Steve is in town for the weekend, staying with Albie downstairs. They came over for dinner and Infernal Affairs Saturday night. Infernal Affairs is so much more interesting than Scorsese’s re-make, The Departed–grander. See it! Anyway, Steve is on his way back home to Hawaii following a trip to Paris to help his friend open her new spa. He had thought that her spa business partner was named “Stinking Trudie” until she corrected him: “Sting and Trudie.”
“Wait a minute,” I asked, “How does she know Sting?”
Steve was a little embarrassed by our fascination with his name dropping, but couldn’t seem to stop. “Madonna.”
“She’s friends with Madonna?!?”
“You know, spa stuff. So anyway, she also needed help with this party that she’s throwing for Boutros…”
“Wait, ‘Boutros-Boutros Ghali’–the former Secretary General of the UN?”
Steve was embarrassed again, “They have the same cleaning lady. She wanted me to go to Egypt with her for the weekend, but I was just too tired. I asked her, ‘Egypt, don’t they hang gay people there?’ but she assured me that ‘Boutros would never let that happen!'”
It went on and on, with more and more celebutantes and diplomats spilling from Steve’s lips. I told him to tell Madonna, Sting and Boutros that they must look me up next time they’re in town.
Earlier in the day I went a-gallerying with Emily, David, and David’s boyfriend, Scott. David and Scott are former-mormons and have matching glasses, cute little bellies, and sweet dispositions. I fell in love with their sweet togetherness and innocent delight in all the strange artwork that we introduced to them.
“And this is Nayland Blake’s work, he used to live here and was Bob’s boyfriend.” Nayland’s aesthetically and psychologically complex examination of self, sexuality, and relationships led to a lively discussion of Bob’s and my life, together and apart. David is a writer who was greatly influenced by Bob, and so was intensely excited about suddenly having access to a different view of Bob’s autobiograph-ing.
A silhouette of trees against an impossibly bright night sky at Fraenkel Gallery by Robert Adams was the highlight for all of us. “I was Jeffrey Fraenkel’s gardener. I set off his burglar alarm.” My name-dropping went unacknowledged.