by Andy Warhol
Wilfredo and Paige dropped me (cab $6). I got home and watched the channel 4 news rerun with Sue Simmons talking about me being at Barneys. God, she’s a beauty. I met her once at some dinner at the Plaza and she was eating really greasy food, a lot of it.
Wednesday, November 12, 1986
The art auctions were still going on. A Rosenquist went for $2 million. A drawing of Jasper’s went for $800,000. A drawing! But Rauschenberg’s drawing went for only $90,000. And I guess David Whitney must be a multimillionaire, he has so many Jasper Johnses.
Thursday, November 13, 1986
Fred said that Nell is going to be on the cover of Vanity Fair and here we are with all the wornouts—Cybill Shepherd, Diane Keaton….People do like the Cybill Shepherd interview though —they say she’s really honest in it. I haven’t read it yet.
Friday, November 14, 1986
Julian Schnabel came by with his little girl. We’re talking about me maybe doing some different image on top of a fake of mine that he bought—one of those paintings I think Gerard Malanga did. Julian didn’t know it was a fake when he bought it.
Mr. Murjani called and invited me to dinner and I asked if I could bring Benjamin and he said why didn’t I bring Paige, too. So Stuart picked us up and we went to Murjani’s place at U.N. Plaza. And when I walked in I immediately saw this box with a microphone on top and recognized it right away because it was the kind Imelda Marcos took on the Forbes boat and sang with, and then Mr. Murjani started playing it, and he sang “Feelings” with it. It’s the box that enhances your voice and you pick from a few songs and then it’s a whole orchestra playing behind you. And he has a really good voice, it was like that Indian teenage idol from the sixties, Sajid Khan, or something. and then Stuart did it and it was fun, Stuart can make himself sound like any Broadway star.
Then Mr. Murjani took us to this place that I guess he goes to regularly to meet girls. It was on 77th and Second, I think. And at dinner there was this table of girls next to us and Mr. Murjani and Stuart went over and tried to pick them up. The girls were in their early twenties, and they were going on to a party at the Union Club. And Mr. Murjani told Paige that the other night at the dinner that he’d invited them to, Gael thought it was one of Paige’s dinners so she said to him, “Well since we’re entertaining you so lavishly with all these dinners, how about advertising?” I don’t know about Gael, is she stupid or not? But then, it was memorable, he’ll always remember it, so that’s good. The food was just awful—spaghetti—it was uneatable.
Katharine Hamnett was working with Vincent till really late on the video but then she came to dinner, too, and she was sweet. But the odd thing was, there was this boy with her who just stood behind her chair and didn’t eat, and there was an empty chair beside her and everything. Finally I said, “Well, uh, wouldn’t he like to sit down?” And she said, “What? Oh yes, sit down.” It was her assistant. He must have been starving.
Then Murjani and Stuart dropped me and Paige off and then they went to the Union Club to try to get in and find those girls but then they didn’t get in because it was black tie and they couldn’t remember what the girls looked like.
Saturday, November 15, 1986
Went to Saks and there was a big crowd for the Swatch event. Keith and I did our autographing act together.
Stuart picked me up and Michael Jackson was staying across the street at the Helmsley Palace and we went to a gallery near there to look at Bouguereaus. Stuart’s going to try to see him this time. The last time he blew it. Michael Jackson was coming to his apartment at 3:30 but Stuart got home after 3:30 so he missed him. But now Michael is in town again and he’s wearing a brown wig and dark glasses, and a white gas mask, so if you see that coming down the street …
Sunday, November 16, 1986
Bruno called and invited me to lunch. Went to church, then cabbed to Harry Cipriani’s in the Sherry ($4). The food tastes like it’s done in a microwave, and I bet it is.
Wilfredo called, he’d been to see The Mission for the third time. Isn’t that weird? He wanted to be a Jesuit priest once.
