Michael Musto

From Philosopedia

Musto, Michael (3 Dec 1955 - )

Musto’s column in New York’s Village Voice is the first many readers consult when they pick up the weekly, for he dishes the dirt and minces no words. His use of circle endings, double entendres, catty sense of humor, and witty in-jokes brings laughter out of the young, most of the middle-aged, and many of the older. Openly gay, he was born in New York City and graduated from Columbia University.

"His outlook is refreshingly logical, his syntax is a marvel, and his influence particularly in gay circles is monumental," remarked one of his Greenwich Village regular readers. His critics, however, find him fey, outrageous, always in bad taste, and often disgusting.

For Cyndi Lauper's musical video single, "Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)", he appeared as a drag queen in a blue dress.

In a 14 June 2007 edition of Countdown With Keith Olbermann on the nightly newscast on MSNBC, Musto coined celebutard (combination of celebrity and retard).

Works By Musto

Downtown-V285 (Vintage, 1986)

Manhattan on the Rocks (Henry Holt & Co., 1989)

La Dolce Musto: Writings by the World's Most Outrageous Columnist (Carroll & Graf, 2007)

Outlook

Asked about his religious views (The Limelight was a gay Manhattan disco, housed in a church), he responded:

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic and went to catechism every Wednesday, though the only church I've been to in ages is the Limelight. Deep down I don't think we're important enough to have an afterlife, though every time I'm faced with my own mortality I suddenly feel otherwise.

{WAS, 4 Sep 2001}