The Andy Cohen Diaries (42 page)

Did phone interviews promoting
WWHL
all day. Some people are horrible interviewers and I wonder why they do it. It made me think back to when I was twenty-four and on the phone with celebrities. I am sure I was alternately charming and super awkward. So I should check myself with my strong opinions.

Gary Oldman had canceled on Seth Meyers so I was the fill-in. Dave met me there to keep me company. He has lost seventeen pounds this year (Dave, not Seth), which made me feel even fatter! Who was in the dressing room next to me but Jeff Koons. He was in there alone, so I went in and said hi and had a fairly awkward conversation with him. “I was talking about your show with Joan Rivers yesterday,” I stammered. He shot back, “Who the fuck are you and why are you dropping Joan Rivers's name to me? Are you trying to impress me? I could buy and sell you!” Of course he said none of that, but the vibe was off. I told him I tried to get a good Instagram of his piece, but as I was talking I could remember neither the name of the piece nor whether you call it a sculpture or what. He filled in the blank and said the name,
Split Rocker
. Then I taped my bit (I brought an Andy Award to make fun of and we talked about my anxiety about the MLB thing this weekend) and afterwards Koons came out and said, “Oh, you were great,” and was really sweet. I wanted to take a selfie but I didn't have the guts. Of course it's a sculpture, by the way.

We had Rachel Maddow and Nicole Richie as guests tonight and during the run-through Straight Pat was sitting in for Maddow and inadvertently revealed he knows nothing about the Housewives—I asked him to name one and he said “Nay-Nay.” Couldn't even pronounce the great Linnethia Leakes's
name
! I roasted him. Straight guys! A lady in the audience gave me a cake. Like a really nice frosted cake. The unspoken rule is not to eat food presented by total strangers—but I made the staff scarf it with me. At least we could all go down together in a Jonestown moment. Kolten Wong got a walk-off home run to win the Cardinals game tonight. I tweeted a salutation and he retweeted it.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2014

Did I mention that the talk backstage at Seth Meyers is all about how nice the dressing rooms are? It's all everybody is talking about up there—the first thing out of their mouths is “Can you believe the dressing rooms?”—four separate people! For some reason I got on a soapbox, furious about how much money they spent on them. (Okay, maybe it's because we don't really
have
dressing rooms at my show.)

Did a cardio and core workout with the Ninj and I am inching back. Also inching towards puking. My back hurts. From there I went to Morandi for a lunch with two lovely people who donated a lot of money to Friends In Deed for the distinct pleasure of lunch with me. Their names were Aviva and Pete and they were great. I was overly gesticulating to them early in the conversation about some overblown theory I have about how working women can take on an innumerable number of projects, when the woman at the table next to me chastised my loud volume. Smacked down! In public! It hurt. Ran into Mickey Drexler, who at first I didn't recognize until I saw he had a monogram on his shirt and I figured out who he was mid-convo by his initials. I wish everyone had monograms. Or name tags.

Went to the batting cage with Mike Bell from the gym. I didn't do horribly, but the longer I did it, the worse I got. I was overthinking it. Mike's advice was:

•
Wait for it, don't lunge.

•
Start with weight on back leg, then shift to front.

•
Follow through.

•
Don't swing at bad pitches.

•
Don't turn my head.

Oy vey. This thing is gonna be televised on ESPN.

Coming home from the dog run, I saw two separate girls who were either going out for the night or legit prostitutes. You never see real whores on the street anymore. I also ran into Joe Mantello, then Matt Bomer.

We taped a show with Taye Diggs and John Legend that was really fun. They were perfect together and Jon and Tommy Alter were in the audience. I am gonna play myself on Jon's show
Alpha House
.

The live show was Steve Guttenberg with Leah Remini, who brought JLo. I went into her dressing room (to clarify—we
call
it a dressing room but it's actually a conference room and nobody's bragging about how gorgeous it is) before the show and was careful to pay more attention to Leah because she was the guest and JLo was the friend. The three of us talked about dating guys who are not conventionally handsome in the face but otherwise sexy. I asked JLo if she would consider walking onto the show to bring the shotski out, unannounced, and she agreed. She is still presenting herself to me as Miss Low-Key Easygoing Non-Demanding Un-Diva; maybe she
is
just Jenny from the Block! I really liked Leah.

