THE NIGHT BEFORE
Gather all viewing essentials. These should include:

• Chinese food
• A cheap bathrobe onto which you can drop pork lo mein in duck sauce
• Boxes of filthy wine
• Popcorn, to make you feel like you are at the movies and not just watching clips of movies you’d never think of seeing
• A Koosh ball in all the colors of the gay-pride rainbow (more on this later)

AROUND NOON
Red carpet begins

It won’t be the same without Joan Rivers asking:

• Who are you wearing?
• Who are you married to this year?
• Why are you here?
• What is that smell?
• Do you know any single, straight guys in Bel Air (East Gate) who might be interested in my daughter or me, or both of us?

Drink every time someone looks over the shoulder of the person they’re talking to because there’s someone more famous out of camera range.

5:00 P.M.
Half-hour to showtime

• Rid yourself of distractions, including your well-meaning but dim friend who will ask, “But what’s the difference between sound editing and sound mixing?”
• Put on cheap bathrobe
• Open carton of spring rolls

5:30 P.M. 

Neil Patrick Harris bursts forth to host. The biggest shock of the night will be if he offends anyone, even aged Nazi war criminals watching from huts deep in the jungles of Paraguay. But on the Oscars, you never know. People who never watch TV or go to the movies or have ever heard the phrase “self-cleaning oven” invariably tune in to the Oscar show and are outraged by everything they see, hear or think they saw/heard.

DRINKING GAME #2 

Drink every time there’s a shot of an actress with ridiculous cleavage.

Bonus drink if she’s texting or checking her teeth for lipstick. Unless it’s Patricia Arquette, because she just doesn’t care. If it’s a bad year for cleavage, you can substitute a drink for each time the camera lingers on someone that no one on the planet recognizes, which means it’s the director’s spouse or the seat-filler where Marion Cotillard is supposed to be — or it’s Meryl Streep, who has stopped dressing for these things.

6:00 P.M.-ISH
First acting awards: supporting actor/actress

You will know it because it will be presented by last year’s winner, of whom you will have to be reminded. If you love the winner, have a spare rib. If you loathe the winner, here’s where that Koosh ball comes in. Fling it violently at the screen. You’ll do no harm. Repeat this all evening. Very therapeutic. People in the theater will wish they had a Koosh ball. Or any balls.

GOOD TIMES TO TAKE A WHIZ

• Recap of Sci-Tech Awards
• Governors Ball festivities
• Documentary Feature
• Documentary Short Subject

Because you probably aren’t interested, unless Kim Kardashian‘s rear end is presenting the award.

HOURS LATER

There may be an awkward political moment when the documentary award is presented. That’s usually when it happens. But by then you won’t care. In fact, as the afternoon turns into evening, a good deal of the audience no longer cares. For each person who wins, there are four people who don’t, so the audience fills up with losers. And with seat-fillers, for losers who are so bitter they’re already at the bar or in the car, or the bar in the car. But you have no such worries. You are in a duck sauce-stained universe, watching Adam Levine manfully tackle a song you’ve never heard from a movie you didn’t see. And in a few hours, there’ll be Julianne Moore looking terrific as she hoists her Oscar high. Next year, you’ll get dressed up and go to a big party. And watch the whole thing on DVR when you get home. Of course you will. Now then, what’s on TCM?

The post Oscars 2015: Bruce Vilanch’s Guide to Watching the Telecast first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Hurricane Irene proved to be an annoyance but not quite a royal pain for Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil.

While threat of the 700-mile-wide storm prompted most Hamptons event organizers to cancel their weekend parties, recording artist Ivan Wilzig refused to throw in the turban on his fete for India’s first openly gay prince.

The party went on as scheduled at Wilzig’s castle-like home in Water Mill on Saturday night — although not quite as planned.

For starters, a luxury bus that Wilzig had reserved to ferry 45 guests from the city to the party was canceled by the operator over weather concerns.

The photographer and the deejay hired for the event also bailed, although Wilzig’s girlfriend Mina Otsuka gamely took over the second chore.

Out of 200 people who’d RSVP’d to welcome the royal to the Hamptons, only 70 ended up making it. Among the missing were comic and Oscars telecast writer Bruce Vilanch and “South Park” and “Book of Mormon” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who would have found a wealth of material at the party.

Wilzig, clad in an orange suit and matching cape emblazoned with a peace sign, presented the 45-year-old prince with a game-show sized check for $5,000 that was made out to the royal’s charity, the Laksyha Trust, which raises awareness about gay rights and HIV/AIDS prevention for homosexual men.

