Once or twice a week, maybe three if my second ex-wife is at one of her Botox parties, I sit alone at the counter at Florent and order "the usual"--cheeseburger, medium, with American cheese, "whatever tastes like Bud"—and I wink in a Wayne Newton sorta’ way at the attractive young Aussie taking my order. [I’m not gay, so I don’t wink at the fellas, but they’re good-looking, too].
     I’ve had one of those weeks with lots on mind, including a hangover, and needed some time alone with a cheeseburger to think about a serious issue: the end of the old show business era known as Entertainment. I think about this stuff, it’s what I know, what I grew up with, and what I love. If it’s gone, then I’m just a regular guy.
     I’ve been in show business for thirty-five years. I have fond memories of the good old days –hanging out with Gleason and Frank at Toots Shore, catching Frances Faye swinging on 52nd street when any night of the week you could walk into a supper club and see the best in the business up-close and personal for only five bucks, and no drink minimums. Those were the days when the word Entertainment meant Entertainment. The days when a performer packed a punch just being on stage with a mike and a spot light and a lotta’ heart --no back-up dancers with ripped jeans, fireworks, video projections, lip-synching to pre-recorded Casio keyboard beats.
     I’m probably the only straight guy to admit I saw Judy Garland on April 23, 1961 at Carnegie Hall. (I was ten.) What I saw that night was one of the greatest displays of mesmerizing talent. The audience surrendered themselves completely to her and she delivered mind-blowing renditions of the songs she made famous. It was show business in its most pure form –right from the heart.
     During my teen years, I spent more time chasing girls, playing ball, and being a door-to-door vacuum salesman than listening to show tunes. But I always thought about that night and how I’ll never see anything as spectacular ever again.
     Now, some forty years later, I’m in a nostalgic depression. What has happened to talent, stage presence, and show business? These days "performers" are packaged by publicists and marketing teams. You don’t need to have talent any more --just a great image, a properly placed mole, a posse of assistants, a clothing line, and tinted glasses.
     I’ve asked myself over and over again, who is a legend now? Will anyone ever be everlasting, and truly talented as Judy Garland, or Sammy Davis Jr., stars who lived full showbiz lives? Who can really demand an audience? Who can transfix a room of people and just hold them in their palm? Is there a performer who will last more than two CDs? Who can sing? Who has relevance? Who can put on a live show? Who has passion? (And I’m not talking about the glossy, airbrushed gals on the cover of Vanity Fair’s Music Issue, either.)
     Answer: LIZA.
     If you live in New York, you know all about what’s happening with Liza Minnelli these days --the fifth or fifteenth come back, the marriage to David Gest, the cancelled reality show, the newly adopted kid (gasp!). But, let me tell ya’ about the triumphant run of Liza’s Back at The Beacon Theater, an opening night I never woulda’ missed.
     I donned a black and red tux, a big fluffy bow tie, and finished off a can of Aquanet for that slick look. I arrived behind Lorraine Bracco and, as the cameras flashed, ran up next to her to appear as if I was her date. (I’ll do anything for a mention on Page Six). Despite the hotdog stand in the lobby, the crowd was beautiful and glamorous. My old pals Liz Smith, Ann Bancroft, Mel Brooks, and Babs Walters were there. The more contemporary celebrities, however, your Susan Luccis and your Joy Behars, mistook me for an usher.
     When Liza sashayed onto the stage, the audience rose to its feet; they went ballistic. She made it through the first song, barely, but everyone in that room knew what a major life accomplishment it was for her even to be on stage. With her heartfelt banter, her spunk, and her Broadway hands reaching for the sky, it was clear she still had it. She is show business. The New York Times said it best, "It’s the performer’s bone-deep knowledge that this is it: it’s not about being a star but about being alive."
     Liza belted for hours. She smiled, glowed, and plowed through her signature songs. I was on my feet screaming "Liza! Liza! Liza!" Every ballad gave me goose bumps, every lyric was packed with a lifetime of emotion. She was raw and naked up there, giving herself completely over to the audience, singing from the heart. And we gave back, cheering her on –barely letting her stop. Too delirious, I stopped counting encores after three. Besides, the hot dog smell from the lobby called my name.
     Who could ever come close to Liza? Who was going to be the new dynamite? This is what I thought, as I ate my cheeseburger that night at Florent. Is this the end of an era? I was so depressed.
     But everything changed last Friday night.
