Saturday, August 21, 2004

ORIGINAL POST: Saturday, August 26, 1078

Went over to the Plaza to interview Shaun Cassidy. The interview was terrible because he's got to keep it really clean because his fans are young. He has dark circles under his eyes so we think he has a secret life. he's very tall. He gave us stock answers. We kept asking him how it felt to be an idol with thousands of girls screaming, and he was insisting that it din't change you, and then we walked through the lobby, through the screaming girls, and he changed. he was so different. The limo came and he had a whole different personality.

We went downtown because he was going to be photographed for Interview by Barry McKinley. Shaun just turns into something else when he's being photographed, something just happens to him, he just falls in love with himself. And Barry has a different style of saying things when he's photographing--instead of saying things like Scavullo and those people say, like, "Marvelous, marvelous," Barry says, "Give it to me, motherfucker. Push it out. Push out all you can." "What kind of drug are you on, motherfucker?" it was so unbelieveable that I went and taped it.

Later at Madison Square Garden in Shaun's dressing room there was a beautiful girl there, his girlfriend and he had on stretch pants with his cock showing, and he brought the band in to give them a lecture on when to go slow and how to turn on the thirteen-year-olds. It was funny.

When we went out to our seats Shaun's mother Shirley Jones was there and I bent over to say hello where she was sitting and she looked scared, but then I said, "I'm Andy Warhol" and she grabbed my hand and was sweet and she introduced me to her husband Marty Ingels. Then Shaun came on. He jumped through a hoop like a lion and the girls went crazy. They took me on stage and it was the first time I was ever on stage at the Garden. Smart little girls were screamng "Andy." And he does sexy things with the microphone, he puts it between his legs and he touches his cock a little, and he's like a Mick Jagger for the young ladies.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, August 2, 1978--New York--Washington, D.C.

Lfe really does repeat itself. The old songs come back in a new way and the kids think they're new and the old people remember and it's a way of keeping people together, I guess, a way of living.

We got the Washington shuttle, after getting magazines and newspapers ($3). The shuttle was packed, it always is. Paid for Fred's and my ticket ($81). Then got a cab to the Madison Hotel ($6.50), checked the baggage ($3). Cab to the Mondales' ($4). Everything is so expensive. It started me noticing inflation for the first time, because everything on the menu at the hotel was actually double. A minute steak that used to be $7.50 is $15.00 now. And all your life you're taught--you're brought up on money, on pennies and dollars, and the inflation used to come in pennies, but now a dollars is like a penny, things go up in dollars.

Washington was hot and sticky. Joan and Fritz Mondale didn't have any real big artists. Just Helen Frankenthaler and me. And the reason I was included was because they had the Southwest collection and my Blue Flowers was in Mrs. de Menil's gift.

They live in the same house the Rockefellers had when they were vice-presidents, but of course their Max Ernst bed is gone from the place now.

Joan put me on her left and an Indian guy on her right. And then Joan was a little drunk, I think, and she started being very sad and saying, "Well, this is probably the last time we'll see each other because you're a famous artist and you're going to be around for a long time, but they just took a poll in New Jersey and we're the lowest we've ever been, we're lower than Nixon right before they got him out, adn we're slipping fast" I told her that things would pick up.

Then we saw the treasury guy over in a corner and I said to Joan that he should make dollar bills that have braille for the blind newsdealers like they do in Switzerland and she said that was a wonderful idea, that I should tell him, but then she got to him first and told him herself. The dinner was so bad. What ruined food in America? Was it those magazines like Good Housekeeping and Family Circle and McCalls? They could have great simple steak-and-potatoes dinners and instead they have these fancy concoctions. Like veal with tuna sauce on top of it and capers. It was a "tended affair," and that always costs so much, every time you put up a tent. And they had every kind of hard liquor, which you don't get now at the White House. Then around 10:00 Helen Frankenthaler slipped a note over asking us if we wanted to leave.

