Post on 25-Nov-2014
description
transcript
-I- -I I%I W i u%1c,rI-ILv 11 I-I I
;- --S
-*
:
-
.
.,&.___
-
I------,- %___--
r
L
-*5
V!Ç
AD
. D
IR:
PA
UL
MA
RC
IAN
O
PH
OT
O:
ELL
EN
V
ON
U
NW
ER
TH
í!ff i
.
W4'4
, i'-s- '
u - .
! 4i-
_____id t
_ %I___ 111*
1
L L!L.. i ZU
N t ?) -
j r2YI U ri ' _ ''- L
11
i'
: ' 4 --
F ___- - -,- .& d1' )' - ' - - -: --E4
,
mprted by Coinrriiu Americi. Inc.. 40%
C'est kwäñ.trö mutch stile
C'est Kwañ trO, ä longue
with awl the wrest of elle. Her kiOs,
her män ner, her bare ing, her
gewlery, her smit.Wen elle wawks in
two the rUm, hèds tern
mon mour then most. C'est awl
d'elle, but espeshelly c'est
her Kwãñ-trö, c'est mûtch, mütch stile.
C'est kwäñutrö onde rox,
C'est kwäñ.trö onde rox.
( Kwäñ.trö onde ?)
Imponed by Count rvuu Animka. Inc., 40%
Cst kwäñ.trö mutch stile
C'est Kwañ trO, à longue
with awl the wrest of elle. Her kiOs,
her man ner, her hre ing, her
gewlery, her smil.Wen elle wawks in
two the rüm, hëds tern
mon mour then most. C'est awl
d'elle, but espeshelly c'est
her Kwàñ-tro, c'est mûtch, mütch stile.
4NTRE.C'est kwäñ.trö onde rox.
C'est kwäñ.trö onde rox.
(Kwän.trO onde roxfl
Imported bi Cointrcuiu America. Inc., 40%
_ I
C'est kwäñ.tró nuitch stile
C'est Kwañ trO, ä longue
with awl the wrest of cile. Her kiOs,
her man ner, her bäre ing, her
gewiery, her smi1. Wén eile wawks in
two the rüm, hëds tern
mon mour then most. C'est awl
d'elle, but espeshelly c'est
her Kwäñ-trò, c'est mùtch, mútch stile.
4NTH*.
C'est kwàñ.trö onde rox.
,,
: :
t . ;-'
L
.
I
I
: "I., est KwantrO onue rox.
: (Kwäñ.trô onde fl)X
' ThE COVER
L)
Ch.y Chas. photograph.dby aonni. 5-chiffrnan.Navy wool iut: GIor9ioArnioni. Cotton *hrtBom. N.w Yori.Poly.st.r ti.: Lithø Rickia,Grooming: Kimi M.ssno.Stylists: Borbora Tfaiik inNYC (r.prss.nt.4 byOlive Hiod) ardCathy Conned in L.A 1:11 -- .: l -I-5
GREAT EXPECTATIONS ........QNAKED Cm'
Mayor Koch 'spersonaldominatrix. Where Hollywoodstar.cgo top/ay with giazi.
A dork is a noodle is a macaroni - py 'sgroiind-breakingforeign-fangiiage experiment.
Plus. hou; Binky Urban managei to stayfriend5 with everyone ..............
:.THE SPY MAP
Abandoned poisons? Misplaced infectious waste? Radioactive goo?
Where else but in New York? SYDNEY SCHUSTER tours the cit that
never fweep5. Illustrated by NATASHA LFSSNIK ................PARTY Poor ...........
NEW, IMPROVED NEW YORK
Pneumotube to work. It 'ifaster than the subway, cooler than the subway
and tu;ice as scay as the subway. Illustrated by HOWARD CHA YKIN ........
q
w
o
u
F U I
lB9BRING Us YOUR TIRED, YOUR SICKLY, YOURGUWBLE AND HYPOCHONDRIACAL RICH ...
Their u;a:ting rooms are filled with the veil-heeled gulls of New York society. Their diagnoses refer to
mysterious hidden allergies, vitamin deficiencies and other supposed ills that only money can cure.
Their patients, for sonze reason, keep coming back. JENNIFER CONLIN gives a second opinion on Dr.
