Saturday, May 07, 2005

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, March 6, 1980

Lunch was for Richard Gere and his girlfriend Silvinha, who's in this issue of Interview. Fred invited a couple of Swedish people, and Chrissy Berlin and Byron the pool player who's somebody Zoli fell in love with, but he doesn't want to be a model--he plays pool and thinks modeling is too frothy. He knows everything, like that at British Airways on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Park Avenue, you just sign in and there's free shrimp buffets.

Amina, the black model who's writing a play, kept saying, "Where is that Richard Gere? He's supposed to be here!" But then when he came he din't pay attention to her, so she didn't like him anymore and she came over to where I was signing Kennedy posters. Robyn brought the lunch from 65 Irving, but then Brigid ate every bit that was left, so he din't have any.

Then it was a beautiful day so I said why didn't Brigid and Chrissy and I go over to University Place to see if Bea was in her antiques shop. We passed out Interviews to the junkies who've moved from Park and 17th to the corner of 14th. The we were all in Bea's and Brigid said she'd be right back, that she was going across the street to get a pack of cigarettes. Adn a second after she left, I heard a big noise and a thud, and I just knew. I ran out, and there was Brigid lying in the street with a truck one inch away from her fat belly. Then she got up and she was laughing and she said, "No no, I'm all right." It was a truck from an art restorer. The kid was sweet, he wanted to take her to the hospital, but she was so relieved she was all right that she said no. She was just scared out of her wits. Chrissy was so nervous she had to go home.

I was so happy Brigid was alive that I told her she could have anything in the world so she had ice cream cones ($.75 X 4 and $.90 cookies from Greenberg's and then cake $12, Big macs $8.52). We walked around ffor an hour to make sure she was okay. All we could think about was here today/gone tomorrow. I hope it taught her a lesson to be more careful.

Then we went back to the office. I told her she could have the rest of the day off but it turned out the needed her. She went to an A.A. meeting and then came back. Fred was really drunk at the office, he'd been to the Cecil Beaton memorial thing. He was talking like Diana Vreeland and making business calls, so I just hope he called the right people.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Saturday, March 1, 1980

Victor Bockris called and said that the dinner with Mick Jagger at William Buroughs's was on. Victor's doing a book on Burroughs. Decided to stay at the office and not go home. The driver passed 222 Bowery, he was going too fast (cab $3).

We went upstairs and I hadn't been there since 1963 or 1962. It used to be the locker room of a gymnasium. There's no windows. It's all white and neat and it looks like sculpture all over, the way the pipes are. Bill sleeps in another room, on the floor. I don't think he's a good writer. I mean, he wrote that one good book, Naked Lunch, but now it's like he lives in the past.

A girl who was there--Marcia was maybe her name--said she's been photographing Kenneth Anger at his place on 94th Street. I told her not to mention my name or he might bet her up, that he thinks I'm the Devil. She said the apartment is all red, and he has everybody's picture up and he puts everyobody down. Bill was asking Mick about the "drug culture" and the "revolution" and all that and then Mick and Jerry left. I stayed there for a little bit. Then Victor Bockris walked me down and we waited for half an hour before a cab came (cab $5). Home at 11:00.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, February 22, 1980

Richard Weisman called and said lunch with Stallone was on for 12:30.

Oh, and I forgot to say that Truman called. He said that he was hit by a fat skier when he was walking across a ski slope in Switzerland. He sounded more like his old self. I guess he's in a good mood because Lester gave him $450,000 for his thing from Interview, "hand-Carved Coffins." We don't get anything out of it, though.

We went to where Stallone was shooting on First Avenue, they had about 300 extras. The movie's called Hawks, I think, and Martin Poll is the producer,he's the one who took Stallone to my Whitney portrait show. Martin and his wife were there. They had huge crowds there. The set decorator came over and said that he'd been the set decorator on Bad.

We went to the restaurant near there. I guess they sent one person out all morning to look for a quiet place ofr the director ot have lunch. It was Richard and Martin Poll and his wife and Stallone and me. Stallone is so cute, so adorable. I guess he's lost sixty pounds. He's sexy. All the stars usually think they should have their portraits done free, though. He's intelligent, he's taken over directorship of the movie and how he's in trouble because the union has a film of him saying, "Lights, action!" it's going before the board. Stallone was telling stories about how much trouble he's had this one shot all set up, everybody was in costume and make up with blood and everything for a fight scene and it was snowing, just perfectly and they said, "Okay, stop, everyobody break for dinner," and he said he practically got down on his knees pleading, "Please, just let's get this one shot, please, I'm a fellow worker, please, I'm Rocky!" And they wouldn't let him. They broke for dinner and then he had to start all over again.

I said to him how could he go and tell the papers the truth--that he wasn't having an affair with Bianca. I told him he should have said he was, that he should have gone for the glamour. He said he and Bianca were "just breaking each other's balls." I don't know what that means. He told us that he'd gone over to pick her up and she was wheezing and had a cold and she looked so horrible that the romance fell apart right there. But he probably doesn't like Latin types, I think he likes big blondes. His manager loved us because Interviedw had just done a story on his only other client, Ray Sharkey. Then we left (cab $3).

