Saturday, December 25, 2004

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Monday, November 12, 1979

Halston had invited me to dinner but then Catherine called and said that Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager wanted to take us to Pearl's first. So I went there. Steve told me that Liza's pregnant and she's going to get married but that it was a big secret. We should have let Steve order because he gets cranky. We ordered while he was in the bathroom, and then nobody ate anything. Catherine had a slice of pork, she's got into the car to Halston's. Halston had dinner ready. He took me aside and told me that Liza was pregnant but not to tell anyone, that it was a big secret. Catherine was trying to make out with Ian. And she was drunk, asking Steve again how much he really stole.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, November 1, 1979

Cabbed downtown to Ronnie's art opening ($3). I talked to Larry Rivers. His article on the fifties is on the cover of New York. All the sixties regulars were there, like René Ricard who doesn't say anything, he just runs around saying things. And Roger Trudeau who said he was an interior decorator now. Then Fred and I had to go to the German embassy dinner for Beuys.

At dinner I sat with a German girl who'd accosted me on the street earlier for an autograph, so that was funny. We got there a little late and we missed the speech. The said it'd been about excrement, and how Beuys uses it so well.

We were in the papers for the Bobby Zarem thing, a lot of little mentions in Jack Martin and Liz Smith and "Suzy."

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Wednesday, October 31, 1979

Bobby Zarem was having a lunch for the photo book--Bob and I ended up calling it exposures--at 1:00 at Maxwell's Plum. So I stayed uptown in the morning and then met Elizinha Goncalves and Bob at the Mayfair House and we walked over to Maxwell's Plum and when we were half a block away Bobby Zarem ran toward us and screamed that we were late and how dare we and that people were going to leave. But it was actually good timing that we got there late, because people were waiting to see us. It was crowded, we had to work our way in. Karen Lerner was there filming for the segment she's doing on me for 20/20. She attached an invisible mike to me so I had to remember to watch what I said. It was a press party and it was basically everybody Bobby wanted to pay back for favors, I guess.

They had a bit AW initials in ice, three feet high, but it was melting. I didn't eat anything. Everybody got a free book, at least 100 were given out. The waiters stole lots of books and then asked me to autograph them in the kitchen, but I didn't mind because they were nice.

Catherine was asking Steve Rubell personal questions, like, "You mean you actually did take all that money?" but he didn't seem to care. Now he's saying he made a deal with the IRS where he'll be going to jail for two days a week doing community service--teaching people how to make discotheques on army bases for the soldiers. What a brilliant idea. Next they'll teach them how to be fairies and take drugs, right?

Later we went over in a cab to Studio 54. Halloween was so big this year, people were really dressed up in the cars, outfits with lights blinking. At Studio 54 the place was done up just great. You walked in and there were ten doors on each side and you had to go through each one, and there were mice in plastic running under your feet. And another room had a hole and you looked in and there were eight midgets having dinner and you could talk to them. They were eating chicken bones. And then in the next room there were all these rubber gloves and some were real hands. It was better than an art opening, better than a gallery show. There were some other rooms I didn't go into. It was all great. Jammed, wall-to-wall people, beautiful, I don't know where they came from.

And Esme the top model was there with Allen Finkelstein, but I wouldn't have recognized them if Tommy Pashun the florist hadn't told me, because they were dressed as Hasidic Jews, and they said that they were so amazed, that everyone was being so mean to them. A makeup guy at one of the Broadway plays had made them up. Dropped Catherine at 3:00 (cab $3.50).

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Sunday, October 14, 1979

I went to church and it was pretty out. Then met Bob at about 5:00 to go to see the Dalai Lama at St. John the Divine Cathedral on 112th Street and Broadway. We picked up Fred up and went uptown (cab $6). The Dalai Lama gave his speech, it was so boring, he had an interpreter but I don't know why because later he talked English very well. He was wearing an orange and red dress. Then there was a party in the back and everyone was standing aroudn shaking hands. Bob said he wasn't impressed with the Dalai Lama because he wasn't as good as the pope.