Stuart Berger and Dr. Robert Gil/er, Neu; York 's tu;o screwiest, trendiest nutritionists. Also: EussA
SCHAPPELL and RACHEL URQUHARTgO undercoverfor diagnosis
IPEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE ART
Some people remind us ofart (Sammy DavisJr. cubism). Some u;orks ofart remind z
ofpeople (Henry Moore 's sculptureDianne Brui,). We're not saying it 's a conspiracy. We 're not
saying it 's coincidence. We 're not even saying it 's aesthetically or historically relevant. We 're just
saying it 's true. And zve have the pictures to prove it ......................SQUIRM-O-RAMA: JAMES TOBACK'S GUIDE TO, UH, CASTING ACTRESSES
Real-l:fe pickup linei and movie-casting techniqueifrom the hustlingest auteur in Hollywood. Warning: This article is
notfor thefainthearted, the easily offended or misguided guys who think they Ilpick up sorne pointers on how to score with
chicks. VINCENZA DEMnz talki with a bakers dozen of Toback 's picks ......
ISN'T IT IRONIC?
So yOU "Iove"Joe Franklin and really gaudy Hawaiian shirts? You say you and "the little woman
arejizst lookingfor the quote-unquote good l:fe7 Can 't get through a conversation without making little air quotes with
your fingers? Blame it on the irony Epidemic. PAUL RUDNIcK and KURT ANDERSEN take a straight-faced look
at the age ofihe perpetual izizirk. Photographs byJ.ivNY LYNN ..............
::i LJI%4
IGNATZ R&zrx'JzKiwzi rides the cloiheshorses in Review of Reviewers; an overload ofstar power
.. I shorts out CELIA BRADY in The Industry: JAzs GRANTfind5 The Street pooh-poohing the bank-
ruptcy boom: M. SLOBODK!N updates Résumés from New Haven; PATRIcIA MA&x and DOUGLAS
-ç ,;MCGRATH tiptoe into the Publishing world; and ELLiS WEINER on How to Be a Grown-up
\ with a broken car ......................................
x-..OUR UN-BRmSH CROSSWORD Puzzu
By ROY BLOUNTJR ........
spy (ISSN 08<)0- I 759) is pubtished monthly by Spy Publishing Partners, The Puck Budding, 295 Lafayette Street, New Yock, N.Y. 100 2. Submions: Sad
with SASE w same ad&cs& For advertising sales, cal! 2 I 2-92555O9. 1989 by Spy Pubbshing Partn, LP.S«onddass postage paid at Nw York, N.Y., and
addirional mailing of&cs. Annual subsrìption races: U.S. and possessions, $21.77; Canada, US$30; foreign, US$40. Fbrmaster: Please send address changes co
SPY, P.O. Box 359139. Palm Coast, FL 32035-9139. Foc subscripion infoma6on, call: L8OO423.l78O. Membec Audit Burcau of Circulations.
E LEGANCE
A NON YMOUS
THE SILHOUETTE
IS FAMOUS. THE QUALITY
IS OBVIOUS: FINE FABRICS,
CANVAS CONSTRUCIION AND
HAND TAILORING. THE PRICE
IS EXCEPTIONAL. THE NAME
IS VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN, BUT
OU R GIORGIO (ORR EGGIAR I
SUITS ARENT RESTING ON
THEIR LABELS. SUIT BY GIORGIO
(O RR EGGIARI S57 5.
SPIKE LEE
jj ni in (i k i' r
EI
0UNI'I'ED COLORS O,: B1Nirro\
I
j!
4'
.i.:WlF T.
. fl
----.
:.
-
_4 - :
'
- -
: J r. :
. .
.
.
:
:
- ( ;;
:
.
,f
I : :
í
_l
!
t
.
I S $
T
1/P#AIi_' . .
'.
bPhdip Moms tnc 1989
*
. I
THE
PERFECT
-
- --..,.
:
9 mg tar 0.6 mg nicotine ay, per cigarette. FTC RepthTFeb85
PARLIAMENT
RECESSiJ-
LH-
'T
»
I
f:; F:i :::::
All :
ï
"She loves my cooking.