Then we had to go back to the hotel, and I'd been telling Fred how horrible Helen Frankenthaler was, how awful she was to me last weekend, and then suddenly she was changed. She said, "I've been so awful lately, I don't know what's wrong. I'm really going to be nice tonight." And then she was! Isn't it amazing how a person can just change like "that" because she decided to?"

And we had drinks with her in the hotel. Fred was bored with her but he paid for the drinks anyway. She was talking about her maid wanting $300 for four days' work, she's live-in. She probably just wants to leave Helen. Helen has three or four people working for her, she said. And she hated the wine, although Fred didn't see anything wrong with it.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, July 17, 1978

I had to think about what drag to go in to Halston's party later on, so I sent Robyn out for a wig and he came back with the perfect one--a grey Dolly Parton ($20.51), and I put it on and wore the dress I'd once designed for a Rizzoli art fashion show that was parts of six different designers' dresses all sewn together. Went over to Halston's. The first person we saw was Stevie who was dressed like Liza--he thought--in red sequins, and he looked awful. All of the waiters who look so good in Studio 54 just looked like tramps at Halston's. Stevie kept pulling out his cock from under his dress and I was surprised, it was big. Barbara Allen was the best, she came as a man in a jockstrap. With a jacket and a mustache. Stevie's boa caught on fire and he would have disintegrated if some fairy hadn't put it out. Halston in drag looked like Diane de Beauvau. I guess now it's easy to see why he liked her so much, that's the look he likes, sort of fat faced and chubby.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Sunday, July 16, 1978

Barbara Allen called me in the morning to go out to Forest Hills to the Tennis matches. Richard Weisman had to go out early because of something to do with ABC television. I was going to go but when I saw how foggy and grey it was I decided I'd watch it on TV and get some work done at home. But I went to church, then came home and watched the matches on TV. It was Nastase vs. Vitas Gerulaitis. I was for Vitas and he did win.

Then Barbara and Bob called and said that Vitas was having a dinner for everyone out at the River Café in Brooklyn, on the barge, and they talked me into going. They said they were coming to pick me up. At 10:00 they did. Barbara was showing us the ring Nastase gave her. Then Nastase came in with a beautiful girl, a model, and Barbara went upstairs and cried. And then Richard Weisman was saying how silly Barbara was to be upset when she knew Nastase was married with kids and everything anyway. Truman said he had a really rich guy for Barbara and that she'd have three planes and all the money in the world and a house in Mexico, and that chreered her up.

We were there until 2:00. Vitas paid. He said he'd just been in London and while he was in a club talking to Ringo Starr, Stevie Rubbell kept pulling on his arm and saying, "Come on, Vitas, we have to go, Bianca want to leave," and Ringo said "Who's the little midget you're taking order from now?" Vitas said Stevie's really insecure when he's not in his own club. And Stevie doesn't know Europe at all--he still thinkingg Gianni Agnelli's name is "Johnny Antonelli," that's what he always calls him. Once he said, "Johnny Antonelli," that's what he always calls him. Once he said, "Johnny Antonelli, he's the one who really own Fiat--not all those Rattazzi kids."

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, July 7, 1978

Went over to meet Truman at U.N. Plaza at 11:00 (cab $3). He came down in the elevator. I had the tape on. He was talking about Babe Paley, she just died and he was upset, he'd been calling around trying to get lilies of the valley for her. He said he hated Bill Paley for being mean to her or something.

We walked into the gym and people were looking at us, we looked peculiar. Then we went into the room for Tony to massage him and Truman took off his clothes and I took pictures. He's fat but he's losing weight. On the way over, his pants were falling down, like a loose diaper--you could see the crack in his ass.

Then after lunch Truman took Bob MacBride, who was with us by then, and me to his psychiatrist. Truman had told him that I was going to be taping so there was Truman on the couch, and he was talking about his father and his mother and his stepfather and how his father took his money and all that crap and the psychiatrist was saying all the things that they say in the movies--"Now let's get back to that dream you had." And Truman got up and looked out the window and then at us, and he had tears in his eyes, he was sort of crying, and then when he was finished he bounced up and said, "Wasn't that wonderful acting?"

