Countdown to Planet Life Ball by Glenn Belverio

Dear Shaded Viewers,

The champagne-fueled, Vienna-bound party plane is taking off this Thursday night. I've heard that Kim Cattrall, Pat Field, Debbie Harry, and Amanda Lepore will all be on board with us, along with Joe Corre of Agent Provocateur. The theme for the Life Ball is 'outer space.' I'm sure there will be no lack of nearly naked silver body-painted alien sex fiends at the party, but because I'm shy, I'm sticking to a lightweight silver space suit. My fantasy was to find a super-shiny silver mylar version like they wore on Lost in Space (see above) but the closest thing I found was a silver poly-blend American astronaut costume. I would have preferred an old Soviet Union astronaut suit, complete with sputnik logo, but couldn't find one.

Prixe de Flore-winning author Bruce Benderson is also coming along, and he just called me a few minutes ago with updates on his possible costume. But before that, he had to share with me a "just-another-day-in-New-York-City" story; an incident that happened to him this morning, all delivered in one long, breatheless sentence. Thought I would share it with you:

"So I was in Queens running on the subway platform trying to catch a train and I slipped in a huge puddle of vomit and blood and fell flat on my ass next to the homeless man who had created the puddle and my Issey Miyake shirt and brand-new John Varvatos jeans which I bought at the private showroom sale were now covered in vomit and blood and I was afraid to wipe it off because I didn't want to touch it so I got on the train and a few people handed my tissues but I was dripping with so much vomit and blood that it would have been futile trying to wipe it off and then suddenly they stopped the train and some MTA workers came on and escorted me to another car which was chained off from the rest of the cars like I was being quarrantined yet the train was completely packed with people so I'm standing there pressed up against all these people and my clothes are still dripping vomit and blood and everyone just stared at me with disgust and contempt for the whole ride back to Manhattan and I probably have some horrible disease now."

It's things like this that truly make New York one of the most glamorous cities in the world; worth the high rents, high grocery and cocktail prices, crowded streets, and lousy transportation system.

Love,
Glenn Belverio