And she drinks Johnnie Walker"
fr':
s ft
;: Good taste is always an asset.TM
o 1968 Schierleln 6 5me,seI Co . New VOriç NV BIenod Scotch Whsky 43 4
i
-i
II
.I.
:11
u
I4
-u
4.'.
.
TIME MARCHES ON. AND SO HAMFISH THE ELDEST, EX-CONGRESS-MAN AND RIGHT-WING NUT, HASfinally mellowed toward FDR. I really don'tbelieve in hate, Fish announced as he turnedloo and Franklin Roosevelt's corpse turned107. "So now I don't hate Rooseveltbutfrankly, I despise him. Precisely our feelingsthese days toward Donald Trump: we don't
hate him, we despise him. It sounds more sophisticated, andanyway, we're not obsessed with Trump the way we used to be.We've grown; we've learned. In fact, we are never going tomention him ever again. ' Instead, let's discuss . . . oh, howabout Ed Koch? My image of myself is as a reserved, retiring,even shy person," he announced to the press just before NewYear's, as if by saying he isn't a tiresome loudmouth he will ceaseto be one. Koch has had a fabulous winterproposing that
Ihomeless people pay rent for their space in city shelters;having his affirmative-action program revealed as a pa-tronage scheme; and inspiring every New Yorker over 40
who owns a decent suit to consider running against him in thisyear's mayoral election. . ' Whoever does run may benefit fromthe anti-Koch advertising being planned by . . . by . . . by a well-known billionaire memoirist and skating-rink restorer. The bi!-lionaire memoirist-restorer says hemay spend $2 million on his negativecampaign against Koch; those whoknow the billionaire memoirist-re-storer expect him to endorse his guyAndy Stein for mayor. Koch vs.Stein, Stein vs. Koch . . . no lesser of
ne marches on
Jk
two evils. As the president of the Utah State Retirement Fundsaid (explaining his investment in hostile, insanely leveragedcorporate takeovers), "Things are never quite black or whiteanymore. At virtually the same spot where Ronald Reagan
is now spending his days pretending to work (eerie
coincidencesthat's our theme for the 1990s), po-lice arrested a man with queer, demonological politi-cal ideas who did not serve two terms in the WhiteHouse. Nathan Trupp was apprehended, just downthe street from Universal Studios, after he shot andkilled tWo Universal security guards. He had notreally intended to kill the guards. "I was seeking out[Highway to Heaven star and creator) Michael Lan-
MARCH 1989 SPY I I
dcn. proscutos qtotvd him as saying. 1
a.s aLtcmp(u1$ to kill EH:ghuay t Haiti's
star ¡md rcarir MishcI Landon Truppthought L4Íkk)c was ¡1 NUI He evikntiy(k*Sflt untkrtnd rhar shings arc rwvrrblick whitc anymurc.
Spcak;n ut rih. smarmy. guoti-Iouking(ntis whnrn i>chr pupk thisk ¿rc Nuis.4Imosrprcsident Dan Quityk (whose ía-thcr md in-Iaw du. rn f,iii. tibrib tucr)pto-Nazt puhlkations) remains a na-tiunal pkaur. As part 1 an ad ho mau-gtmatmom ekbranon. Swedish consul gen-cral Ar Thoren a dmpomat. mind you- t1lt-cI Quiiylc an mnuIt to the restçmt the V.OtI(I Just wait a tiarn wondthcre. Arne. he may he an alarmingly ulm-
qualmfwd Iavahou. but by God. hes ouralarmingly unqualihed layabouc. 1 was
not as areíuI as I should ha'e Ix-cn, the
consul general said later. ÍcgnIng anapoIog.