“If I could give out the Nobel Peace Prize, he would have already won it, but instead I’ll just give him a lovely donation,” Wilzig told the crowd, adding that the check “is only the tip of the iceberg.”

After graciously accepting the sum, the prince compared Wilzig’s estate to his own in India.

Gohil‘s memories of home must be complicated. His family unsuccessfully attempted to disinherit him after he came out of the closet in 2006 and, in 2007, appeared on an episode of Oprah Winfrey‘s talk show entitled “Gay Around the World.”

In 2008, the prince announced plans to adopt a child, which, if he pulls it off, will reportedly make him the first single, gay man to adopt a child in India.

Unlike his struggles in India, Gohil told us “Americans are always very loving to me.”

They can be pretty forward, too. At the party, an attractive young man approached the prince to ask him “What’s your type?”

The royal replied that he doesn’t have “a physical type.” Rather, he said, “it’s mental.”

He described his friendship with Wilzig in similar fashion.

“Sometimes you meet someone and their mental tuning is exactly like yours,” the prince said.

The post Hurricane Irene Blows Off Bruce Vilanch From Attending Royal Party In Hamptons first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Hardly on his OWN… Prince gets a royal welcome

Sir Ivan is giving a royal welcome to India‘s Crown Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil at his Hamptons castle on Aug. 27. The eccentric philanthropist and recording artist will host a private reception for the prince to welcome him to the New York area that evening. The event will be taped by Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN TV. Sir Ivan also will debut his latest electro-pop single, “Hare Krishna,” at the fete.

Other events to be filmed for the OWN network include the prince’s Aug. 30 Guild Hall event in East Hampton, hosted by Bruce Vilanch, titled “A Royal Night Out.” It will benefit the Lakshya Trust for AIDS/HIV awareness. Tickets are available at the site guildhall.org.

John Legend doesn’t travel light. The singer and his girlfriend, Chrissy Teigen, had a technical difficulty on their way to the Express Rocks! Suites at the Hard Rock Hotel Chicago on Sunday. Legend’s large entourage had piled into an elevator, but a source says the group proved to be more than it could handle. The lift stalled for over five minutes, and when it finally started moving again, the crooner’s bodyguards hopped out on the next floor to lighten the load.

The post Bruce Vilanch To Host Special On The OWN Network first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Before the diva and divas-in-training took the stage, PrideFest’s day was filled with educational, family, youth, and health activities. The LGBT History Project chronicles the community’s heritage in an intimate tent just near the entrance of the festival. Families enjoyed magicians and animal showcases. Youth participated in fashion shows and an inter-generational dialogue. PrideFest hosted HIV testing in the Health and Wellness Area. Mayor Tom Barrett even paid a visit applauding PrideFest for another “lovely festival.”

As the cloudy day turned into a clear night, Lena Katina’s high-octave voice filled the evening air. The beautiful siren sang solo ballads as well as hits from her days as one-half of the electronica/dance music group t.A.T.u. After a colorful fireworks display, Bruce Vilanch hosted the headline show likening the festival to “a gay cruise.” The show also featured Rose Jang and Charice (who won acclaim and an enthusiastic thumbs up from Oprah Winfrey and Patti LaBelle ). Lena Katina even did the can-can backstage as Jang sang, “All That Jazz.”

But the show stopper was the woman who paved the way for all of the songbirds mentioned thus far…Patti LaBelle. An illustrious career that still continues to flourish and evolve to this day, LaBelle graced the Miller Lite Main Stage with hits such as “New Attitude,” “On My Own,” “Lady Marmalade,” “If Only You Knew,” and the awesomely appropriate “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

LaBelle’s presence on stage was both full of awe and full of humility. During “If Only You Knew” she walked up to one of the signers to learn the sign language for her lyrics. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes to replace them with flatter sandals (bejeweled of course). The singer requested air conditioning be turned on stating that “menopause is in the house.” Labelle even defied security’s advice and brought a disorderly patron on stage, hugging the patron and ensuring that he was escorted back to his seat.

“We’re two steps away from everything,” LaBelle said. “Loneliness. Happiness. Our last paycheck. Loving our neighbor, black, white, gay, straight… stay gay! Stay the way you are!”

PrideFest 2010 ends Sunday night with a performance by fashion maven and comedienne Joan Rivers. For more information about PrideFest, or to review Sunday’s schedule, please visitwww.pridefest.com.

The post Bruce Vilanch, Patti Labelle And Others Help Smash Attendance Records At Pridefest Milwaukee first appeared on We Got Bruce!.