who I recognize from the beach in East Hampton. I sat and wondered if I was letting all the great guys slip away, and what is my impossibly high standard for dating? I am hanging on to “cute” by a thread at this late stage in my life, and it’s all downhill from here. Time goes by in a minute. Would I rather be with this guy—who I rejected, by the way, but I can’t remember the reason—or doing my thing now? Well, I guess I know my answer. I dared Mom and Dad to buy space cake in Amsterdam. I don’t think that’ll happen. Lunch with Troy Roberts at Bubby’s. Melissa and Joe were on the show. The lady who is @WachaCohen on Twitter was there. She’s also @YolandasFridge. Hilarious.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

  Bruce is back in town from LA for the week, so after both our workouts we got coffee and went to the dog run, like Real Housewives of NYC. Dinner with Ricky Van Veen and Allison Williams at Café Cluny. We talked about Zosia Mamet (Allison said she’s not as awkward as I think she is), Peter Pan Live! (she goes to flying lessons every day for a few hours), and their wedding (Wyoming, this time next year). I don’t know what the hell happened to the roast chicken in that place, but now it’s all fancy and the plate looks like it’s being submitted for a competition. I just want a roast chicken, that’s all. Chloë Grace Moretz was on the show with Billy Bush. I’ve been anti–seventeen-year-olds on our show since Abigail Breslin came on—she was nice and fun but it just seemed inappropriate to be drinking in front of her—so when Chloë was having a dance-off to Taylor Swift in our bullpen area, I was worried, but she turned out to be great. Oh, and there were paparazzi for her when I arrived at the studio and I somehow dropped my phone and I think my man Ray ran over it. It’s shattered. Emailed back and forth with SJP about walking on to the show tomorrow—seems like it’s going to happen. My team is very excited.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

  Had a very frustrating, fairly circular conversation with Carole Radziwill today about the show, which is especially unfun because of our friendship, which predates RHONY. I got a new iPhone 6 and even though it’s the small one, it’s too big and looks like a whole new headache. We taped Sofía Vergara and Sam Rockwell this afternoon, and Sofía was stuck in United Nations traffic so our poor “audience” was in the Clubhouse waiting about an hour for her and I kept going in trying to take questions from them but nobody had any. Afterward, I had a pitch meeting with Isaac Mizrahi and a whole group of Upper East Side animal people for a potential show. Could be good. Threw on a Shipley & Halmos tux for the New York City Ballet opening; they’d made it for me when I hosted the CFDA Fashion Awards and the pants are now too big in the waist and seem to be too short. So, I got thinner and taller in the last two years, I guess?

  Picked SJ up and ate Bolognese in her kitchen with Matthew, the twins, and James Wilkie while she got ready (Matthew was on the way to his show) and ultimately appeared looking very Jackie Susann in a Mary Katrantzou dress. On the way uptown, we discussed whether SJ should walk on to my live Kim Cattrall show and she was concerned that it would somehow be misconstrued, so I went with her flow and told her we shouldn’t do it. In the line of cars, we watched as Baryshnikov walked undetected amongst the crowd and SJ was marveling at the sight of the greatest living dancer, and her former costar, quietly slipping into the ballet opening. On the way into Lincoln Center that lady from the Daily News who always trips me up did it again. I was waxing poetic to her about how much I loved the ballet, then she asked if I’d ever slept with a ballet dancer and I said, “But of course, and they are fantastic, like finely tuned machines,” then spent much of the performance wondering why I’d fallen into her trap and why I felt it necessary to be honest when I know that this is going to wind up making me look horrible in the paper. That being said, the ballet was beautiful. We were sitting by the demon Koch brothers, and I sat there trying to think of something horrible yet memorable I could say to them during intermission but couldn’t. So, I had to answer the Daily News lady but I couldn’t muster up any balls with those evil billionaire brothers?

  What did happen during intermission was that Scott Wittman and Alison Benson thought the Cattrall idea was kind of great, so the momentum turned back to SJP doing it. There was a dinner with gorgeous waitstaff and a whole slew of highly dateable guests, and of course I had to leave for the show before even the appetizer was served. I barged into Kim’s dressing room full of praise for her and excitement that she was finally at WWHL. She was lovely, and I said I had just left the NYC Ballet opening and SJP, but she didn’t hear the SJP part and said, “Oh, you’re having a very Sex and the City night!” and then asked, “Are we talking about menopause tonight?!” because she was there to promote some menopause website. I said, “Of course we’re talking about menopause!” but what I was thinking was, “SJP is going to walk through that door and I hope you love it as much as I will.” I asked her what question I could ask that would provoke the exact words she wanted to say about menopause, she told me, and then I split to change. There was much blocking and coordination of our possible SJ doorbell, then I got an email from her at 10:55 that they were just serving the main course so all the excitement was for naught. (She tweeted something instead.) It was the doorbell that never happened. The show was pretty good, but I was kind of scared of Kim Cattrall for some reason and Frank Grillo (the other guest) started laughing out loud when I began earnestly talking about menopause. How could I be seriously bringing up menopause to Kim Cattrall, was what we both were thinking.