Things really an- never blik or whmn-¡mmore espvuatly not black: Jcssc Ja&k
son. among others. has deiided chat hcncc-
(orth haek pvti'Ie should be called Mn-an-Amvricans. hs their d«ision.
certainly. hut we never thought lmflyI-KxIy
wouki takv this scvcnt,vs rcvwal mImmnt so
wrzoush (Memo toJetse matter whatanyl)()dy else tells you. cake mt Irum ulid) oli o/ie djshths,)
It was during the ñrsi nostalgia craze in
thy seventies, that the death penalty made
Its omehack. Hut what at first seemned
nsaIIv tomnpht&ted and ugly has nowturned ph)JzcaII3 eompIm(a(ed and za's.Texas -ai two minutes into exemuting. by
means o( lethal mnet,on. its last pers(rn tor
19S8. a man named Ra!,-mond Landnv (no
reIa,on to Tom). when thy cube fevdrnjthe puee into hu arm sprang a leak. squirt-
ing lethal drug toward thc sIetatos. Lan-dry gro.omwd death was dde'sI. And itwas allh:ifaa/: Landry was very musen-
lar and had I\ipcyc-type arms. a spokes-man hw Olio Tex attorney general said.
Whcn thc stuff was towing. mt wouldntgo) into the veins
Et-rie mnidenoes. nothing s black onwhoc. th ugly turns zany. a kinder aridgentler Anxiïca: LA s unkic-tilkd ike-slung Suarc was reently the site oC anad ho WCl(OflCthe N mt-tics katival.Rleshnun a person wearing a red ape
and lcotrd and a glanr. smiling Clorox lus
over his head showed up to cncoun-age
hroiri addits to dip their syringes inhitach as an anti-AIDS pneeaucion.
I2IflMAACH 1919
In ohe post-seventies pharmaceuticalnews. Ontho. the Pill manufacturer, hasawarded its 'sctond annual Twenty-FirstCentury Woman Award. Among thtjudges were Retty Friedari and BellaAbuug. The wmnhier of the S 10.000 award.
hosen trum I .0(10 canoIidatc. was a Che-r-
t>kCV Indian named Wilma Mankmlkrchf Mankslltr. as the Ahaug-Friedanpnzcwmnnv is allcd ufficialI). Onu again.It iS entirel) their koision but (or Godssake. the se v enties resival was supposed to
bc a
11e- First o)Ifl(fl5 Bank, a rccc ot((any k-inimiist residue- Irum tw days when
eserything was hl.nk ut white (and thathas survived literally in uit- shadow ut .
ut . . . oI Short- Imngero-d Vu IgarianI()wVr). is hanging its name after I scars
of existente to th First New Yikk Flank(or Business Crawen. Itç-mn-chc-gtnv
7øP)o"
;!, t-)
a.t,,
'
flpandering tu the Zemtgeis No merely
the sont øf presto-thango flexibility thatmakes the American service sector sodynamic.
The presmdenr of the First WomensBank. a woman narne-d Neak Godfrey,itimped ship early - 'shr had some of ht-r
own Zeirgeist-pandering w attend to.Godfrey has started the Children's Finan-
coal Network. a tranhiscd service ro (Sift-f
checking accounts. nantial-planning in-formation and hnance-unienrvd toys tochildren as young as five. And in che nickoftime. tx thy anti-iangibk-asc-t othualswho run Iljltimnun-s public schools havclust imposed a new oint-sa code that prohib-
Its kids from wearing gold ccIry or fursin school.
Marshall Vegt-í. a soap opera writerand social dirnber who eum(xted a piulan-
thn py aIkd the ( .rtii S.xicty (William F.
Bukky Jr. , among other swells, is on thc
board). would surçl nest-n dream of deny-
ing (hilolrL-n the ri1hr to wear nr thingsVaegcrs rocnt Creo Sooety kncft (on thtUN tntetnationiil Chiidrens FmvrgcixyFund raised $Sl(l.lX)O. and although amil-c- S7-t.000 attuallv -ent to) the tihanity
Yargtr was mffetl at trie publio cnitc,smht- endured. It wnild lw- a shame ho
said. i1 our materialistic soucty robbedeven harity of all it imnplws by an unne-k-nnng fxtas on the honoin liric.
Nancy Reagan. now liberated is being
canolid about her own unrelenting focus on
rk botom line. ')X'ben a re-portes cold herthat she could get S.?'i.(X)(l for drluverrng a
few after-dinner platitudes. Nancy go cx-
ured. Trnry-hs-e she purred 1jtsounds good. ÌÏWfl Nancy was told thatoliver North. tut- To-lion okfrndanr andnational hero. gets $25.000 for hisspecehes. Hc dues' the former first ladstq)llrtl, ttit dollar signs st-rsnearly visible iii twt eyes Icts make thatIO flor mne).
