Saturday, August 27, 2005

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Sunday, November 13, 1983

I've been trying to get Keith Haring and Thomas Ammann together for a dinner because Thomas wants to have it, and so I called Keith and he was just getting up, he and Juan had been to the Paradise Garage until 8 A.M. and they'd slept all day.

At 9:00 Thomas picked me up and he said Richard Gere and Silvinha would meet us at VanDam, so we went down there and it was empty on Sunday night. Had broiled fish but didn't eat it. Richard was wearing a little hat and a mustache, and that's his look from The Cotton Club. And he was screaming about newspapers never getting things right, he was grand. he said he only came because he wanted to meet Keith Haring. He's buying art. He told me how he threw a Come painting of mine into the fireplace. What happened was I'd given Jean Michel a Come painting and he had it with him when he and Richard got drunk together, and Jean Michel didn't have anything to write his phone number on for Richard Gere except this painting of mine, so he wrote it on that and gave the painting to Richard. Then when Richard woke up the next morning he said he saw it and thought it was disgusting and threw it into the fire. I told him it was my come but actually it was Victor's. And Richard said that if he had all the money he wanted, he'd buy all the paintings of Balthus, who does the little girls smiling like after sex. They cost over a million now.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, October 18, 1983

Jean Michel came by and I slapped him in the face. (laughs) I'm not kidding. Kind of hard. It shook him up a little. I told him, "How dare you dump us in Milan!" Benjamin put me up to it.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, October 6, 1983--Milan

Did five or ten interviews this day, they kept coming in one at a time. Went out to lunch at some great restaurant. Really good food, people looked so beautiful, think we did a lot of Interview advertising work. Had a big dinner at some new disco place with all the beautiful models.

Got home. Jean Michel came by and said he was depressed and was going to kill himself and I laughed and said it was just because he hadn't slept for four days, and then after a while of that he went back to his room.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, September 28, 1983

Bianca called and asked me to the lunch at Da Silvano that she was having for the Nicaraguan Sandinista cultural minister. A girl. There was an American guy who was like de Antonio, being Communist--Peter Davis, he did a movie called Hearts and Minds. And Clemente the Italian artist was there, and gee, I like him a lot--he's picked up the American attitude. He understands American humor, which is so strange, because you don't understand how a person from another country can pick it up. He doesn't say much, he just sits and eats and watches. Bianca's trying to get him to do a free mural for he apartment. She's buttering up all the artists.

And this other guy at the lunch had been a political prisoner somewhere in South America I think, and now he works for Mitterand.

It turned into a five-hour lunch. The Nicaraguan cultural minister girl didn't get there until late. She's almost as pretty as Bianca. And she says, "Oh, yes, people think we don't have art in a revolution but even as the bombs are falling and the bullets are flying, people are still making art. We have dancers and painters and photographers, and we're becoming unionized..." I mean... and then she was saying how the true revolution is really winning out, that "the people are having their day." And I don't know, it was all so abstract, but then being at that big Heinz party the other night with all those rich Republicans I got a creepy feeling there, too. It's like people when they have the power, they don't want anyone else to ever get it. It's like women trying to keep their husbands away from seeing what young girls look like. But I guess that's not only the rich.

Anyway, they're saying they want us to come down to Nicaragua and, and I don't know, support their art cause. And Clemente is saying, "Oh, yeah, sure, and lose the green card I went through so much to get." And then when we were finally done, the rebel girl got into her limousine, and the Socialist who works for Mitterrand got into his limousine, and we went down to Clemente's loft, which is right next to Tower Records, and his loft is just beautiful. It's really an artist's loft, big paintings all over. He produces a lot. So many paintings. And the Mitterrand guy was awful, he walked on one of them that was on the floor and pretended he thought it was a rug, but I just know he knew it was a painting.

Then they wanted to see my "studio" so we went to the office, and there was just nothing there. The contrast was so--evident. We've gotten so involved with fashion that we don't know about all these other things like wars and governments anymore. I didn't have any art to show them. They wanted to see movies, but I didn't have any movies, either.