The whole audience—besides JLo—was the Mets wives I'd met at that game in April. That hot catcher's wife is pregnant, so that's good for her. And I asked whose husband was the last to hit a homer and of course David Wright's wife, who is the Melissa Gorga of the group, raised her hand.

Hung out late listening to music in my office with the team. Wacha left my office and came back twenty minutes later wearing a Pucci scarf. (Thank you, Ryan.)

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2014—NYC–SAG HARBOR

Woke up with Wacha, who was snuggling up to me, still wearing the Pucci scarf, which in the light of day made him look more like Angela Lansbury than the office mascot—hysterical! Emmy nominations came out today and Bravo got four nominations. Zilch for
WWHL
. Under what circumstance could we get nominated? None. Before I worked out with the Ninj we had a weigh-in, and lo and behold I am exactly 165. I almost fainted. Hallelujah. I felt like I didn't need to work out after that, but we boxed. I was on the phone the whole drive to the beach. We have four scenarios for the next season of
RHONY
and each involves layoffs and rehires. It makes me excited to see the possibility in each one. I pitched Martha Stewart creative for the show we will take out; she was in a car on her way to a tree farm on Long Island to get some maple trees. Maybe some other kind I can't remember. I'm sure it was something more exotic now that I think about it.

Met SJ and Matthew for dinner at some new overpriced sushi place, Shuko, that says online is in Water Mill but it's in Wainscott, so I went to the wrong place and got there in a huff and SJ said, “OK,
Evelyn
, calm down.” Ha! She was right. Matthew told some horror stories about playing right field in a charity softball game for Puffy, and made me rethink that position. Would second base be a crazy idea? SJ said to protect my face. She looked very Carrie Bradshaw, tan and summery, hair blonde from the sun. She just bought a big red 1976 Ford Country Squire station wagon and gave me a lil ride in it; it's sweet and sentimental—glass everywhere, crazy roomy with only AM radio. And it smells like 1976 in a bottle.

FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2014—SAG HARBOR

My cousin Dave emailed me this morning: “You asked Shaq how big his dick is but you're terrified of a softball game? I don't think you get it: you're
supposed
to screw up, so if you do it's kinda expected. If you don't, that's fine too. It's a no-lose situation!” He is so right. Then I got a text from Anthony at
WWHL
, who reports that Straight Pat is
actually gay.
WTF! I'm shocked. And embarrassed. Now is he going to have to come out to everyone because I falsely accused him of being straight? I overstep with PAs! Bethenny made me lunch at her house—she has Skinnygirl products for everything, it's amazing. She wanted to pitch me doing
Bethenny Starting Over
, but I had my own ideas, and turned the discussion into the (seemingly insane at first but makes sense the longer you talk about it) idea of her coming back to
RHONY
; and I can't believe it, but I think it worked. I made a lot of compelling arguments (good money, ensemble show, she knows what she's getting into, it would certainly be a success ratings-wise vs. this season). She is seriously considering it, and I left feeling upbeat. It would be huge for that show to get her back. Huge!!!

Hung out with the doctor. He's a real person. I invited him to the show next week.

Met Amanda and Jim at Bell & Anchor, which was very crowded. Here's what I watched on YouTube when I got home: a Writers Guild interview with Michael Patrick King and Lisa Kudrow about
The Comeback,
a really long interview with Marla Gibbs about her time on
Jeffersons
and
227
, Isabel Sanford winning her Emmy, Lucy on
The Tonight Show
and Barbara Walters, and Lucy winning an Emmy. Asleep by midnight. Who says the Hamptons aren't glamorous?

SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2014—SAG HARBOR–NYC

Texted with Jason Motte about tomorrow and he said, “The key to hitting and fielding is to watch the ball. Seems simple. But very helpful.” I hate watching the ball!

Had a gorgeous lunch at Marci's in her chic new pool house.

Drove back to the city early and when I got home read three articles online about how to be a better softball player, then watched clips of last year's game and what I saw made my face burn red and I completely lost my appetite. It's a night game with bright lights and you can hear the players talking. I am so glad Eli is going with me; he is calming and positive. He was my behind-the-scenes sidekick for the first few years of
WWHL
and he's the perfect accomplice for this affair. Liza came over for some rosé after her dinner and said, “Why don't you just
see
if you can have
fun
?—an elemental suggestion I had never considered.
Have fun?