Id Mers. her husbands 1oya1 andbeloved former pet. gels only 112,5(X)'er spte h But tut- Ammiitan people the
lirtk people. tht- regular lolk. the imtittmswho untk-rssanj lIlaO wlmi it 01)111(5 tO) '.()fl-
(litt UI intero-sr and influence-peddling.Zusagt 4?? atrrr quilt W.nk oc ¿01fl1( in)-jacte they re tr.uy about I-d Met-se. I can
hardly go through an ainport, he says.
sothout people omning up to me andthanking rTx. . . lt mug happen a dozentimes a wet-k Of course it does; H. Fu.:/ssthihankj a loi!
Wc can hardly go through an air-JIQ((fl011 it its I.a Guardia or Logan utNatuonul without being re-tflukk-d thatwhit 'mas at Christmas a pkasantly shabby
air chunk sers-mec is nn run by .. by .by a pnlminrnr blondish couple (a couplessiso. h the way. are going to upgrade The
Plais Isorel by building a limousine dis-parher s kiosk) Thr iisset. the bkind buI-lionaire said of the shuttic when basteen snil
owned it. ms being totally destructeol. Alas,
things arr never so black ut white anymore.
the asset asnt destructed. and the . the
. . the philanthropist-aviator was permit-ted by a court ro bus- the airline after all . But
(lit-re was omni- heartening prosct as spnng
ai. uisltiOn season approa hvtl Somcwht-rc
olown the lmne. th Queens-horn builderTmr cosvr boy-yathtsmnan-tonspucuousUSUSUmer predicreol. i'm nor going ro hase
anything to) bUy. b
¶:
t:
4
i.
4:.y
:. _* *..I.w*___
-T,:;-.
TItì -
GIORGIO ARV[AJM815 Madison Avenue, New ork 436 No. RuIt I )riv. Beverly hills
I
rwt
Y
;.
\\ C.1
.
. Ì.L i
i
A iL LWILL '
A ;::7
'
1 :
LJ1LTkThTCD[tJCL
' i'fli IíI,-ILI)
, LR.L.LLLLLLLLLLL
.
:
\ T-r-LT-Tr-Tfl T-LTÏ ' \ X.LLL i .w L.LLL
ra
fTP-r-Tí TR--L:-r
\
L .W .LLLICL
p
: NJ.iIAY NIdÜS
ri
1
s_
__ __
r
i4
i
:i-
!
.-y--
I
IL-
IL
?t
(<
-.
d;'
L-
'D
.f
h1
"b..;
.t
..
-
,: ------.
k:
-'
T:L
+1
:-:-''
_)
.
o
w ;;
+p
tf;LV7
!;;;1'-
Qi
;
w rfa
d?!31
;..Jd
:i V
F-.
.__
,,
,'.-
'
V(#4)
C.
¡6 SPY MARCH 1989
Prom the spy mailroom: Theres some-thing we'd like to nip in the bud. Tworeaders from Loi Angeles have sent us
their wedding announcement. We ap-
preciate the update on "the changes in
two of your subscriben lives," and weoffer our congratulations. But let the rec-
; ord show that thet.. couple did not meet
. in this column orr
anywhere else ri SnAnd we feel that publishing their nameswould set a very bad precedent In no
time readen would be asking us to sendmessages to other readers about howthey enjoy moonlight and lobster andMozart diveitimenti but not fotties andto please enclose a photo.
John Szekely of Upland, California,has ordered a spy T-shirt (large) and has
written on the bottom of his order form,"Who is the highest-ranking civil ser-vont to send you hate mail? That's aneasy one: Senator Alan K. Simpson, inlast November's Letters section. Nowdo we win a John Siekely T-shirt?
Bill Pfriender of Spring Lake, NewJeney, has sent us a poem about sty.Thanks, Bill. The thing is, on the enve-lope you directed the poem to 'Letters'but inside you indicated it wos a sub-mission, so we dont know whether tomake fun of it here, in this column, or in
the unsolicited-manuscript column thatfollows. (Were not being cruelit's snpolicy to make tun of even good poetry,since we don't publish any poetry at all,And we can't run it as o letter becauseof the "submitted by" part thatdoesn't really make it a letter to theeditor,now, does it? Procedurally, sys-
temwise and administratively speaking,you've got us stymied.)
