High life
Bucks for blinners
Taki
never thought I'd live long enough to see Anthony Haden-Guest throw a grand party for. . . 2,000 of his closest friends, but not only did I see it, I even enjoyed myself.
But before any of his creditors — and there are thousands — storm Heathrow Airport on their way over to collect, let me, like President Nixon, make one thing perfectly clear. Anthony's party was as blue as those given by Charles Benson every week at Aspinall's, i.e., the host gets the glory but Aspers foots the tab. (And for any of you who may not have heard the word blue used in this context, it derives yet again from Aspinall's. He used to call his house players blues, when the law allowed such things as house players. When the law was changed, there were suddenly around 500 Old Etonians on the breadline.) Anthony's guardian angel turned out to be Steve Rubell, a multi-millionaire real estate owner, who also happens to own the Palladium, the only indoor site I know of that could accommodate Hasso von Mateufel's Fourth Panzer division, tanks and all, plus all their French prisoners, and still look half empty. Oh, yes, Steve has also done a bit of time in the big house up the river, for tax evasion of course. (There are only two crimes that a white man who possesses the root of all evil can be charged with in New York State, tax evasion and insider trading.) Needless to say, parties at the Palladium nowadays are rather predictable. With the exception of the host — who for the first time ever, did not pass out — the rest were the same old tired faces that make up the big bagel by night. As my friend Melik Kaylan, the only Turk I know who's not in the record business, wrote in Spy maga- zine, 'The local fauna is herdlike and unquestioning.' They pushed and shoved trying to get a glimpse of Andy Warhol, or his effigy (I know for a fact that there are at least eight Warhols who make the rounds each night, like there used to be 20 Brezhnevs) and finally had to settle for a sober Haden-Guest, a worried-looking Lady White, and my friend Chuck Pfeiffer in the company of Oliver North (more about that next week).
And speaking of Turks, Ahmed Erte- gun, head of Atlantic Records, took a party of women from the Carlyle Hotel to Nell's last week, but failed to gain entry. The reason? Easy. He went up to a friend of mine who was also waiting to be allowed through, and announced grandiloquently that he was Ertegun, head of Atlantic Records, and that he had four ladies with him. My friend played it to the hilt. He first ignored him, and when the Turk insisted, he told him, 'We just can't let anyone through, old boy.' Ertegun swore he would never return, and left in a fury. One of the four ladies inside his stretch limo was my wife, who told me the story — and I of course told the world.
Nell's is for the moment what New Yorkers refer to as the hottest club. There's been a lot written about it, mostly flattering, because the hacks are scared shitless they won't be allowed in if they dare to criticise it. Well, the place is not bad, but the hoods outside are extremely unpleasant — they point at one and say, `Hey you, yeah yon, get in,' and stuff like that. Once inside, the waitresses are nice, but the three black barmen are dumb, rude, and unpleasant. Everyone refers to Nell's as resembling the inside of an English country house. I don't know what kind of houses these people have been to, but it certainly doesn't look anything like Chatsworth or Blenheim, the two houses I visit regularly when back in dear old England.
I thought of England last week, when my friend Lord Warwick gave a dinner for 82, and seated all 82 of us. This was not a blue dinner, or blinner, as we used to call them, the host actually had to cough up, an unheard-of phenomenon in New York nowadays. I sat between a man known as the Queen of Spain and Robert Hughes, the art critic. The man known as the Queen of Spain took exception when I yelled `Arriba Espana, Arriba Fraga, Arriba Franco,' and asked Lord Warwick's man- servant not to serve me. Unfortunately for him, Louis is not rich enough to be liberal, so it was the Queen who got served last. Needless to say, everyone was amused by the show, although I think it will be a while before his lordship has me again.
There were two more parties last week, one at Mortimer's given by Tina Brown to celebrate her husband becoming as tall as Napoleon, and the 22nd coming out of Cornelia Guest. (The poor girl is nearing middle age but she still and very regularly comes out each year.) I went to both of them and had as good a time as a man whose liver needs two years in Albania (not with Richard West, but with Mary Kenny) to recover can have. This week is the last one for merrymaking, and then I go into serious training for my Xmas party and New Year's Eve.
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