Then we left, got a cab, dropped off Bob off, and we went to meet Richard Weisman and Catherine at Madison Square where they were going to retire Rod Gilbert's number 7 (cab $7). Catherine has to go to the hospital to have the nerve in one of her hands retied because she still can't feel it. Her mother's coming to town and Catherine hopes she won't notice anything. Only her brothers Valentine and Jasper know what happened.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday October 12, 1979

It was raining, another awful day. Michael Zivian called in the morning and asked me to come up and sign some of my Spacefruits, so I walked up Madison to his place.

Henry Post called and I talked to him, but I was afraid he was taping me, so I didn't say anything. He'd sent me an article he wrote on Quaaludes for New York. He's still out to get Steve Rubell.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, October 11, 1979

Got up and it was raining, cold again. Somebody ran into Truman in New Orleans, so evidently he didn't go to Nebraska. Maybe he just needed some money--he asked us for $6,000 to go to Nebraska to do as story for Interview and we gave it to him.

I worked all afternoon in the back.

Fred was in one of those moods, mussing people's hair up, and he invited Vurley to go to the Larry Rivers show at Marlborough with us.

Larry's show is like a retrospective of all his work. It's funny, it's like he ran out of ideas and decided to repaint everything. In the elevator I ran into the Greek woman whose portrait I just did, but I didn't recognize her. And I also ran into Rupert who said my Gem screens came out okay. At the opening a guy said, "I'm Larry's brother-in-law and I own the building your office is in," and he said that he'd just rented the ground floor to a discotheque but that we shouldn't worry, that it wouldn't interfere with us because it wouldn't be going on during our business hours. i told him thanks a lot. So, I mean, isn't great? The Mafia discotheque fires will only burn the place to the ground after office hours. Isn't that wonderful, a discotheque for a neighbor.

Then I went to dinner at the Gilmans' where I met a lawyer who's in New York to go to tax-shelter school.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, October 9, 1979

Went to Union Square at 12:45 to meet the Newhouses, the mother and son, Si and Mitzi. they brought pictures of the husband who just died, but they weren't right so they're going to send down some more for a portrait. She might want her portrait done, too. Nobody was around, so Victor served. She's a short little woman, she's eighty -two years old. I asked the son about self magazine--he said they survey everything by computer every month, that's how they know what's happening.

Had to go to Richard Weisman's party for Governor Brown that Catherine had arranged. Curley was with me, Fred had invited him. Bad traffic, Castro's in town (cab $3.50). Bo Polk was there, and he invited me to a George Bush party. Then Pat Hickey the hockey player arrived with his girlfriend and he looked like the Tareyton ad, his eye was all black. Governor Brown came and he gave a speech and I taped it and afterwards he asked what I taped it for and all the kids told him, "For nothing--he just throws the tapes in a box." he didn't say much, but when you give speeches all the time, what's left to talk about?

Stephanie was back with Bo Polk, Stephanie McLuhan, but I noticed she made a beeline for the governor when he arrived and kissed him, although she didn't know him. and then after the speech she got up and asked an involved question, I guess to show she was intelligent, but she was stupid and he was stupid. He came around afterwards to shake my hand and get my vote, he said something referring to the art thing, I guess--the legislation that would make artists get royalties or something when their paintings are resold--but it didn't make sense to me. Diane Von Furstenberg told him he'd gotten too skinny, that he'd lost his "love handles" and that she'd like them. I wanted somebody to ask, "Is Jerry a fairy?" and Diane said no, that he wasn't, that Jerry's no fairy. Judith Hollander and Jed were there, they came by on their way to Tom Cashin's birthday party at "21." I just wanted to go home but Catherine wanted me to go to Elaine's with Rod and Judy gilbert and Pat Hickey and his girlfriend.

Elaine was sitting at a table with five girls and one I think was Candy Bergen because later people said that it was but it didn't look like her and I looked at her and she looked at me and we didn't say anything. If it was her, she looks older. Pat Hickey took his girlfriend home and then came back because Catherine had been flirting with him all evening. Richard was trying to get me to drink Tequila, and about 2 :00 I left (cab #3).