The Kingdom of New York: Knights, Knaves, Billionaires, and Beauties in the City of Big Shots
Page 30
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Oct. 12, 1996, 11:15 P.M.
dear diary,
Nancy wants me to come over monday and watch MP [presumably, the TV drama, Melrose Place—ed.] and I feel all conflicted cause Tracey told me how Nancy told her she thinks I’m a total bitch and that I’m conceeded about my looks and great job and my feelings are, like, why doesn’t Tracey just like look in the mirror—hel-lo!—and maybe she’ll see who’s the b-i-t-c-h!!! Also I lent nancy my black pumps last year and she’s never given them back!!! so now do i ask her for the pumps back and maybe cause a situation, or do i go out and buy new pumps??…. saw ellen at the mall after that and she goes on and on about her bitch of a sister and i wish i was strong enough to tell ellen to tell her sister to bug off! after the mall i stopped by the white house and gave the President a BJ (no swallowing)…
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Nov. 3, 1996, 11:45 P.M.
dear diary,
God i want to like die!!! so yesterday was Janet’s party? the one i’ve been so totally looking forward to? Because i am just slightly very much in total lust with janet’s brother Tom? so i got my short black dress the one with the fur cuffs back from the cleaners and it’s 5 PM and i’m drying my hair and the phone rings and wouldn’t you know it’s the Big He and he’s like Come over I need you, so i say Ok i’ll come over after the party and he’s like No, no, no, no that will be too late, i need you now, and for some dumb reason i’m like, Ok, and i go to WH and he’s there in his office and sudenly he’s like kissing me and telling me how much he cares about me and he’s pushing meanwhile me down and he’s got his thingy out so i go down and say better make it quick i have this party and he’s like i know i know i’ll have a car get you to the party and wouldn’t you know he like pulls his thingy out and he spooges all over the collar of my dress and i’m like holy shit and i say why why why did you do that, you ruined my dress and i have the party and i’m crying a little and he seems to sinceerly feel bad and he’s zipping up then he says dont move i’ll be right back so i like wipe off the spooge with a napkin that says president on it and then he bursts back in and he’s holding this, like, thoroughly heinus dress all flowery and dopey laura ashley and i’m like hel-lo, what is that? and he’s like it’s one of chelsea’s dresses it will fit you quick put it on and i’m like are you friggin nuts i am not putting that crap on my body and he’s like well suit yourself and i realize that it’s either me at the party in that ugly dress or no party so i say Ok, and next thing i’m standing on P ave and there’s no cabs and i’m in this loser dress and of course when i get to the party tom is nowhere in sight which might be good cause if he saw me in that dress he’d be like see ya…
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Oct. 12, 1996, 11:15 P.M.
dear diary,
saw ellen at the mall and she goes on and on about her bitch of a sister and i wish i was strong enough to tell ellen to tell her sister to bug off! after the mall i stopped by the white house and gave the President a BJ (no swallowing)…
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March 3, 1997, 11:58 P.M.
dear diary,
well Creepo BLEW UP at me tonite over NOTHING and i am listening to the radio for love songs that will make me cry and i decide to reminiss about our first kiss back when they called the intirns to say the govurnment was shut down so all intirns had to keep the country moving and i was like YES! and i put on a shortish skirt with opake tights and the gray Banana Republic sweater set that makes my boobs look good and my chunky heel loafers…and i get to the WH and some cute guy gives me envelopes to stuff and im like I DON’T THINK SO so i hand them to this dweeb intirn charles that we call charles in charge like a joke and i sort of wander around the WH and these intirns have this pizza for the President and i say better let me take it to him and they are SUCH Losers they say Ok, and this one extra cute secret service guy says Ok too so i carry the pizza to the O.O. and the secretary is like go on in he’s hungry so i go in…and he’s on the phone and he’s wearing this dark blue suit that is SOOO HANDSOME but a HEINUS tie and i’m like PIZZA PARTY! but he just points to a table so i put the pizza down but first i put napkins under the box and he says thank you without words just moving his mouth but if he’s expecting me to leave he is way mistaken so i take out a slice and he hangs up and says well HELLO THERE its good to see you again and i’m like its an honor mr. president and he gets diet cokes from this little fridge and gives me one and says he’s so greatful the intirns are running the country because of the republicans and i feel him staring at the pizza so i say DIG IN and he does and i pick the pepperonis off my slice and he asks me about my duties but i’m looking at his blue eyes which are so pretty and then he looks at me and says With intirns this gorgeous, hell, i wish we had a govurnment shut down EVERY DAY! and inside i’m like OH MY GOD so i say maybe the shut down will last forever and we laugh and he says he’s seen me around the WH a lot and has always thought I was a very beautiful woman and then we are kissing and i put my hand on the back of his head and his hair feels NICE and i’m thinking GOD is he romantic and i think i almost had a swoon and then he is sort of pushing me down and his thing is out so i give him the bj and then he zips up and i’m feeling like dizzy so i sit down and he says We both better get back to the countries business and i’m like i hope i see you again soon and he says sure and sort of holds my arm and leads me to the door and says let’s keep this just between us Ok and i’m like OF COURSE and I try to give him a kiss but he turns away and says pizza breath…
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September 2, 1997, 11:15 P.M.
