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Although he has been threatened with everything from bodily harm to being tossed off a guest list (disaster for a gossip purveyor!) he has never actually been sued — a task made difficult when you've got truth and documentation to back you up. “You get threats of lawsuits, always from very low-level people, but they never go through with it because they have no case whatsoever,” Musto explains. “You get threats of physical impairment, threats of people taking you off their guest lists, threats of people wanting to fight you back in the press and so on, but there's no follow-through. The legal threats are dropped, the battle subsides, and they go back to their sniveling lives.”

Although the Village Voice provides him with a cubicle where he drops by to collect mail, he usually works from home, which he describes as “an explosion of kitsch and cheap clothing. It looks like a yard sale that's been hit by a bomb”

His fashion style is in the same vein. He characterizes it as “early reign of terror. My clothes are messy and stained and wrinkled and don't match. They're the wearable equivalent of my apartment. I never throw anything out, so I still parade around in '80s outfits that I wear because I actually think they still look good.”

Although Musto is an avid partier, he is quite the workaholic, and let's not forget: He's doing double duty at those parties. This doesn't leave much time for dating. “My schedule is such a whirlwind and I'm so used to doing everything on my own terms that it's hard to fit a boyfriend in there,” he admits. “I recently had a boyfriend for four months, and he was sweet, but the more he tightened the noose and wanted me as a life partner, the more I ran for the hills. I'm scared of commitment and the effects it would have on the life I've already carved out.”

He is used to going it alone. Growing up as an only child in a Brooklyn neighborhood where large families were the norm, he was “one of the very few Italian-American only children.” He was so withdrawn, he says, “I didn't even have imaginary friends!” His main form of entertainment was to go to a movie and then write up a little movie review to amuse himself, mainly because he had no one to discuss it with.

“I would retreat to the movies and would end up writing movie reviews on index cards, just for myself. The isolation actually helped me become a writer because journalism became my main form of expression by necessity.” Was this guy born to be a writer, or what?

He also honed his wit at an early age in the fire of adolescent necessity. “My wit comes from perennially feeling like an outsider. As a kid, I didn't belong anywhere, so I developed an edgy sense of humor to undercut the pain.” This facility also came in handy years later. “In gay bars, I realized I didn't have the looks or personality to become instantly popular. But you realize that if you cultivate a sardonic sense of humor, people are drawn to you. You become a court jester in lieu of being the king of the ball.”

Even though he was desperate to fit in, he somehow resisted temptation to lead girls on. “In high school, girls would beg me to ask them out, but I wouldn't, somehow knowing that was the road to disaster. Even then I knew I didn't want to make some poor female's life a living hell by using her for public credit. But in college, there was an aggressive young lady who simply couldn't be stopped. We had sex, or tried to. I couldn't even get her bra off. Probably because I didn't really want to.”

He managed to wait it out. “Thank God I hung in there and later realized there was a glorious, exciting world of gays right over the bridge in Manhattan. And it turned out most of the male friends I'd had in high school were suddenly part of that community, too.”

One of the most surprising things about Musto is “that I'm actually nice and ethical and reliable. People sometimes expect this snarling queen, as I often am in print, but in reality I'm a good-natured kid from Brooklyn who makes a very trustworthy friend and can keep a secret better than anyone. Also, people assume I'm attitudey, since I can be very withdrawn, but I'm just plain shy, and that's the truth.”

The other surprise is that he has a close relationship with his parents, whom he recently saw at Christmas. “My parents are wonderful, and Mama's the world's best cook. For holidays, we used to sit around and enjoy her sumptuous cuisine, but now that she's old, we just go out to restaurants and have a wonderful time.”

La Dolce Musto, the book, is in stores now. La Dolce Musto, the column, is available, as always, in the Village Voice.

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