Then they were going home for "a little nap" and I finally realized that "a little nap" must mean sex with Bob--they must do it every afternoon and I guess I've been interfering--but I think Bob likes it better that I am, it gives him an excuse not to.

So we went back to U.N. Plaza. I was outside the door trying to tape Truman in the bathroom pissing, but he closed the door.

Then Bob said it was time for dinner. Truman does really eat only one meal a day, though, I've watched him.

Before we left Truman had a stiff Vodka. Then we went over to the restaurant across the street called Antolotti's. Bob fell asleep at the table and Truman told him to go home.

Truman told me that his fantasy is to make it with the psychiatrist, that that would get their relationship to a "new level"--that then he would be "in power." I was going to ask him didn't he think it was so old-fashioned to be thinking that way, but I didn't, I'll save that for another session.

He told me that he blew John Huston forty times and then he told me about Humphrey Bogart. He said that Bogart was "really scared" of him and that one night he carried Bogart up to bed, and tucked him in and said to him, "You've got to let me do it, Humphrey." And he said Bogart was really nervous and said, "Okay but don't put it in the mouth." So then Truman said to him, "Listen, Humphrey, we went to the same school, Trinity, and I know you must have done it there." but I don't think they did both go to Trinity. Truman makes up so much. then later, Truman said, they became best friends and he said once they were staying together at somebody like David Selznick's house, and Bogart jumped into bed with a hard-on. But Truman said he told him it was just to early in the morning.

Oh, and he said that John O'Shea stole the whole Answered Prayers novel, that that's why it wasn't done, but I think he's making that up too.

And he says he doesn't want to live in the present because his book ends in 1965 and he's tryingt to finish it. But when could he work?

Oh. And what get him really upset and nervous is anything anal. If I ask him about fist-fucking he get so upset. He says he doesn't want to talk about it.

But I mean, how could anybody make it with Truman? God, I mean I could never do it with Truman. God... (dinner $52.15)

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, June 29, 1978

Had a date to have lunch with Truman and his boyfriend Bob MacBride to discuss Interview. Cabbed tto La Petite Marmite which is on 49th in the Beekman Towers ($4). Truman said he's starting to be normal again and when I believed him he told me I was "too naive."

Truman was throwing his hands all over the place. I taped, and we dished the whole lunch.

He said that after lunch he was going to his analyst and I asked why someone like him would go to an analyst and he said because it was an old friend and he didn't want to hurt his feelings by not going.

Truman is so silly-looking, open-toe shoes and no sweater, and he said he just decided that he's going to start wearing anything. He said that Issey Miyake sent him a coat and he just threw it on immediately--he was written up in the papers when he wore it to Studio 54 with a white hat. We had lots of drinks and it was fun, and then it got down to what Truman had invited me for. Bob MacBride who he always said was a writer but who we could never figure out what he did is now doing sculpture. He's left his wife and kids.

We went back to Truman's place in U.N. Plaza. He's redecorated, but the bulldog's torn off the buttons and the fringes from the furniture. And Bob MacBride brought out his--toys. His art. It was little cut-outs, like you make in kindergarten. You know? Like circles, and then you paste another circle over it, and you make hexagons and things. That's what he does. And they wanted me to help him get a gallery. I said he'd just missed Leo Castelli, that he just went out of town, but that when he got back we'd make a lunch for Leo and him, and Leo will think that's fun--lunch with Truman Capote.

I told Truman I would tape him and we could write a Play-a-Day, he could act out all the parts himself. He could really do it--play his grandmother and everything.

He gave me all the dirt, we dished Lee and Jackie. Lee's got a new really rich boyfriend in San Francisco, that's why she's spending time there.