Tuesday, November 18, 1986
Stuart was picking me up at my house, so I waited for him inside the door. And now we have a video camera to see outside and I could see a man trying to get in the door with keys and everything and it looked just like Stuart, somehow. It had his attitude. But then it wasn’t Stuart and he was still trying to use a key to get in. I decided to open the door and see who he was and so I did and I think he was drunk or something. He asked for the lady of the house a few times and I kept telling him that I was the lady of the house. And then I went back inside and the phone rang and it was Stuart to tell me that there was a man on my doorstep trying to get in and I told him I knew, and then Stuart came to pick me up again, and I went out to the car and past the man who was still there and I got into the limo and Stuart was crying. Literally crying. The tears were streaming down his face. It was shocking, just absolutely shocking. I said, “It was so odd, I thought he was you at first.” And Stuart was sobbing, saying what if it were him and how could I just leave him there? And I said, “Well, I think he’s drunk and what can I do anyway?” So he said to take him somewhere, put him in a cab and get him where he was going, but how could you know where he was going? So I borrowed $20 from Stuart and gave it to a cabdriver to take him where he was going, but he probably just dumped him in another neighborhood. But he was well-dressed. Like a Spanish man in cream-colored Spanish boots and kind of natty. By the way, Michael Jackson never did show up, he called and cancelled right before he was supposed to be there.
Thursday, November 20, 1986
At the end of work it was pouring so hard. Paige called and said that Steven Greenberg would take us to Missoni in his car and we got there late, and I think it’s actually the best time to arrive someplace, really late, after everybody’s resistance is worn down and they’re tired, and then you hit them for an ad. It’s like in the fifties when I had to go around and see art directors looking for jobs. If you went early in the morning you never got anything, so I’d wait till 12;00, lunchtime, because by then they had stopped getting calls and they were tired and you had a better chance. People really do stop calling offices at lunchtime because they assume the people will be out.
So we went to the Missoni thing and then went to Le Cirque. Gael was there having dinner with Steven’s friend, Mr. Mulane, the Bally Casino guy. He’s really nice, he knows everybody.
It was pouring rain. Got home and turned on TV and saw that John Tesh, our old friend who used to be on the news here, is the new main guy on Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart.
Friday, November 21, 1986
Sam just ran out at 5:00 and didn’t arrange for Fred to get home from the hospital from his five-hour knee operation. He’d gone in at 8:15 that morning. And when I got home he called and said he’d just gotten home by himself, that he’d been in the waiting room until noon, and he was kind of high. He said he thought he’d “joked with” the doctor while he was under anesthesia, and oh God, I can just imagine what he said. Fred really could be bad under those circumstances. And I complained a lot to Fred about my personal life which I shouldn’t do. I should just always say everything’s cool. He told me that I shouldn’t get involved with these kids’ personal lives, like Sam’s and Len’s, because it’s none of my business. And he’s right. I was going to scream at Len for not telling me the truth about Sam spending the night a few weeks ago at Jill’s boyfriend’s apartment—but then it’s none of my business. And then I guess Sam got involved with Victor the other night because Victor called and said, “I have someone you know very well here …” and I couldn’t imagine, and he said, “The blond boy who works for you … Sam.” And that stunned me.
Saturday, November 22, 1986
I watched Young Bobby Kennedy, a documentary, in the morning. They put it on because it was the JFK death anniversary, I guess.
I’m always surprised that one of the Kennedy kid
s wouldn’t want to know what really happened, who really killed JFK and Bobby Kennedy. You’d think Caroline would get interested and say, “I don’t care if I get killed, I want to know.”
Went to Doyle’s and then to Sotheby’s and got catalogues (cabs $4, $5). This is right before they closed. And they told me there that I’d just done very well. The Soup number two went pretty high at $6,600. I forgot we’d sent Jay to bid on Ladies and Gentlemen, a set of those, and some Flowers. Jasper’s Numbers set went for $140,000.