The November issue arrived with a
bonus for Laura E. Pinto of Windsor,Ontario: "at least one thousand self-adhesive address labels bearing thename 'Catherine Mackay.'" She askswhether these labels were included inthe plastic wrapper intentionally. Ofcount. Don't be alarmed, it's just a sub-scription giveaway some people gotwv sunglasses, you got a thousand ad-hesive Catherine Mackay labels.
Actually, Bill, we like the poem.
Carde Johnson of Tuscaloosa, Ala-bama, spent October 28, 1988, writing
to SPYFour letters. The breakdown:(1) Edgar Allan Poe and Elvis Aron Pres-
ley: a comparison; (2) suggestions for"Separated at Birth?"; (3) "You reallymustn't knock Bono"; (4) partial retrac-tion of third letter. Slow day inTu sca lo osa
Really, Bill, we do. Especially the"classy as it gets/sassy as it gets"partthat's us.
Alex Winter of Lewiston, Maine,caught the Firesign Theatre allusion inNovember's Letters section (the bitabout Ignatz Raztwixkiwzki pronounc-in9 his name "danger") and thanks usfor it. "Where in hell ore those guys?"he asks. Jack Montgomery of Manda-rin, Florido, probably doesn't know. Hewrites to say that the correct pronunci-ation is " Ratzky-watzky, " and identifies
Ignoti as "the never-seen servicemanwho impregnated Betty HuttonOUTOF WEDLOCK!!in that madcap com-edy of the 1940s, The Miracle of Mor-
gon's Creek."
But you see, Bill, there's really noth-¡ng we can do about it, and it's probablyjust going to fall through the cracks.
Charlotte De Jager, writing in thethird person from Fairfield, Ohio, "de-nies mayhem in her seemingly innocentletter" of last year, which was written
on misleading pink-and-blue stationeryand was dealt with here in September.This time the gloves are off: menacing
lined yellow notepaper.A couple of follow-ups on s' stories:First, despite the defeat of the five-
foot-eight-inch presidential candidatelast fall, our thesis that short men aretaking over (June 1987 cover story) con-
tinues to gather evidence, as teensy,self-employed Henry Kravis and Shear-son's teensy Peter Cohen (who is "self-conscious about his five-foot-sixheight," according to the Times) are
leading the alchemy-in-reverse trans-formation of corporate America into amountain of leveraged-buyout debt.
Second, an addition to "Will the RealMan Behind I New York Please Stand
up" (by Ned Zeman, October): ust whodid invent the transistor? (a) WalterBrattain, John Bardeen and WilliamShockley; (b) NASA; (c) the RepublicanParty. All seem to have claimed to. sri'contributor Andy Aaron took a tour ofNASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape
J
DEAR EDITORS clore you get toosmug about your
powers of perception CLogrol!ing in OurTimefl), remember that Ambrose Biercenoted in 1883 in Wasp,
Our magazines are the advertising circu-¡ars of the book-publishers who ownthem. Their function is to puff the
books which first appeared as serials intheir pages. In their pages their writerspuff' one another. In the Atlantic, for
example, T. B. Aldrich (a nerveless, col-
orless jelly-Fish of literature) will have a
long laudatory ofW. D, Howells.
A few months later W. D. Howells will
have a long laudatory review of Henry
J ames, Jr. Later, Henry James, Jr. , will
come to the fore with a long laudatoryreview of T. B. Aldrich, and the circle iscomplete. Three dwarfs have coweredabove the heads of their fellow men bystanding on one another's shoulders inturn.
R. uifichae/ Lieberman
San Franc:s'o, California
DEAR EDITORS was sitting at home,watching daytime TV,
and on comes Super Password. And outcome the two celebrity contestants: MarciaWallace, the from the old BobNeuhart Show, and . . . G. Gordon Liddy!Of course, Liddv did a fine job, winning a
.round or two by using the word strap as aclue for jock and guessing prison as theanswer to the clues hard and going.
I'm hoping the old Watergate gang willtake on the Iran-contra bunch on FamilyFeud. The Gaters would kick butt, don'tYOU agree?
