We already told you about the Atlantis cruise that was banned from Turkish ports – much to the ire of Miss Patti LuPone, who has never been one to go quietly into that good night.  Due to the scheduling snafu, the ship added stops in Cairo and Crete.  Alas, even that was not smooth sailing.  Cruisers woke up to this notice: “Early this morning, we were informed that Scarlet Lady has been denied entry into Egyptian waters, and, as a result will no longer be able to call into Alexandria today.  I know how much this visit meant to so many of you.  We successfully sailed a similar itinerary last year without issue.”  Our very own Todrick Hall was on board and was not amused – “We’re stranded in the middle of the ocean,” he said, as if he was on the Costa Concordia!  We’re told that the cruise continued to Crete, where I assume the Greeks were far more accommodating.

Parliament House in Orlando, Florida was a legendary complex known for accommodating gents of all ethnicities since 1975.  Like many other things, Parliament was a casualty of Covid and shuttered in November of 2020.  Since then, there have been numerous announcements of a new location, a grand reopening, a new chapter.  This is another one of those stories.  The new Parliament House will allegedly open at 29 South Orange Avenue in Orlando – less than two miles away from the classic location on Orange Blossom Trail.  This venue was formerly a comedy club, and while many things happened at the original location, laughter was rarely one of them (except when my play Hollywood Uncovered ran there in 2002).  More details are slated to be announced “soon” – a date I don’t have on my calendar.  But we do know that the new location will not be a hotel/resort – it will simply be a nightclub.  The owners cited the Pulse Nightclub massacre and said, “We’re going to make it very special again and give them, hopefully, what the community wants and makes them feel safe again.”.

Sometimes things come back.  And then there’s the DataLounge – a somewhat notorious gossip website that started about a year after I began writing this column (things that make you go hmm).  It’s been so many years since I’ve heard anyone mention it, I just assumed it went the way of the Big Wheel and Perez Hilton.  So color me Barbra when the site announced an imminent closing next month.  This inevitably brings up that philosophical question – if a website nobody goes to suddenly shuts down, has anything actually even happened?