So finally they all left. I worked till 7:30 and Cornelia called and asked where I was because she was ready, and I had a black tie down there, so I just stuck it on and went to the Waldorf Towers. I asked her to be downstairs since we were late, but she said, "I don't want to wait downstairs like a prostitute." So when I got there the doorman was so dumb, after fifteen minutes of me stting in the cab he came out and said there was no Mr. Warhol staying there. So I did it myself, rang Cornelia's room and she came down in a red dress looking like a hooker. But beautiful. She's put on a little weight. Oh, and I saw Mrs. Douglas MacArthur while I was waiting and she was great. She's eighty-four or something and still has all her marbles. And me, I can barely walk. So then Cornelia came and we wnet to the Pierre (cab $8) to this fashion show for charity that Joanne Winship organized.

Oh, and at lunch I brought up the Liz Smith items about Calvin and his model Kelly to Bianca, saying the papers said they were such a hot item, and Bianca said, "Ha-ha! Waht a joke! " So that's her position.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, September 13, 1983

Jean Michel came over, he was drugged-out and excited, he brought a painting he wanted to show me. He told me a story about how he'd wanted to buy a pack of cigarrettes so he did a drawing and sold it for $.75 and then a week later his gallery called up and said they had this drawing of his there and should they buy it for $1,000. Jean Michel thought it was funny. It is. And he was on his way upstairs to see if anybody would buy a painting of his for $2. I mean, because now his paintings go for $15,000.00 and so he wanted to see if anybody would give him $2 for one. Lidija was there, did a workout. Oh, and the girl Jean Michel took around the world and left in London arrived in New York and wanted a ticket back to California.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, August 29, 1983

I just stepped in dog shit. In my hall. And I'm usually wearing slippers but this time I wasn't And usually you can smell it a mile away, but it just didn't smell, so I just finished cleaning it up. And I'm all fleabitten. when you know there's fleas, you keep feeling them all the time whether they're there or not. so I just took a shower to get the shit off my foot and now I'm thinking what disease I can pick up from this whole episode.

Jean Michel and I went over to Yanna's, and we had our nails done. And you know, my nails are getting better. The two of us would make a good story for Vogue (pedicures $30).

Victor came by with his brother who's so good-looking. And Victor says his brother's cock is so big he used to hit the table with it at breakfast. I guess they were naked at breakfast, you know these South Americans. It takes years to get nervous and live in an uptight situation like civilzation. but Victor's actually made out better than his brother--his brother still has to work.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, August 25, 1983

I will never forgive Rupert for taking me to La Cage aux Folles on "Gay Night." I didn't know it until we got there and it was nothing but faggots and lesbians. And I thought that for $40 tickets we'd be in the orchestra, but we were way up in the balcony because it was a benefit so the tickets downstairs were over $100 or something. And these gays, you know, they refuse Interviews and always pretend they don't know who you are, and they they go home and dish you. These two dykes came over and said hello, and I asked them what this event was all about, and they said it was for the "Islanders," and I said, "The Islanders hockey team needs a gay benefit?" and they laughed and said oh ha-ha no. And then Rupert nudged me that they were talking about Fire Island. They said, "How'd you wind up here in the balcony?" And I pointed at Rupert and said, "Because this creep brought me." Anyway the play was so boring that I fell asleep a couple of times. But this audience, this audience. I mean, they just jumped up and laughed and applauded every single gay line--I mean anytime anybody referred to anything, they clapped. And everyone had a mustache, eight out of ten people there. Finally it ended and we got out of there. The two dykes asked me (laughs) "Are you going to the Cracker-jacks? To the party?"

But all that was at night. In the morning Benjamin arrived and I wasn't ready. Didn't have enough Interviews to take around, just had a couple. As we were walking on Madison between 66th and 67th, Raquel Welch came bouncing out of a shop. she had on dark sunglasses so you almost didn't recognize her. She said she was looking for a Napoleon bed. I gave her Dr. Karen's card for collagen. Fred like the way my treatment looks and he's going to get it done.

We were on Page Six because of our interview with Georgia O'keefe where she called Philip Johnson a minor architect, and we left it in whre I was saying that he's not now, and she was saying that he was then, and so since she can't see now, she didn't know. So I'm bracing myself for a call from David Whitney.

Fred says he's not going to drink, that the other night was just too much.

Got home and there was a note that Ara Gallant called. So I called him back and he said that Debra Winger and the governor of Nebraska were over there, and he invited me over, but it was so late that I didn't want to go back out.

Talked to Jon in L.A.