There was a dinner at 7:30 at River House and Paige said she’d pick me up. She arrived and had a basket on her head with flowers on it. It was left over from the photo session for Tama’s book, A Cannibal in Manhattan, that they’d done that afternoon at Tavern on the Green. Paige is art-directing the book, setting up the photos in it. Stuart had told me how beautiful the “hat” looked, but it was just—ridiculous. She’d had on a silver outfit, but for the dinner she changed into a black Gaultier but kept the hat on. The dinner was for Francesco Clemente, it was given by the Angela Westwater lady who has the Sperone Westwater Gallery, and the first person whose hand I shake turns out to be Alan Wanzenberg—I didn’t recognize him right away. And then I realized Jed was right across from me. Then Edit deAk came over and told Paige and me, “Oh, the two of you should be married.” A Tama-type line. I made a faux pas, I said to Alba Clemente, “Is Bianca coming?” I forgot that Bianca had had an affair with Clemente. She said, “No. She’s not a friend of mine.” And Thomas Ammann said Mary Boone wants to represent me and that I should think about it. Keith and his friend Juan were there. And then about thirty-five people were going down to Nell’s. I didn’t want to go and Paige did so I told her to go ahead but she insisted on dropping me off—I can just feel all the weird problems starting again.
When we got to my house, Paige’s flowers had fallen out so she was going home with an empty basket on her head.
Tuesday, November 25, 1986
The second day of the auctions at Sotheby’s—Renaissance. Was picked up by Benjamin. Stuart arrived late and looked like Dracula. We lost out on everything, which was fun—it was all learning and seeing and touching and feeling, and it didn’t cost a penny. Left there and walked for a while.
Oh, and Stuart told me I’m the only one who talks to all the black guys who work at the auction houses, asking them what they think of the things, (laughs)
Went back to the office and worked from 6-9:00 and everybody else was working late, too. Fred’s walking with a cane. Then invited Paige and Rupert to Nippon. It’s nice not to have Sam to worry about anymore. Since I found out he has a secret life and sleeps out a lot, I don’t feel responsible for him.
Thursday, November 27, 1986
Thanksgiving. The phone rang and it was Wilfredo saying he couldn’t come with us to feed the poor, that he was going home to New Jersey. Paige called and said she’d pick me up in ten minutes, but it was half an hour before she and Tama and Stephen Sprouse arrived.
Victor had called in the meantime and I invited him to feed the poor with us. I don’t know if he’s on drugs or if now he’s just always paranoid.
So we went to the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue and 90th, and the good-looking priest had moved to St. Thomas’s, that big chic church. And it looked overstaffed—like they had one volunteer for every eater. Everybody had their own waiter. So we went upstairs and there was this big dykey Irish woman giving the helpers their assignments and she said, “Are you here for food?” And Victor got offended and that started him off insulting people in the line, saying, “Just eat fast and fuck off and get out so we can clean up.” This is in a church! And finally I told him, “Victor, we’re here because we want to be.” And there were a lot of photographers, I don’t know if they were from the newspapers or what. So this dykey lady says to me, “I’m putting you on security, to keep people in order.” And I said, “I can’t do a thing like that.” And she said, “Well that’s what you’re going to do.” And I said, “No, I’m not.” So I ignored her and we served the food, and it’s such a great church, there was food for people to take home, too, and I was giving everybody a lot. If there’s this many hungry people there’s really something wrong. A lot of people looked like they just came for a meal so they wouldn’t be lonely, though. Maybe they even lived on Park Avenue, you can’t tell.
And at the end it was sick, the councilmen came in and waved their arms around to show they cared, in case there were people taking pictures.
We left there and Victor dropped me and said he hated Stephen and Paige and Tama, that they were phonies and balonies, and then later he called and was saying he knew I was taping him on the phone and so he was talking “to the people on the other side of the tape recorder,” and I don’t know if he’s on drugs or if he’s just hallucinating on his own. There’s something wrong with him.
I saw our Cars video, “Hello Again,” on MTV. They ran it again, and it still looks really good. I can’t believe it came out of our place. And I can’t believe nobody else had us to do their videos after that. Oh, and I bought some magazines. A lot of them ($25). I walked the dogs and Paige called but I was too cozy to go out to dinner. And then Jean Michel called and he’s furious at Paige because he finally found out about his father playing the cannibal in Paige’s pictorial spread for Tama’s book, A Cannibal in Manhattan, he’d just seen the item on Page Six about it. He said, “What is she trying to do? Is she after my father?” And he said his father’s writing a book, and he said (laughs), “He’s not even a drug addict—how can he write a book? About what?” That’s the first time I ever heard Jean Michel say something funny. I wonder if that’s his sense of humor. And he didn’t go to Germany for his big show.