dear diary,
at lunch i left pentogon to drive to see this new shrink and the waiting room smells like cigars and the door opens and i go Whoa because that Carvel guy that hangs with Big Creep walks out quick like he doesnt see me and i figure this must be a fancy shrink if the Carvel guy is seeing him and the shrink comes out and he’s like Hel-lo, Monica and its this chubby guy who looks real familiar wearing a dark blazer and way tacky black turtleneck and hes like Wont you come in? and its dark with big leather chairs and a couch and he says Would you like some tea and he brings me some tea that tastes gross and he’s like Your mother is worried about you, and Im like, What else is new? and he laughs and says mothers tend to worry too much and Im like Oooh, big newsflash, and he says, But nevertheless a persons young 20’s are a hard time because the pressures of life make their imaginations run wild, and Im like Uh-huh, and im feeling weird from the tea and hes like Why dont you tell me about you, are you dating anyone special? and Im like Well I assume Mom told you I am the Presidents girlfriend? and he’s like Ah yes, she did mention you were under that impression, and Im like, Well its no impression bucko its the figures that their minds can create a whole relashunship that is not real and Im like Well my boyfriends not the figure of my imagination hes the President and the shrink just sits there and everything feels dizzy and the shrink says Ok Monica, lets start again, Why dont you tell me about you, are you dating anyone special? and Im like Hel-lo? Earth to doc? I am dating…the…President? and he sighs and Im feeling way sleepy and then the shrink says, Ok, lets start again, Why dont you tell me about you, are you dating anyone special? and then i cant remember what he said next because the next thing i know its after dark and im at home in my bed
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September 5, 1997, 11:09 P.M.
dear diary,
i get home from pentogon today in a bitch of a mood cause Big Creep has still not returned a single call and at home i see this dweeby guy sitting on our couch hes got a short haircut and a shiny face and this blue blazer with tacky gold buttons and kaki pants and little brown shoes and so im like um, Mom, who is this? and she says dont be silly monica you know as well as i do hes your boyfriend Ted and this guy stands up all fake polite and he comes to kiss me and im like Back off, loser, and he says My my, someone had a bad day today, and im like Excuse
me i have never set the eyes on you in my life and he puts his arm around my showlder and hes like Thats my monica always the jokester! and he smells like soap and i want to puke so i push him off and Im like Touch me again and youll be sorry, and moms like, Monica whatever has gotten into you in the three years you and Ted have been dating youve never acted this way to him and Im like, Hello? Three years? Ive never seen him before, and hes like standing there all smiling and i cannot deal so i turn around and walk to my room and theres the second freakout cause there’s a picture of me and this dweeb Ted in a silver frame on my nitestand and hes dressed in the same weenie outfit
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MAY 25, 1998 BY PETER BOGDANOVICH
THE OBSERVATORY: I’ll Be Around
THE FIRST THING I REMEMBERED WHEN I HEARD THAT FRANK Sinatra had died was his parting wish to a concert audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London one of the times I saw him perform there: “May you live to be 100,” he had said, “and may the last voice you hear…be mine!” And something like 10,000 British people had cheered wildly, as though death would surely lose its sting were it to be accompanied by the sounds of Sinatra. Certainly his voice had been present at so many of what the French call les petits morts the world over: How many kisses, how many climaxes had been reached with Sinatra singing in the background?
