One of the best compliments I have ever received was when a stranger at a party told me that I was the “Brooklyn version of Andy Cohen”, because Andy seemed to be everything that I aspired to be. Well, I probably should have read this book before I took that as a high compliment.

I kid! I kid!

After his first book Most Talkative: Stories From The Front Lines Of Pop Culture, Cohen set out to record and share his daily activities over the course of a year. Full disclosure: I did not read his first book. In fact, and this is both honest and embarrassing (at least for my friends who work in publishing), I don’t ready many books at all. Trust me, I know I am missing out, but I also know that I most likely have gone my entire life without being diagnosed with dyslexia, making reading unenjoyable. I’d read a sentence, thinking it said one thing, only to re-read it and realized it said something completely different. I was able to find reading success in books like the Harry Potter series, which were obviously written for a children’s reading level, but stayed away from those written works that had more “meat and potatoes” to them. AKA: intellectual books, literary books, and autobiographies. Audio books were my best friend for a while, but lately I found my daily commute was spent listening to the Taylor Swift album for the umpteenth time (that Out Of The Woods song is my jam!).

Sometimes I think I am a masochist. I know that I don’t like something, but I will try and try again to change my opinion. Blue cheese is one of those things. No matter how much I know I hate it, I’ll stand in line at Chop’t and say “Ah, why don’t you throw some blue cheese in there”. Every. Single. Time. I don’t know if it’s the anxiety (which is another problem of mine) of having to choose add-ins on the spot, but I instantly regret it the moment I take that first bite. Unfortunately, reading is on that list with Blue Cheese. I try it, I hate it, and its a few months before I foolishly try it again. On one of my most recent attempts I decided to give the book Bossy Pants by Tina Fey a try. Eureka! Tina brought me back from the dark side of illiteracy. I could read adult books and actually enjoy them!

So this past Christmas when Tommy (an avid reader) gave me the gift of Andy’s new book, I was eager to dive in and learn more about this man who had worked his way up in the television industry (an industry I would love to work in) and became a talk show host (a job I had always dreamed of). In hindsight (which is always 20/20) I maybe should have read his first book to learn a little more of the back story of the man who’s daily journal I was about to read. Alas, I cracked open the beautifully illustrated cover and started my literary voyerism into Andy’s life.

Right off the bat in the book’s introduction, Andy tells us that he almost called the book “The Diary of a Name-Dropper”, and name drop he does. In fact, Andy drops celebrity names so often and effortlessly, I created an imaginary clown in my head to follow behind and pick them up, much like the ones that march in parades to clean up after horses. I didn’t get through the first page, hell, the first paragraph before Diane Von Furstenburg came up. Send in the clowns and cue my jealousy, I’m in for a bumpy ride!

Day after day I relived his life bouncing from New York, to Utah, to St. Louis (his hometown), back to New York, only to jaunt to LA and then back before a trip to Sag Harbor. The only similar events events from day to day are his live talk show and his massages. This man gets more rub downs than a classic car! Doesn’t matter where in the world he is, he has a masseuse on call. This is the first of many times during reading this book that I realize I’m a basic bitch. I have never had a professional massage although I have been a strong advocate that they should be a weekly perk of being an Equity member. I have however, gifted massages to those I love, but never did it cross my mind that people would actually come to your house to deliver such services. Is it cheaper because they don’t have to pay rent on a storefront? He never discloses costs of his escapades which is probably better for my sanity.

One of the great things about this book is when it takes place within the story of this life. He is about to transition from his “day job” at Bravo and embark on new projects both on and off screen and he is seriously thinking about getting a dog (a single gay man’s best friend). So many times people in this city want things to come fast and easy (like their dinner, or their dates), but you can tell through the pages of this book that Andy has worked his ass off for all of the success that he now is getting to enjoy.

So I read. Day after day. Season after season. Hearing bits of backstage drama from different housewives franchises (who knew the husbands were so demanding?!), traveling with him on vacation with mega celeb friends like Kelli Rippa and Anderson Cooper, and learning about his love (and skill) for baseball. There are moments you feel you can relate to him completely, like when he feels guilty about a weekend of binge eating on vacation or not being invited to a party (granted it is the Vanity Fair Oscar party but still). Then there are moments your two worlds couldn’t feel any further apart, like when he can’t get his motivation up to design his new super duplex apartment and you live in a studio apartment you have to cross two rivers to get to. I’m also pretty sure celebrities just live outside the front of his building. Ahh, to live in the West Village!

When he starts to talk about his close friendship with the late Natasha Richardson, you feel the pain of her loss through his words. He also talks about a future project with Joan Rivers, who by this point had passed. How would he takes the news? I read on. I flipped ahead to the end of the book just to see what the last dated entry would be. Would the book end before she passed?

As I continued through the book, I have to admit that about 3/4 through I started to become exhausted by it. Day after day, city after city, party after party, it all seemed to get to be a little too much and blur together. I’m sure that as he was living it, it was absolutely amazing, and if it was my life I would bathe in every moment and in every body of clear blue water that crossed my path, but as a reader, I found that my attention span was starting to wane. I wouldn’t dare put it down without finishing, but I realized that my reading environment was a stark contrast to what was happening in his life and that I was starting to feel slightly resentful. Daily I would read on the M train from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn where I lived, into Manhattan for work and then back in the evening. While I read about his fabulous times in Sag Harbor complete with private helicopter rides that he had received in one of his many “gift bags” (along with hundreds of pairs of Beats by Dre headphones I can’t begin to afford), there were people right in front of me begging for money and food for their family while I was squeezed into an overcrowded subway car. Of course, it is not fair to hold him accountable for the plight of poor New York, but still, it was hard to read one experience and witness another. I’m sure he does, but I don’t believe he ever once mentioned taking the subway.

All in all, I found this book to be somewhat of an inspiration. After six years in this town, I have had my ups and downs, made strong friendships, and have worked my tail off just to make ends meet. He showed me that hard work and dedication do pay off, that sense of humor can be one of the most attractive qualities of a person, and even a famous person like Andy can “fan girl” out at the sight of Madonna and then text Cher from vacation. So I take what I learned from his honesty and story telling and I move forward down my own path. As his friend Diane von Furstenburg said “I didn’t always know what I wanted to do, but I knew who I wanted to be” and I want to be the Brooklyn version of Matt Karr, but I wouldn’t mind borrowing a couple of chapters from Andy’s life.

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