     My gay "twenty-something" daughter is very hip to the music scene. She even wears thin little ties. I busted her coming home tanked the other night. But since she got the partying gene from me, I couldn’t ground her. Instead, I vowed to escort her to social events for the rest of the year. I wanted to see for myself the punks she was running with. Of course, almost immediately she cancelled all of her plans. But I put my foot down and made her take me to what she called an "electroclash" show at a place called Warsaw in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
     I wore one of my nice pressed Adidas tracksuits (that I actually work out it in, by the way). It didn’t matter, I was a fish out of water. I coulda’ been the entire audience’s chaperone. Everyone was too cool for school, dirty, but showered, hip, but geeky –things have sure changed.
     There were heavy beats coming out of the speaker and the audience was standing around like they’d just smoked a bag of grass. The bands just kinda’ stood around, too, lip-synching, trying to dance in unison, spewing God-knows-what into the mike. The nauseating video projections were giving me a bad case of vertigo. And then I noticed something peculiar. For the first time in my life, I was watching "bands" with no musical instruments! I think I remember reading about this in my old man’s Nostradamus books.
     I really felt like Mr. Grandpa; could barely keep my eyes open. (Of course, the Buds didn’t help). The house lights went down for the headlining act and in stormed the tallest, shortest woman I have ever seen: Peaches, they call her, a German import. The second she set foot on the stage, the place exploded. She ripped off her clothing, drank the audience’s beer (but I do that too), soaked her mullet and shook it like a wet dog schpritzing the front row. She gyrated and gyrated and gyrated . . . making Elvis seem like small change. And she wasn’t shaking her thing and showing off her pink panties to sell records, she was doing it because she simply felt like it.
     She threw her arms up to the audience as if to say, "Look at me, you motherfuckers," then dove headfirst into the audience, mike in hand, still hammering out her signature "Fuck the Pain Away." Before I knew it, she was two inches from me and before I could react, her foot whacked me across the face. I was in shock. This gal blew the roof off the joint, AND kicked me in the head.
     I could see it in my daughter’s face, as well as the eyes of all the young girls in the audience as they stared at Peaches. She went nuts before our eyes and every single person in the room was under her spell. This broad broke boundaries. She was fearless. She did things girls ain’t supposed to do --she kicked ass.
     She hammered out songs, worked the stage, threw crap at the audience, got all sweaty and messy. She just lived so hard, was so alive, so bare up there, singing from the depths of her six-packed gut. She was the show.
     Once she’d had enough of her stage, she jumped back out on the floor, in a sea of 1,500 people, and strutted and sang her way to the back of the room. The inebriated and entranced stepped back and made way for their new hero. She somehow made her way onto a huge speaker and towered over the crowd, belting out the finish of her last song. Then, she disappeared. The crowd hollered, but they couldn’t take another encore. She had tired us out, sucked our energy.
     Like Liza’s opening night at the Beacon, I felt I was watching something historic, triumphant, revolutionary. When a performer strips down (literally, for Peaches; Liza got close), and gives it all they got, digs so deep that sweat drenches their clothes, so unabashedly who they are, then, Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s Show Business.
     I know you’re going to think I’m going crazy, but Peaches is the Liza Minnelli of her generation. No, she doesn’t have a famous mother, or fifty years "in the business." She doesn’t have an Emmy, an Oscar, or a Tony. She doesn’t live in the mainstream. But Peaches shares Liza’s pure passion and true love for Entertainment –it’s in their blood, it comes from their gut.
     Liza may be the last old school show business relic, but Peaches is the future. I can’t wait for her reality show.

Peaches crowd surfing, moments after kicking me in the face.

The title quote is by Peaches from The Wire, Issue 204, February 2001

MURRAY HILL’s slapstick antics and out-of-tune crooning have garnered him more than a few bests: "Best in Gay New York" and "Best Cabaret Show" by New York Magazine; "Best in NYC" by Paper and The Village Voice; "Best Club Personality" by Citysearch; as well being named "the most successful drag king" by The New York Post. But you best see for yourself. In November, he appears at PS122, Gotham Comedy Club, and The Comedy Garden. His big holiday show takes over the Cutting Room in December. And you can always visit him at www.mrmurrayhill.com.