The first actual contact I ever had with Sinatra was a nasty telegram he sent me. Cybill Shepherd and I were living together then, and I had just produced a Cole Porter album for her and sent copies to several performers we both admired, hoping for some endorsements we could use as liner notes. We got two or three, and then came Frank’s wire: “Heard the record. It’s marvelous what some guys will do for a dame. Better luck next time. Sinatra.” Well, Cybill and I tried to pretend to each other that there was a missing period after “marvelous,” and let it go. I finally met him not too long afterward, when he hosted the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement tribute to Orson Welles. I actually thanked him for his telegram, and he looked slightly bewildered; but when I added that we thought it was funny, he smiled a bit uncomfortably and said, “Yeah, I thought you’d get a kick out of it.” The subject never came up again.
One of the things that most moved me during the world’s first reaction to his death on May 14 was when the Empire State Building, an unofficial symbol of New York, New York, turned its lights blue the night of his passing: a poignant tribute from a city to a 70’s invention of Sinatra’s, only the last in a career that began as the voice of the 40’s. It reminded me of my reaction to hearing that all the lights of Las Vegas had been turned off for a minute the night they heard Frank’s pal, Dean Martin, had died. Both were gestures more potent that lowering a flag to half-mast, from both the private sector and the public, a bow of respect to say in silence that someone very special had gone from our midst.
JUNE 1, 1998 BY ADAM BEGLEY
BOOK REVIEW: Will Sex and the Single Girl Sell Again in America?
Bridget soldiers on despite the notorious perfidy of almost every unattached male. Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding. Viking, 271 pages, $22.95.
IT’S VERY POSSIBLE THAT WITHIN a month every American book buyer will know the name of Bridget Jones, a 30-something Londoner whose diary records in hilarious detail a ceaseless search for thinner thighs, inner poise and a nice boyfriend. Bridget is the creation of Helen Fielding and a monster hit in England: More than 900,000 copies of Bridget Jones’s Diary have sold in the last six months. Salman Rushdie bestowed a magnificently blunt blurb on the book: “Even men will laugh.”
It could have been otherwise: Bridget mocked, dismissed as childish, vapid and whiny or cute and cloying. She is obsessed with her weight and fixated on gooey romance. A chronic slob, her attention span is not just short but perpetually misplaced. She has never sustained a serious thought—at least not if there’s a phone within arm’s reach. As one not-very-nice boyfriend remarks, “If Bridget had a child she’d lose it.”
All the same, she’s hugely likable. Part of it is the dirty-dishes honesty of her diary. Each entry begins with the day’s vital statistics, hard facts accompanied by commentary. Here, for example, is the tally for a Sunday spent waiting for a phone call from that same not-very-nice boyfriend: “126 lbs., alcohol units 5 (drowning sorrows), cigarettes 23 (fumigating sorrows), calories 3,856 (smothering sorrows in fat-duvet).”
In Middlemarch, George Eliot rolled out this sonorous pronouncement: “That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it.” Ms. Fielding is mining the element of comedy from the very fact of frequency—and it turns out that we can bear quite a lot of it. But Bridget’s creator would surely agree with Eliot’s conclusion: “As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”
Bridget’s signature stupidity, her foolish faith in a brighter future, is also her most lovable trait. Ms. Fielding wisely refrains from showing us the spectacle of our heroine satisfied, content, at last possessed of inner poise—that is, smug. Like most of us, Bridget is at her best with something to look forward to. Did I mention that there’s a sequel in the works?
JULY 6, 1998 BY FRANK DIGIACOMO
Four-Star Food Fight: LeRoy vs. Bouley
THE WELL-KNOWN RESTAURATEUR on the other end of the phone line was searching for the proper word to characterize the deteriorated state of relations between Russian Tea Room owner Warner LeRoy and his former partner, four-star chef David Bouley.
“There’s, like, hate,” said the restaurateur. “Warner’s like India. He’s going to test the hydrogen bomb.”
On June 11, Mr. LeRoy filed suit against Mr. Bouley in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The gist of the suit is that Mr. Bouley violated the terms of his contract with Mr. LeRoy over Bouley Bakery, the first venture in what was to have been an ambitious partnership between the two strong-willed food moguls.
