NY Mirror

At long last I get in a porn flick and it's with my friggin' clothes on! I can finally say I worked with GUS MATTOX and it's chatting in a fucking nightclub! I'm referring to the highbrow cameo I just shot in MICHAEL LUCAS's dirty version of Dangerous Liaisons—not rimming, fisting, or felching, mind you, just innocently posing around a gallery scene filmed at Quo, where the only fluffing was of my peanut butter sandwich. Still, it was fun being filmed for anything, and the other nonsexual guest stars were a scream, like RUPAUL, who joked that his role was "the cum dumpster. Chug-a-lug." But LADY BUNNYwasn't taking loads; in between smirking to the extras, "All right, I want those cocks out and I want them hard," Bunny busied herself with sardonic shrieks of "I won't bareback without drugs—again!"

Tart drag queen LINDA SIMPSON's newly revived My Comrade magazine isn't porn, but it's definitely for discerning adults who like their pop culture served with whips and boas. The mag's benefit bash at the Ukrainian National Home was suitably arresting, but it was laced with so much advance drama I almost ended up in a real home. At the event, I was supposed to present a My Comrade Hall of Fame award to scene queen AMANDA LEPORE (who's also in that porn flick, wouldn't you know), so I wrote a speech about how much kooky joy she's brought us over the years. I was then informed that Ms. Lepore didn't want me to say anything implying that it's a "legend" award and/or that she's been around for a while, so I rewrote the speech to make it sound like she was born, castrated, and spruced up just last week. Then, the night before the ceremony, I was told she wouldn't accept the award at all because any kind of career honor would make her seem, you know, old. Dejected, I moved on to preparing for the next event—presenting Fetus of the Year to BEATRICE ARTHUR.

But first I went to the My Comrade thing anyway, where Lady Bunny did accept an honor, though she zanily flung it to the ground, no doubt holding out for an Adult Video Award. The other honoree, FLAWLESS SABRINA, took the opposite approach, sobbing with joy and urging the crowd to change the world. (What a divider this award is; it has people throwing, crying, and refusing. Isn't there someone who'll just take it and shut up?) For a finale, I ended up judging the night's Valentine's costume contest in which impish performer BRANDON OLSEN strutted around and recited, "Roses are red, violets are blue/I just gave three-month superbug AIDS to you!" I have no idea why he didn't win.

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Little Debbie snack cakes

More adult entertainment with bells (if little else) on comes at you via the Broadway-styled Playboy spread of '80s teen queen DEBORAH GIBSON shaking her love just in time for the release of her "Naked" single. Alas, in a phoner with the Gibson girl last week, I barely got to indulge in any other hilarious wordplay because she beat me to the punch bowl by tossing around fake song titles like "Electric Boobs" and "Lost in Your Thighs." (Give me a pop star turned self-mocking nudie model anytime.)

Is the Playboy spread the only thing '80s chart rival TIFFANY ever beat her to? "Yep. The only reason I wanted to do it was because she did it," Debs replied, laughing. Seriously, she said, "I was kind of ready to shake the trees a bit." Until they were almost bare. "This has been a year of people accidentally on purpose showing their boobs," added the singer. "It's annoying to me. I thought, 'I'm gonna really do it and own it and I'm gonna enjoy the ride.' " And so are a lot of men in trench coats.

Oh, one last reason for the leaf shedding: Gibson thinks Playboy is way fancier than its imitators. When she saw a TARA REIDMaxim cover, "I thought, 'Did someone take a snapshot of her in her bathroom and splash it on the cover?' There was nothing artistic about it."

Yes, the woman has taste. In fact, before she played Gypsy in New Jersey and even before she got notes from the creators of Beauty and the Beast saying her Belle was getting a little too sassy, she was a squeaky-clean advocate for vestal values. (I labeled her Satan at the time, but later decided she's a well-oiled pro.) Debbie admitted to me that in the early '90s, she even wrote a letter to the Times railing against MADONNA's Sex book. "I was the anti-Madonna," she said. "I was trying to single-handedly lead a crusade to protect young girls from the evils of sex. I'm glad I was like that because that audience needed that person. But now as an adult I have a whole other perspective. You lose the preachiness." And now—how poetic—Madonna's the one preaching!

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Doggy style

Moving on to a more dangerous liaison, I didn't think of bestiality at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden—much—but I did notice how attractive some of those pooches were in a done-to-the-nines, walking art piece sort of way. In fact, though the pets' owners were mainly blowsy women with feathered hair and appliquéd blouses, dragging along husbands with lisps, the dogs were beautifully groomed, gorgeously behaved, and almost, dare I say it, hot. Surely these creatures don't even crap—and if they do, it's got to be golden and scent free. Undoubtedly they're all gay or at least curious and full of both delicious repartee and versatile boudoir moves.

Anyway—calm down, bitch—the show's online coverage was hosted by GROMIT, the feature-film-bound Claymation dog from Wallace & Gromit who normally doesn't talk for any old thing, or in fact at all. The doughy little critter wasn't in his V.I.P. green room—I looked—but they did have gift bags, and as a result, you'll see me in the "Mrs. Gromit" shirt, advertised with "Tell the world you're Gromit's girl." That'll get my gerbil's goat.

A sort of Best in Show for the consonant crowd, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Second Stage Theatre is remarkably s-l-i-g-h-t, but it does often have you smiling and even l-e-a-r-n-i-n-g. Not only do you pick up new words, but there are tidy moral lessons for each contestant, like how your penis might get in the way of winning the prize, but it could eventually become your prize. C-h-u-g-a-l-u-g.

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LITTER BOX
Dis 'n' data

Too old?: Her Royal Highness photo: Tony Duran

Action hero update: VIN DIESEL's upcoming comedy The Pacifieris reportedly the pits, but THE ROCK is supposedly funny as a wacky gay bodyguard with a dream in Be Cool, opening the same day. Go figure. . . . I bet whoever's the biggest star cast in the upcoming Dreamgirls movie will get to sing Effie's showstopping number "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." If BEYONCÉ plays Deena, she'll no doubt seize it and make it "And I Am Telling You She's Not Going." In any case, I recently fantasized that QUEEN LATIFAH would make a great Effie (not based on her so-so Grammy appearance, but because of her SNL performance affectingly belting that song in a sketch). Alas, inside-production sources tell me she's too old for the role. That's better than "too fat"—or in this case "too thin"—but still, ouch. (PS: I hear Dreamgirls composer HENRY KRIEGER will co-write three new songs for the flick. Yay—more is more!)

Meanwhile, the Oscars are desperately trying to loosen up this year, and the producer is supposedly begging everyone for impromptu moments. What a joke. Whenever things have loosened up on the show (i.e., MICHAEL MOORE's speech), they generally get embarrassed and pump up the boos. They need to get Linda Simpson in charge and really turn up the ambience. . . . Speaking of downtown divas, DJ-drag performer GIRLINA is now just LINA, looks totally fierce, and is even closer to being a woman. Maybe she'll let me give her a legend award.

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musto@villagevoice.com