Angel Benton Dishes on "The X Show" Controversy

Angel Benton, the Nancy O'Dell of Japaneese television, world's most famous Britney Spears impersonator, fellow WeHo celebutante and gossip blogger, had the following scandalous say about my upcoming weekly event at RAGE in West Hollywood, The X Show, in his blog yesterday:

Yesterday I was off from both jobs (a rarity). Jason SECHREST called me and asked me if I would be willing to go to his house to watch the movie "Elvira's Haunted Hills" and then go with him and his webmistress to the drag show at Rage, where he would be promoting his new weekly show there. For those of you that live under a rock, after Jason was unceremoniously dumped by Micky's as host of their "Cocktails With The Stars" (and replaced with Cybersocket Magazine editor Scott Boardman) he vowed, a la Scarlett O'Hara, in quite the melodramatic fashion (that he is known for) that as long as there was breath in his body Micky's would live to regret the day that they let him go. Now the thing about Jason, and I love him to death, is that he has SO MUCH creative energy that it comes shooting out all over the place in many different directions. Because of this wealth of creativity, he often finds himself starting many different projects at once (anyone on his mailing list that receives all of his press releases knows what I am talking about), and I know they will all be accomplished eventually, but because of the sheer number of things that he is working on, it is difficult for him to accomplish those personal goals in a timely fashion. I'll be perfectly honest, I thought this new show would be one of those things. (I'm sure his detractors were banking on it too.) Well, I am here to tell you that was NOT the case this time. Revenge is one of the BEST motivators around (and one I am well familiar with, just ask Britney's publicist *wink*). The dust hadn't even settled when he marched right over to Rage (which is Micky's biggest competitor) and took a business meeting with the owners and pitched a "bigger and better show" than "Cocktails," that he had always wanted to do but apparently, as he has stated on Brent Corrigan's blog, Micky's is quite rigid in their format for the show and do not allow for much added creativity. Anyway, not only did Rage love the idea, they were genuinely EXCITED by it. In fact, they gave Jason his choice of when he wanted it to be, and in quite a mature fashion, he chose to NOT have it on Thursdays (so he wouldn't be in direct competition with "Cocktails") and NOT have it on Wednesdays (so he wouldn't be in direct competition with Chi Chi's club "Dirty Deeds"), but instead chose to have it on Tuesday nights as the lead in to the monstrously successful drag show "Dreamgirls" (not to be confused with the Broadway musical or upcoming film with Beyonce' that shares the same name). (BUT it is interesting that this same drag show was also poached from Micky's....) Like a dog with a bone, Jason singlemindedly stuck with this project until it fully came to fruition, and for that I am quite proud of him.

So that my friends, is the genesis behind Jason's new venture "The X Show" which will have an actual set and not only feature the requisite porn star guest, but will also feature one non-porn celebrity (or local celebutante). True porn fans in Los Angeles can get their fill of gay porn stars three nights a week starting in 2 weeks (there is room for everyone in this town).

... After the movie we pick up the webmistress and head on out to Rage. We were just expecting Jason to pop on stage and say a few words to get people to come. What we WEREN'T expecting was a HUGE picture of Jason, promoting "The X Show" on the jumbotron screens over the bar. They even had photos of the first week's guests (Mark Dalton and Bruce Vilanch). They went all out on the graphics and it showed. It was pretty hot. I saw club promoter Anthony "America's Most Wanted" Cortez and the fucking more-beautiful-every-time-I-see-him Dean Phoenix in the crowd.

Anyway, when showtime rolled around, after the first number, the head drag queen (Dolly Levi) called Jason onstage and Jason did a great job of hyping his show. Although, what was funny was that when Jason asked if the crowd knew who Mark Dalton was, maybe one or two people, IN THE PACKED NIGHTCLUB, applauded. But they sure did go fucking crazy when Jason asked if people knew who Perez Hilton was! He's a future guest, and just for the record, it was ME that put Jason and Perez in contact with each other, thank you very much.

Okay, so... my initial comment after reading this was: No comment. Personally, I think it's a cute story. It's sort of like the E! True Hollywood Story version of what went down; good for ratings and publicity, but a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. This is nothing new though. Everyone's had their own take on this. Will Clark stated in his column that I reportedly "begged" for my job back at Micky's. Um, I lived on the streets when I moved to L.A. because I couldn't bring myself to ask friends and family for help. Jason doesn't beg. He'd sooner eat out of trash cans. I wish I could beg. It would certainly add versatility to my sex life and I might take in some therapy to learn how. But as Judy always said to Liza, "That's my relationship with my audience and it's none of your business. Let them make of me what they want and you and me, we'll go get a hamburger."

However, I should state for the sake of other involved parties, it was not my intention, nor is it RAGE's, to do anything like any show I have ever hosted in the past. What happened at Micky's was a simple case of the old addage, "When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." I crawled through it and found myself on stage at RAGE. I think Angel is probably just as full of "theatrics" as he claims I can be. I certainly never vowed any kind of revenge or to bring any kind of wrath. I think those are always the wrong reasons to do something and will bring nothing but bad karma. My only intention in creating The X Show with RAGE is to bring the biggest and most bad ass porn-related happy hour show ever to the city I live and love. It's always got to be only about the work and the audience -- or the work and the audience suffers. And I really do mean all of that.

Now, that said... the rest is just gravy. ;-)

Visit Angel's blog for the full entry and more at: www.AngelBenton.com.