Eleven days later, on June 22, Mr. Bouley’s attorney, Andrew Rahl, told The Transom that his client and Mr. LeRoy had a “handshake” agreement to settle the lawsuit out of court. Still, Mr. Rahl called Mr. LeRoy’s lawsuit “nonsense” and said it was a “given” that Mr. Bouley and Mr. LeRoy were going their separate ways.
New York’s culinary establishment was hardly surprised by the news. An inevitable and ugly falling-out between the two men has been predicted ever since they announced their intentions to join forces in late 1995. Mr. Bouley represents the culinary pinnacle in Manhattan; Mr. LeRoy, with restaurants like the Russian Tea Room and Tavern on the Green, is the expert showman. In the last three years, he has had to deflect a lot of derision as his friends and colleagues told him, and anyone else who would listen, that he would not be able to rein in the clearly talented and charming but incredibly independent-minded Mr. Bouley.
Illustrated by Drew Friedman and Robert Grossman
Illustrated by Drew Friedman and Robert Grossman
JULY 20, 1998 BY WARREN ST. JOHN
OFF THE RECORD: TINA GOES CHEEK TO CHEEK WITH MIRAMAX
ON JULY 13, TINA BROWN TOOK time from taking meetings to take a call on her cell phone. She was downtown, in Miramax country, and her mood was something approaching delirium. “I’m in the TriBeCa Grill having a meeting with the acquisitions staff,” she chirped. “I’m exhilarated by my change—exhilarated. I’m having a fantastic time. I’ve never had such dynamic meetings in my entire 19 years of being an editor in chief. The meetings are so exciting right now.
“I’m learning a lot, I’m learning a lot,” Ms. Brown continued. “I guess when you’re learning you’re excited and refreshed. It’s a very exciting thing. I could always be excited by the journalistic exchange, but now I’m getting exchanges on every kind of level—I move from the journalistic to the business back to the logistical. I’m involved in so many talks at the moment.” Ms. Brown sounded as if she was about to lose it.
What about the rumor that you’ll never start a
magazine and the new venture will be pared down into a run-of-the-mill development office? “That is total nonsense,” Ms. Brown said. “The magazine is the core excitement here…. It certainly will not get in the way. It’s the cultural search engine which is going to drive the company!”
Is Ms. Brown prepared to part with the Condé Nast editor’s sense of entitlement and run a tight ship? “It’s a very terrific financial box in which to complete a structure,” she said, sounding a bit more serious. “That’s fine; I completely understand that. Ron [Galotti] and I are going to work with the Miramax financial people to create a business plan that will be ready by the fall, and in that business plan will be the budget, and in that budget we will live inside.”
Even outsize Rudy Giuliani could feel dwarfed by the mayoral office
Illustrated by Robert Grossman
SEPTEMBER 7, 1998 BY GEORGE GURLEY
A Sexual Standoff in the Naked City
She’s so lovely. He’s so frustrated. GEORGE GURLEY gets himself mixed up with women, men and the whole sex problem on the streets of Manhattan
IF ANYTHING CHARACTERIZES THE STREET SCENES LATELY, IT HAS to be the huge number of lovely women who just walk on by, one after the other. Following the successful reintroduction of the miniskirt and minidress, and with the advent of the belly shirt, the see-through blouse and extra-tight spandex tops, not to mention those fetching open-toed shoes, oh, what a paradise it seems! But with every pleasure afforded by the sight of each passing beauty comes a little pain.
While the happy gains of post-feminism may have given women permission to wear skimpy garments in the city heat, the earlier and more sober gains of feminism have made it very uncouth indeed for any civilized man to acknowledge the delights that meet his eye. And so there has been something of a standoff between men and women in the public spaces of Manhattan. The women are gorgeous, in their spaghetti strap shirts and sandals, and the men, in their sensible khaki slacks and Oxford shirts, are blithering dopes who find themselves in constant hummana-hummana mode all summer long. The women claim they’re dressing for comfort and they seem perfectly oblivious to the intense effect they produce in the men, who fall instantly and hopelessly in love with every woman who approaches, only to pass out of their lives forever.