Stephen Perrine
Brooklyn
DEAR EDITORS oel Siegel reviews s'
[Joel Siegel Reviews'New England, '
'by Michael Crawford,
December):Hysterically funny! Harry Shearer never
wore nicer clothes [Jacket Required, De-cernber)! I stood up and cheered! (Whichwas awkward and embarrassing when youconsider where I read spy!)
One of the top ten magazines of the year!
Joel SiegelNeu' York
DEAR EDITORS her does not fit yourannoying" list [The
Spy ioo, October). Her total honesty andpersonality make her desirable to hearabout and follow. Very few people find her
annoying. . . . It was so depressing to seeyou do not like Cher. J do like yourmagazine!
Tom Mills
Cambridge, MassachusettsAnd we do like you Tom.' Look. let's not letC&er come between iii.
DEAR EDIrORS ope, it's irving Howevs. Philip Roth [The
Feuding System, November).Now, please fix this major boner in a
subsequent issue or I'm going to be mad at
you and may stop submitting good Sepa-rated at Birth? suggestions, such asJohnny Carson and Tommy Smothers, justfor instance.
Fred Ruhm
Oakland, New Jersey
DEAR EDITORS e enjoyed your spoofof Bare Bones: Con-
versations on Terror with Stephen King FSoWhat's Wrong With Being Mu!-tifaceted?, by Martin Kihn, November).But finding contradictions in Mr. King'sinterviews over an eight-year period must
tb :i.:i-i -4have been a little like shooting a sittingduck. Over time everyone's tastes and opin-ions change, and that includes writers,editors, politicians and possibly evenmagazines.
In any case, Steve didn't edit this collcc-non. W'did.
Tim underwood and Chuck i%Iiller
Novato, California
DEAR EDITORS thought I could relaxafter you ran my letter
last June, and leave your busy mailroomstaff alone. (I got a copy of Z, by the way.and I can't say I understood all of it [Let-ters to SPY, June); but Knut HamsunIngemar Johansson Separated by a Mid-wife? - a stitch!)
I did not write when you so risibly pillo-ned my old college chum Richard SamuelWest, who was, incidentally, at one time avery nice guy [From the SPY Mailroom,
MARCH 1989 SPY 17
I8SPYMARCH 1989
Canaveral 15 years ago and remembershearing a guide laying claim (for NASA)to the invention (a spokesman todaysays NASA would never take credit forthat but admits that "we have madesignificant advances in the field ofmicrominiaturization" and allows thatNASA may hove been involved in "mi-nor incremental changes"). And at lastsummers GOP convention, Pat Robert-son said, "Ladies and gentlemen, theRepublican Party wants to write a taleof another city. We are the children ofthose who tamed the wilderness. . ..We are the heirs of those who enrichedthe world with the electric light, thetelephone, the airplane, mass-producedautomobiles, the transistor. . . We are
Republicans." Golly, we didn't realizelus, how much we had to thank PatRobertson and company for. The an-swer is, of course, (a)the three meninvented it at Bell Labs in 1947. On theother hand, maybe they were allRepublicans.
Last October in this space we leveleda few casual threats at the pupils ofNew York's Hunter College High Schoolfor co-opting our "Separated ot Birth?logo and idea in their yearbook, An-nalsnothing really mean, just a pass-¡ng threat to ruin their careers at somepoint in the future. We've now receiveda letter from the staff of Annals 1989,informing us that this year the preco-clous little devils plan to expand theirlook-alikes section to two pages. Theyjustify it this way: " 'Separated atBirth?' implies that each pair of peopleis really a pair of twins, and we believethat the two people in each of our pairsare really one and the some person."Furthermore, they've come up with adifferent, catchier title of their own thistime: "Have You Ever Seen These Peo-pIe in the Same Place at the SameTime?" We like it. We just may steal it.
Speaking of which, we admit we'velost interest in doing periodic roundupsof the pervasive srr influence in otherpublications and also the occasionalroots-of-spy acknowledgments. Wethank readers who continue to send usexamples, but we'll henceforth let it go(except for those Hunter kidsthey'rehnished). Let's all face it: it's o sp-de-rivative world, and vice versa.