Truman said the Ladies' Home Journal offered him $10,000.00 to review a movie but they wouldn't tell him which one it would be, and then he found out it was The Greek Tycoon so he turned it down. I think Truman likes me because I like everything he doesn't. He's so nuts, you're embarrassed sitting there with him. And he's always talking about how he's getting a hundred thousand for this and a million for that, but who knows.

He was thrilled, he said with hi Tom Snyder show a couple of months ago, thought it was really one of his best. I don't know why he doesn't go on The Gong Show.

Home to glue. Then picked up Catherine and went to Doubles to get the bust to see Lucie Arnaz opening in Annie Get Your Gun at the Westbury Music Fair. Barry Landau was in charge, and I think he invited all the people in his apartment building. I really think he did. People were going in for drinks and Gary Morton couldn't get in because he didn't have a tie. The doorman was so dumb, I told him, "Don't you know that's Mr. Lucy?" Lucille Ball look so old but she has a beautiful body, and she really was a beauty.

On the ride out, Bill Boggs did some announcing, and then Gary Morton did some announcing, like, "Here we go by a garbage can," things like that, and finally after an hour and a half we arrived. The place looked empty, but then when they saw Lucy, every old lady in pantsuits came swarming. God, why do Americans dress so bad? Do they want to look unattractive so they won't get raped, or what? When did it start?

But Lucie Arnaz was good, and I just love Harve Presnell, he's the one I always really loved. He's 6'5" and Tammy Grimes had an affair with him. The show was really long, I don't know why.

Oh, a woman came up and asked for my autorgraph and she said, "I'm Gloria DeHaven," and I looked at her and it was. So I think maybe there were a lot of old stars that you just couldn't tell. A kid was throwing up, and it was funny because we all just stood there and watched him.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, June 20, 1978--London

The phone operators at the Dorchester were so great, very sharp. One said, "There's a fake Mrs. Jagger on the line. Do you want to talk to her?" I said, "Okay," but when I said hello the girl hung up. The operators screen every call and they know where you are every minute, they don't have to look it up. I mean, if the whole world were British it would run so great. London this time was so much fun, better than New York in the sixties. But all the great people only were there for these two weeks of the events, so...

At lunch we were teasing Bianca that it had somehow made it into the newspaper that Fred was trying to sell her autograph on the King's Road and that nobody had wanted it, and she believed us and got upset all over again.

Nicky Haslam gave us a memorable party, really paid us back for entertaining him in New York. It was a Pat Harmsworth's on Eaton Square. Her husband owns Esquire and Soho News and the Evening Standard. The English girls are so beautiful, I don't know how the English made so many aristocratic-looking people. Had a good time talking diet to Clarissa Baring and talked to a guy who said he invented the waterbed, but that now everybody's copied it so he's on to a floating cloud bed. The Gilmans were in town because of Ascot, and Sondra was talking about "meeting Elizabeth." I talked to the widow of Laurence Harvey. Jimmy Connors was cute, going around asking every girl if she wanted to go home with him and fuck. Fred keeps on being so peculiar--trying to kiss me and crawl in bed with me, so goony.

We went over to Nona Gordon Summers's party on Glebe Place. She bought a row of houses behind some other houses and turned it into one big one with a one-way glass roof. I never used to like her, but I do now. She's elegant and nice. Her party was for Bob Dylan, and Bianca was raving about him and how he's after her. He had his bus parked outside. Nona told him he should buy a painting of mine and he came right out and said he'd already had one--the Silver Elvis I gave him and that he'd traded it for a sofa. So what Robbie Robertson told me a few week ago was true. And then Dylan said that if I ever gave him another one, he'd never do it again. He kept introducing me to the girls around him--really beautiful, dykey girls who were lying all over Nona's floor. Like Ronee Blakley types. It was sort of like Arabian Nights because that's the kind of house Nona's is. Later on, Bianca was complaining that Dylan had wanted to take her in the bus, and how insulted she was that he hadn't gotten a limo for her.