Afterwards Martin Poll's wife called, she said she was calling for a favor to Stallone and wanted a discount, but I mean, he's so rich.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, February 14, 1980--Dusseldorf

We had to take Hans Mayer's car and drive out to the country to a small town to photograph a German butcher. His company is called Herta, it's one of the biggest sausage companies in Germany. He was a cute guy. He had this interesting building. You could see all the employees. He had my Pig on the wall. Junk everywhere. A lot of toys. A lot of stuffed cows, stuffed pigs. Pigs, pigs, pigs all over the place. And there was art. There were funny things hanging from the ceiling. There were water-dripping paintings. He buys a lot of art, he said they sell more sausages that way because the people are very happy. Then he gave us a white smock and white hat. We went through and watched the ladies make the saugsages. It was really fun. You could smell the sauerkraut cooking, but they didn't give us any hot dogs there. He had the whole portfolio of Picasso that I did the Picasso print of Paloma in. We looked at that, then we had to look at more pigs and more salamis and more hams and more ham art.

The we took Polaroids for the portrait and had some tea. And his wife came by. They didn't offer us lunch. Then all of a sudden he asked us if we'd like to try one of his hot dogs. They cooked some up and we had two apiece. One white one and one black one. They were really good. We had them with mustard. He said he had to go have lunch back at the lunch room. We had to go off without lunch which we thought was really strange. We got in the car and drove to a restaurant in a place called Bottrop.

As soon as we came in they told us it was this crazy day where all the women chase the men. They cut off your ties. But since we knew that was happening--we saw these drunken ladies running around--we took our ties off and hid them in our pockets. But then they got my shirt tail and they cut it off and it was my good shirt and I was so mad. These women were really bullies. We got back in the car and drove back to Hans's gallery. I was so tired, and I was really upset about my shirt.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Friday, January 25, 1980

Marina Schiano called about the dinner Mica Ertegunwas giving that night. It got complicated because Bianca wanted to come but at first she didn't want to come if Mick was going to be there and then she did want to come if Mick was going to be there--it was complicated.

Glued myself together. Catherine said we could go to Halston's and go from there. He had a limo. Bianca got a call in the middle of getting ready from some friend of hers who said that on cable channel C they were doing my astrology chart, so we turned it on and it was a like a maharajah doing my chart and saying funny things from newspaper clippings, and it was so weird. He looked like Jerry Colonna. Or like Gene Shalit, but Indian. I didn't want to watch it, it was too weird. There he was doing my chart with two girls discussing it, it was really nutty.

Then we went to the Erteguns' and it was great. Mick was there. Jerry's out of town. And it was like he and Bianca were courting. They were together flirting. Bianca was touching him, it was exciting. Bianca had called Bob and made him get John Samuels invited for after dinner, to get Mick jealous, I guess, but Mick was being so nice to her that when John Samuels called there, she told him he couldn't come because Mick was there and it would get "complicated."

Then we went back to Halston's house and Bob threw up in Halston's sink, he'd had too much to drink. Then Bianca said she'd take him home, and after an hour she still wasn't back. So we went out to see where the car was, and we couldn't believe our eyes--the driver was getting out of the back of the limousine, and about half a minute later, Bianca got out. And she looked dazed. I mean, she could have been asleep. But was she giving him a blow job? Was he going down on her? Was he trying to rob her? We didn't know. Barbara had said that Bianca probably went to see Mick who'd left before her. But it was too weird. We were stunned. And the driver wasn't good-looking or anything, so we just couldn't figure it out.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Thursday, January 17, 1980

Interview gave a screening of American Gigolo at the Gulf + Western building (cab $4.50). Richard Gere was really good and Lauren Hutton was great. She's a senator's wife who gives the hustler his murder alibi. Richard Gere has a sex scene where you see him completely nude. Nando did the art direction and at the end of the movie there's a scene where a pimp is being thrown off a balcony by Richard Gere and you see my three posters in the background, the Torsos. The scene is played against them.

After the movie I dropped Catherine, but right when I did, Halston's limo pulled up and he and Bianca said they were going to Studio 54 for Steve Rubell's farewell party before his sentencing, so my cab followed their limo ($3.50). When we got there we stood around, and they were taking pictures. Halston was smart, he disappeared, but I didn't realize what was going on. It was really crowded and it was early. I dropped Catherine off at 2:00. Somebody said that the'd put locks on Steve's safety-deposit boxes.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Tuesday, January 1, 1980

Got up late, at 11:00 AM, but I hadn't drunk so it wasn't so bad. I glued myself and got Rupert on the phone. He said he'd come in to work at 12:00.

I brought Interviews with me but I had a hard time passing them out because nobody was around. Got to the office and worked for three or four hours, and then went down to Heiner Friedrich's gallery where they were doing a repeat of Walter de Maria's Dirt show (cab $3). Robert Rosenblum was there with his new baby and he had it with a cloth around it. It was the same show, but with new black dirt filling the gallery up.

Later, sat around at home and worked. Marina called and said to come over and have the food that was piled on her stove the night before, gallons and gallons. So I did, and it was just the kind of food I wanted--Parsnips and leeks and things like that. Walked over there. John Bowes-Lyons was there, I brought a present for him because the other night he'd said that he was bringing one for me, but he must have just done that so I'd bring him something, because he just had an old tie for me, he's so terrible.