Category Archives: Dazzler of the Day

Fresh off a riotous appearance on Ari Melber’s show, Matt Friend is crowned Dazzler of the Day thanks to a prolific roster of spot-on hilarious impersonations of celebrities and politicians (or both when they so disastrously meet). He’s made a notable name for himself on Tik Tok, and appears poised on the brink of breaking through just about everywhere else. Check out his website here, and the brief bio culled from there below.

Matthew Friend is an old soul living inside a 23-year-old impressionist’s body. Matthew graduated from NYU’s Gallatin School in 2020, but his love of comedy and entertainment was sparked when he was four years old. He had watched Austin Powers (yes, as a four-year-old) and started mimicking the characters’ voices—and the rest was history. To date, Matthew has almost 350K followers on TikTok. He has appeared on the Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, NBC’s New York Live TV, Good Day LA, Good Day NY, and WGN. In 2019, Matthew won Kenan Thompson’s Ultimate Comedy Experience at Carolines on Broadway. His professional experience includes hosting HQ Trivia, performing at corporate events, and doing stand-up comedy throughout the country. Matthew’s repertoire includes more than 250 impressions ranging from Rami Malek to Timothee Chalamet. His favorite to do right now is Jennifer Coolidge.

Matthew’s love of comedy and entertainment began when he was four years old after he discovered the Austin Powers DVD in his house. watched it so much that he began to mimic the characters’ gestures and words. “Do I make you randy?” echoed through his head every day. Matthew quickly found that he was able to make people laugh just by reproducing someone else’s persona. He spent countless hours in his room, scrolling through YouTube, digging up Johnny Carson, Don Rickles, Frank Sinatra, and Rich Little clips.

A propensity for quoting rap and hip-hop songs and lyrics is not often found in mainstream news anchors, but Ari Melber is brilliantly bucking that trend on his ever-entertaining show ‘The Beat with Ari Melber’. In today’s political world, where the news is more depressing and dismal and hopeless with each passing day of non-indictments, Melber provides a healthy dose of humor along with intelligent and helpful analysis of political proceedings from a legal standpoint. He can loop an obscure deep-cut lyrical excerpt into a conversation on a deadly insurrection and somehow make it all work. Melber earns this Dazzler of the Day thanks largely to making political news something as necessary as it is entertaining. Check out his site here for all his current appearances. 

{See also Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace.}

If you were going to make a splash of an entry into pop culture, there was no better place to do so than in the firmament of stars conjured in Madonna’s 1991 documentary ‘Truth or Dare’. and appearing in her enduring dance classic ‘Vogue’. That is precisely where most of the world got to meet dancer and choreographer Kevin Stea, the Dazzler of the Day. Without offense to any of the other dancers featured in ‘Truth or Dare’, Kevin definitely came off as one of the sweetest ones, ready with a smile or laugh, and largely staying away from the occasionally catty drama. That core of professionalism paved the way for a remarkably lasting career in a realm where careers flare brilliantly but extremely briefly. Check out Stea’s website here to catch what he’s been up to all these years after working with Madonna. 

With a Twitter feed that’s absolutely on-fire of late (and not in an embarrassing Santos sort of way), Ritchie Torres is precisely the kind of fighter our country needs right now in the House of Representatives. Representing the South Bronx, Torres has been a champion for his constituents, and anyone else who has been dealing with inequity. Witness his long list of accomplishments at his official government site here. Thanks to his no-nonsense way of addressing the awfulness that is the current GOP, he earns this Dazzler of the Day. 

He just joined Richard Linklater’s 20-year production of ‘Merrily We Roll Along’, and with that added bit of sparkle, Paul Mescal earns his first crowning as Dazzler of the Day. Having compiled an impressive roster of stage performances in his native Ireland, Mescal has been garnering critical praise for his dramatic work in films such as ‘The Lost Daughter’, ”Aftersun’ and ‘God’s Creatures’. And so he rolls merrily along… 

Could Jeremy Pope be a future member of the EGOT club? My money’s on yes, as he has been nabbing nominations right and left, including one for his recent Golden Globes win. Having been nominated for Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards, he’s well on his way to EGOT status – an upcoming turn in the film version of ‘The Collaboration’ in which he plays Jean-Michel Basquiat. Today he can add Dazzler of the Day to that impressive resume. 

Without a Speaker for a week, the House of Representative had only one gavel-wielding person in charge of keeping some sort of order over all the clowns (and adults) in the room: the Honorable Cheryl L. Johnson, who mightily earns her first Dazzler of the Day thanks to grace under great pressure. Johnson was recently sworn in once again as the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and she will likely need that grace in the days to come.