Unwifeable(25)

3. Last, and most crucial of all: “Do not ever double-pitch.” Meaning, only pass along exclusive info to one publication. If you double-pitch a story and both newspapers end up using it, you will be blacklisted—sometimes for life.

Equipped now with a knowledge of how the gossip game works, after writing a piece declaring that we are currently living in “The Golden Age of the Insult,” I decide to request a press pass for the William Shatner roast in LA. I can’t exactly write another story, since I’ve already covered the topic in the paper, but I might be able to submit a gossip item and get it published, which would validate the trip beyond mere stargazing from the sidelines. There’s just one problem, though: I’ve never even had a proper introduction to Page Six editor Richard Johnson, and I know he’s far too important to be bothered by some lowly features writer like me. But I still decide to go for it—nervous, stumbling, and overthinking—cold-emailing him like a slavish, wide-eyed farm girl, asking essentially: Dear Mr. Johnson, if I were to file a gossip item, do you think you would, um, maybe, possibly, pretty please consider using it, I’m so sorry and thank you so much? I don’t quite realize how out of my depth I am in contacting the man who helps puppet-master the entire gossip stratosphere. So of course, Richard ignores my first email. And . . . my second one, too. But finally, after one last note, I somehow manage to sound slightly less like a malfunctioning robot, and he responds to say yes, he will use something I file if it’s good.

I cannot believe my luck. I am so psyched.

When I’m finally out in Studio City, cattle call–style checking in at the not-glamorous-at-all asphalt-covered CBS lot where the roast is held, I get to experience firsthand all the celebrity-gossip sausage being slung. Cordoned off with the rest of the braying media zoo behind the constructed-that-day red-carpet step-and-repeat, my eye is immediately drawn to the painfully high-def smears of peach-, chocolate-and vanilla-colored makeup melting on the faces of minor celebrities everywhere I turn. It’s educational—the way a steamroller is educational in teaching you all about the fine art of getting run the fuck over. My favorite part of the spectacle is the hush-hush theatrics of publicists approaching you before the star arrives, whispering their advance-prep essential-detail notes with Tony Hale levels of obsequious devotion. Seriously, even if the publicist is representing someone as obscure as Offensive Female Stereotype #9 on Drunk Housewives of Embarrassing County, a good flack will still solemnly deliver to you all the pertinent details (did you know so-and-so has their own lip gloss line now?) in the same exaggerated hyper-confidential tones of reverence normally reserved for Kennedy Center Honors.

Attending the roast itself is equally shudder-rendering and insanely entertaining. After a few hours of taping, it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that comedian Andy Dick is beyond wasted. Out of nowhere, he leaves his dais post to just straight-up, unprompted, lick the faces of Farrah Fawcett, Patton Oswalt, and Carrie Fisher. Throughout the night, his performance is riveting and off-kilter, with the kind of too-delayed timing that betrays a very serious level of pregame beforehand.

So, when the show is over and the after-party starts, I know Dick is the interview to get.

When I see Andy walking past a gold-tinted-rock-star-glasses-clad Patton Oswalt, I bob and weave in between agents and handlers to approach him, immediately identifying which outlet I’m with and asking if we can talk. As the sounds of “Brown Eyed Girl” bleat in the background, Andy first tries to lead me off to a restricted-access area where it would just be the two of us, but a security guard turns him away. “You can’t go in there, Andy.”

Finally, he leads me to his dressing room, where two guys and a girl are waiting.

“I work for the New York Post,” I repeat when he asks again why I want to talk.

“Oh shit, buddy!” one of the guys yells.

“Oh no, oh no,” Andy says, looking me over. “Page Six . . . how old are you?”

“I’m thirty,” I say.

As I stand there in the entranceway, Andy opens the bathroom door, unzips his pants, pulls out his penis, and starts peeing in the toilet.

“She’ll put this in the article!” Andy’s friend yells. “She’s going to put this in the article!”

“Don’t,” Andy says, coming out of the bathroom. “I’m fucking serious.”

“You haven’t been nice,” his friend says. “You guys have been mean.”

“I’m always cordial,” Andy says. “I’m a nice guy.”

“One time, buddy,” his friend says. “You hit on the fucking reporter one time, and they fucking hammered you.”

With a perfectly timed pause, Andy replies, “I’m hitting on the reporter now.”

He walks over to the couch to chat up a bubbly young woman with a plunging neckline and ample cleavage sitting there, grinning from ear to ear.

“Did I do good tonight?” Andy asks.

“Yes, you did,” she says. “I was jealous you didn’t lick my face.”

He stares down at her breasts. “Are those real?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” she answers.

I realize I have only a few minutes to get a quote before this potentially turns into a full-on orgy.

“Did you party before going on tonight?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, glaring at me. “I always perform sober, and then when the show is over I have a cocktail or two to five.”