Lying on my bed scrolling through Instagram, I felt something on my leg. It was my worst nightmare: a water bug. I was alone for once—Wacha was going to town on a Kong in his dog bed—and I didn't have time to think. I shook my leg, it went flying, and I realized if I didn't kill it at that moment I would legit have to move into my extra bedroom for the rest of the summer. (I am not kidding.) I grabbed a shoe and killed it. My freaking canine protector was zero help, just wandered in after it was all over and smelled the spot where the beast had lived and died. Thanks for nothing, Wacha. But I took it as a sign—from God or from the ghost of Stan Musial (or Esther Rolle)—that I am stronger than I think. I will have
fun
at this game tomorrow.

SUNDAY, JULY 13, 2014—NYC–MINNEAPOLIS

Surfin took one look at my face as I stumbled out of the building early this morning and knew exactly what day it was: “You ready?” he tentatively queried. I told him I'd barely slept and was terrified. But he was bullish: “You're gonna go one for three.”

“I'll take that!” I said. I was a nervous Nellie, though, and spilled tea all over myself in the car to LaGuardia.

I sat behind Derek Jeter's parents on the plane, and across the aisle from—I think—his sister. When I landed, my phone rang and mine was on the other end having just heard startling news.

“Are you really playing a
game
?????? An
actual game
?” Em was as exasperated as I've heard her.

“
Why
did they ask you? Do they know…” Her voice trailed off before she could state the obvious. I told her they asked because I am a known fan, thank you very much.

“Well,
I'm
a fan
but I can't play the game
!!” She was starting to sound like another woman we both know who lives in St. Louis.
“Oh boy.”
She sighed. I told her this was exactly the call I did not need to be getting right now. “I'm just trying to understand. I didn't know you were actually
playing.
” Yes, we've established that. “Well, at least it's all celebrities—there aren't any actual baseball players, right?” There are. Ozzie Smith. Mike Piazza. Dwight Gooden. She stopped me. “Well. It's just a game.” She said I was going into convulsions over throwing the first pitch a few years ago, so she didn't know how I was going to get through this. I changed the subject and asked about Aspen, from where she just returned and where our mother is now. She reported that Mom is charging around town with a fanny pack everywhere she goes. “It's a
town.
And she's wearing a
fanny pack.
” That image took my mind off my troubles.

I hung up with Em and here's how it all played out from there:

In the lobby of the W in Minneapolis a tall blonde woman introduces herself and says we'll be playing together. She says she's done it before and it's a lot of fun. I ask her if, like me, she is wondering what to even do with a softball. She says she's OK at softball. I find out an hour later that she is Jennie Finch, who is only
the most famous softball player of all time
—she won the freaking gold medal at the '04 Olympics. So I get an early jump on offending people to their faces. Eli arrives from Los Angeles and is shocked at how nervous I am; he can't believe that after all the live TV we've done together, a softball game is what's brought out my nerves. I try to explain that my exact skill set is hosting live TV, which is why it doesn't make me nervous. We go to a meet-up with all the other players and I tell Andrew Zimmern and Minnesota Vikings running back (and
very
hot dude) Adrian Peterson that Jon Hamm talked me into this whole thing and wound up canceling. “Me too! He got me into it too!” a blonde woman next to us says. On the bus to Target Field, the blonde sits next to us and I introduce myself. “I'm January,” she purrs. How had I not recognized Betty Draper?

We walk into the press room at the stadium and there waiting is a roomful of All-Stars and Hall of Famers. Eli's face lights up and he becomes Gary from
Veep
, whispering in my ear names of the people around us: Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. The two team captains read their rosters and positions; mine is John Smoltz, who says I'm playing for the National League repping the Cardinals, playing outfield. January is playing catcher for the American League—intimidating! I talk to Sway and Fat Joe from MTV, who claim they suck, Charlie McDermott from
The Middle
on ABC, who is as wide-eyed as I am, and a really nice All-Star, Fred Lynn, who says his wife loves my show.