The book's cover image is by Deborah Feingold, from the same session that graces the rare 1984 The Quiet Storm Thai magazine. (Image via Little, Brown)

Reading is ... hard. It takes a lot for me, English degree be damned, to sit quietly and read a book. For years, having my constantly active and attention-craving dogs, and then dog, was enough to keep me judging books by their covers alone. Then, I became as addicted to inst-ernet gratification as a person a couple of generational alphabet letters down the line from me.

At some point, I joked that I don't read at all anymore, and I may have even said so to Mary Gabriel, the acclaimed writer who has set her sights on Madonna with her new biography Madonna: A Rebel Life (Little, Brown, October 2023), because she teased me when she sent me a signed copy of her work — “I know you don't read Madonna books. But read this one. You might learn something.”

!!!

I did and I did. The book is not filled with shockers for diehard fans/addicts, though I'm sure there are things you didn't know or forgot you know, but it is something that has been missing from the hundred or more Madonna books out there so far — a serious, sober, all-inclusive, biographical look at Madonna's life and career executed with scrupulous attention to contextualizing who she is and why that worked and works for us.

There have been a couple of interesting biographies, but I always felt they were lost in the long shadow of Christopher Andersen's dreadful best seller from 30 years ago. It was time for Madonna: A Rebel Life.

And it was time for me to quiz Ms. Gabriel about her gigantic endeavor ...

(Image via Damiani)

Gay men of a certain age will likely recall Peter Berlin as a unique — I would argue singular — sex icon of a bygone era. With his unique bowl cut-and-basket combo (John Waters once snarked he was Dinah Shore with a bulge), his tall and lanky frame, and his Tom of Finland-esque vibe, Berlin stood out in porn magazines and, eventually, non-porn magazines as a quirky mix of sexy and cheeky.

The man behind the mask (Images by Matthew Rettenmund)

How nice that such a defiant emblem turns out to have survived the plague and is today a 76-year-old working artist — one with a new book ...

ABOVE: Summer's end.

BELOW: Sexy selfies, Giuliani vs. Giuliani, Slave Play scores and more ...

“I created the rainbow in Hollywood.” — Scotty Bowers (Image via Altimeter Films)

Five years ago, I posted a review of the book Full Service, the as-told-to story of Scotty Bowers, a Hollywood gas station owner who claims to have become a procurer for some of Hollywood's biggest names from the '40s onward, including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, George Cukor, Rock Hudson and many more.

Along with hooking them up with sex partners, he also claims to have had sex with many of them himself, including Bette Davis, Walter Pidgeon and both Cary Grant and Randolph Scott.

Gore Vidal on Scotty Bowers

The comments on my review were largely critical, blowing him off as a liar in spite of the support of Gore Vidal and other serious people who wanted us to know Scotty was the real deal.

I prefer this take: 

Now, director Matt Tyrnauer has shot a compelling documentary on the man of 1,000 facials, and I think Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood far surpasses the book as both art and documentation that Bowers was probably every bit as busy as he boasts ...

I met Michael Ausiello and Christopher “Kit” Cowan when they attended a party thrown in my building. I remembered them as the prototypical cute NYC couple — smart, good conversationalists, clearly well-matched.

Years later, I was shocked to hear that Kit had succumbed to cancer, but I am not surprised that Michael — the founder of TVLine.com — has turned his grief into a book. Writers write when life beats them up, and in this case, we're all the better for his urge to memorialize his relationship ...

ABOVE: James Corden and Missy Elliott form modern-day Supremes with 1st Lady as Diana!

Guess it's anti-cop to point out that shooting an unarmed, arms-in-the-air therapist for zero reason is insane.

Desert Boys by Chris McCormick gets a Lamba Literary rave.

(Image via Differio.com)

Seth Fornea perhaps can't act, but it perhaps doesn't matter.

Reminder of how gross Donald Trump's sons are: 

Montel Williams bails on The O'Reilly Factor, is called a coward, gets personal with O'Reilly in steamed video. So good:

(Image via Harper Design)

Picture it: Your living room, late at night, Grindr's buzzing but you're blissfully unaware. Why? Because you just got a book, a book so good they named it.

(GIF via NBC)

If you love The Golden Girls—and let's face it, if you don't, maybe you're on the wrong site?—you will love Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai (Harper Design, $35) by Jim Colucci, and you will absolutely never regret devoting many quiet evenings to committing it to memory.

(GIF via NBC)

Colucci authored the already indispensable The Q Guide to the Golden Girls (Alyson, 2006)—which was specifically targeted at fancy men everywhere—but has taken a more encyclopedic approach this time around, offering 368 pages filled with internal memos; stills; on-set personal candids; interviews with “the show's creators, actors, guest stars, producers, writers, and crew members”; and even a section of tributes from famous fans like Zachary Quinto and Laverne Cox. 

Revisiting one of my top posts ever: #GoldenGirls https://t.co/67mNS3zacV pic.twitter.com/nLzU0wmBJU

— Boy Culture Blog (@mattrett) April 11, 2016

As the expert on the series, Colucci was able to interview Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur in the years prior to their deaths, and also delivers a new Q&A with Betty White.

(GIF via NBC)

The book's greatest use is its inclusion of exhaustive summaries of every episode, which do a lot more than regurgitate IMDb factoids. Colucci offers original comments from the creatives on the making-of that serve as incredible oral histories, the likes of which few if any other TV series have ever received.

Golden Girls Forever also faithfully documents fan art and fan-appreciation events/plays, making it not just a memento of the series, but a breathlessly faithful chronicle of its impact on the greater culture.

(GIF via NBC)

On a more superficial level, the book is also beautifully designed, as pretty as Blanche's perky bosoms.

Take a lesson, Rose, Golden Girls Forever is how you tell a story.

Another great hit for Encyclopedia Madonnica 20, this time by Gregg Shapiro and in the Bay Area Reporter.