Friday, November 28, 1986
Tony picked me up and we passed out interviews.. Cabbed to the office ($7). Fred was working, waiting for the call from Hamburg from Hans Mayer saying when he was coming the next day. The German lady came in with her boyfriend for me to take pictures of for a portrait. And they have a stuffed gremlin, you know, from the Gremlins Spielberg movie, that they sleep with and that has to be in the portrait, too. She’s about thirty-six and he’s about eighteen. The gremlin doesn’t actually look so bad when you see it, it’s not quite as bad as you’d think.
Fred made a reservation to take them to Nell’s. I think he became a member. It’s $200 a year, I think, but it hasn’t gone through yet. I’m not going to join. I think it stinks, joining.
And I don’t call Sam anymore, everything is different now—my eyes are opened. I guess he was taking drugs when he used to lose things. I don’t know when it started, maybe he always was. Maybe he would always go out after he dropped me off. Looking back now, I guess I wasn’t seeing what I didn’t want to see. Again. Does it ever end? Do you ever get smart?
Saturday, November 29, 1986
Fred called and said we had a lunch with Hans Mayer and the Mercedes-Benz guy at Harry Cipriani’s bar. And the guy was handsome and lunch was fun. I think I’ll try (laughs) to get a car and driver out of them, to get the “feel” for the paintings. I’m painting old Mercedeses for them.
Then Katy Ford and her husband Andre Balazs took me to the Miss Olympia contest at the Felt Forum, and afterwards we went to Tommy Tang’s down on Duane Street. It was fun. Richard Johnson of Page Six was with us and he said that when he was working at the newsroom of the Post he got a phone call and it was Timothy Hutton saying, “Hello, this is Timothy Hutton. Did anyone there call me?” And Richard asked around and everybody said no. And then Timothy Hutton asked, “Well did anyone call Madonna?” I guess she was with him. You know how these things are, you get a message with a number. And they said no. And so then he said, “Well where is it that I’m calling?” And they said, “The New York Post. And since we’ve got you on the phone, what are you doing with Madonna?” And he hung up fast.
Sunday, November 30, 1986
Stuart had a car and we went to Christie’s and Stuart had to hide
so they wouldn’t see him— he still hasn’t paid for the flute, they call him every day. Stuart regrets buying it because, I mean, what would he get for it if he tried to sell it? And then we went over to the piers to the Antiques and Collectibles Exposition (tickets $15). And it’s just the same stuff everywhere. Small and the same, no character. Nothing dramatic. That Modernism show at the armory last week was great, though. But the guy wanted $5,000 for a World’s Fair service for eight or twelve! I couldn’t believe it. I was asking if I could buy the big spoon because I have a big service and I wore the big spoons out and so he told me the price and I said in that case could I sell him my set?
Then we went down to the flea market. And we ran into one of the Interview editors, the new one, Kevin Sessums. He was alone, buying a picture of a girl with cleavage, which was odd (research materials $210). Then they dropped me.
Then I heard that Martin died. He died in his new apartment that he got in the Village with all the money they raised for him at that benefit at the Pyramid. He bought whatever he wanted. He was such a sweet kid, and so friendly and generous. With his affection, too, he was generous.
Tuesday, December 2, 1986
Worked with Rupert then the rains came and they went on all day. I asked Wilfredo to Cornelia’s birthday party so he had to go home and change. Cornelia’s on the cover of Spy. Worked till 8:30. Talked to Keith. There was a wake for Martin that I guess Madonna was giving. It was too hard to get around, though, so I skipped all that. Put black tie on, and Wilfredo picked me up and we went to Cornelia’s and it was such a horrible party (cab $8). They treated Wilfredo badly, he had to sit on the side and I was next to Tony Peck. He said he’d been on a cruise with Dianne Brill and when I just asked if he fucked her he got upset, I don’t know why.