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

  When the building washers went by the window this morning, Wacha stood up, let out a little growl, looked at me, and returned to his nap. Hope that’s his new normal. Neicy was here today and I realized (too late) I left a huge check on the counter from Bravo. You don’t want your housekeeper knowing about your finances, but I guess it’s inevitable. If they know where the lube is, is anything sacred? I grabbed the check and deposited it on the way to the gym. When I was getting ready for the show I realized I left my receipt from the ATM on the counter, so now Neicy saw not only the check but also how much is in my account. I am officially an idiot! Taped JHud and André Leon Talley—we played What’s! Under! That! Caftan! and beneath André’s caftan, which was covered in black bunnies, was a pink Cadillac sedan with my bobblehead driving and Anna Wintour Barbie (homemade) in the passenger seat. John Hill was controlling the car, so he drove it out from the caftan at the end. André—who we loved—was shrieking about the clubhouse being so Warhol: “Look at Wacha eating that cup! It’s so Warhol!” “Lite Brites!?—Warhol!!” He worked with Warhol, so I was thrilled, and he was excited about my book, which he thought was very meta—“Andy doing Andy.”

  Went with Bruce to a new restaurant called BEA in Hell’s Kitchen where we were discussing Natasha Richardson’s love of Esca, across the street, and just as we were reminiscing about her someone walked by us carrying a big image of her face on a window sign for Streetcar, starring Tash. Freaky. There’s too much going on in that new restaurant—movies on the walls, a piano, TVs. The food is good; they don’t need all this junk. And Nick Lachey was there. We hugged twice. I think he’s hot (Bruce doesn’t). He said next time I talk to Lizzie from Real Housewives of Orange County on TV maybe I don’t need to ask her about dating him and I said it was fascinating and I wanted to hear all about it! Then we went to Fantasia at Atlas Social Club, which is Asian night there. I met a very Waspy guy who said we connected at the last night of Beige, five years ago, and I didn’t know if that meant we did something more than connect or what. What does “connect” mean, anyway, in this day and age?

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

  Happy New Year, Jews! Ninj said Cristiano Ronaldo’s body double is going to come work out with him. What does that even mean? Is he a stunt man for his underwear shoots? I did a pre-call for a Q and A I am doing during Advertising Week and I was so anxious to get off the phone I kind of yessed the woman to death, and now what will happen is she’s gonna ask me abou
t marketing, branding, and blah blah blah onstage and I will not know the answers. Speaking of me looking like an idiot, the Daily News never ran anything about me fucking ballerinas. Phew. The Bethenny news is leaking out, it seems, so now all the NY Housewives are texting me asking if it’s true and so there goes that surprise. Mom and Dad are back from the Nazi tour and full of piss and vinegar. Went to 30 Rock and had wine with Frances at Morrell. Me and the Bravo boss talked about all this and more: the Martha Stewart pitch, the possibility of my doing a podcast, SXSW sponsorship, RHONY, RHONJ, Kim and NeNe, WWHL ratings, my book, and a Bravo book party in LA.

  I went to Amanda’s for Rosh Hashanah. I brought wine that I got at Morrell and a challah and babka, both which were given to me yesterday by an audience member. You really aren’t supposed to eat “fan food,” but here I was serving it to my friends. We talked about if we all died, Jonestown style, from the challah how long it would take for someone to discover us and Liza thought Brian would be pounding on the door before sunrise, which is amazing and comforting, I guess, even though we would be dead. The headline news of Rosh Hashanah is that I found myself looking at Liza sexually—I was attracted to her physically! She was wearing this kind of light, clingy DVF-y dress with major cleavage and her legs showing and I was looking at her legs and she was kind of draped on the couch and it was totally new. Amanda had difficulty processing that, and I don’t blame her. We’ve all been friends for thirty years. In the cab home I watched Derek Jeter’s last career at bat in Yankee Stadium, which wound up being a walk-off single. I had tears streaming down my face the entire time. Baseball is so romantic. I got home and grabbed Wacha for a walk—we took selfies with four really cute girls in front of Equinox and their two guy friends said, “We like your shit,” and I said, “I like your shit too!” and then as I was walking away they both howled, “What a douchebag!!!” I started walking at a crazy brisk pace, saying to Wacha, “OMG, this is so bad; this is so bad.” I hated it; it felt like some nightmare high school bullying experience (that I never had). Wacha was clueless.