Oh, Bill? The check is in the mail. )
October); or even when Mrs. De Meni!finally wrote in about her son [Letters, Oc-rober). (AU the same, watch her.) Whatprompts this worried note is your conten-tion in The Fine Print [by Jamie Malanow-ski, November) that Richard Nixon ranfor president as a New York favorite son.Richard Nixon was not born here, nor didhe ever run for state of&e. Worked for alocal law firm, I grant you; kept a Manhat-tan townhouse, educated his daughcers,even so. But, as I think some song goes,California named him, California claimedhim. And that's that.
Joe GioiaBrooklyn
All qui/e true, 6'i he did run as a New Yorkresideni. And he's always been a favorite ofours.
DEAR EDITORS glaring omission fromyour pages has been
detected lately. How is it har such a largeand slow-moving target as Jann Wennerhas escaped the cross hairs of your occa-sionally well-aimed jibes? Is there some-thing you are not telling us? Is there a typeofpub]icist who is paid to keep names outof certain publications, orcions closer than that?
So many questions. So much whitespace.
Reginald FessendenAustin, Texas
See No. 59 opi last October's SPY ¡00 or¡970f (December) or "The 100 Greatest Is-sucs ofRolling Stone Magazine ofihe Last 20Years" (December).
DEAR EDITORS ow delightful it was toñnd Washington,
D.C., mayor Marion Barry included inyour paean to fall [Great Expectations,November). (By the way, it is Barry, notBerr but that's an understandable mis-take, given his physical shape.) Many of usfind Barry to be a politician in the mold ofAl Sharpton, only less reputable.
Since Hizzoner is a regular visitor toNew York, he should be considered fairgame for your gentle apes. After all, hereis a man who has stated on several oeca-sions that he is second in importance onlyto the president of the United States, andwho travels with a security entourage onlyslightly smaller than that accorded the firstfamily. How can Ed Koch hold a candle to
someone who glides around town in hisLincoln town car, wearing an expensivesweatsuit and a baseball cap with MAYORembroidered on it in gold thread? Thisself-described night owl, attired in theaforementioned lounging outfit, also ad-mitced recently to paying a lace-night visitto a young woman who makes her livingdancing nude, on the pretext of introduc-ing himself to her three-year-old son.
The Spy shutterbugs may also want codrop in on the mayor's next birthday party,especially if it's like some of the pastbashes. One favorite took place in the clubwhere the dancer mentioned above per-forms. Ac one point in the evening oneyoung voman spent an extraordinaryamount of time underneath thc mayor'stable, reportedly looking for a droppedbook of matches. Light my fire, indeed!
By the way, before you mock my corn-munity of residence, as you have done co somany before, you should know that onlyche truly deranged, a few politicians andthose people whom they breed to work atthe Motor Vehicle Bureau actually live inD.C. The rest of us commute to work onwhat passes for a subway around bere.
Jack SheehanGermantou n , ilaryland
DEAR EDI1ORs s a soon-to-be-cerci-fled public accountant
and devour Mickey Rourke fan, I was dis-rnayed to note Heaven's Gaie missing fromhis list of credits VThe Unstoppables, byRod Granger and Doris Toumarkine,November). The omission will not onlycost United Artists substantial video rent-als from the Rourke contingent of sysreaders, but, by bringing Rourke's toral tomore than $100 million, it would havemade him the hands-down Unstoppablechamp.
After Heaven's Gare and Year of theDragon, the mind can only wonder whateffect the Rourke factor" could have hadon Michael Cimino's third bomb of thel980s, The Sicilia,,.
Blame FaulknerEI Cajon, California
We tried io concentrate on movies in which our
Unstoppables played starring roles, either be-fore or behind the cameras. Having already,uh, credited Heaven's Gate tofellow Unstop-pables Michael Cimino and Km Kristofferson,it would bave been unfair io charge it off onRourke's account as well.
I f'i;';'r; i
!me Certifiably Nuts the laughing, I
¡
talking strait jacket containing 12 oz.
I
of unshelled peanuts.
I
understand each bag comes
Iwith a patient histoiy and commit-
Imentpapergiftcardandcosts
I
I$19.95 plus $4.00 shipping and
i
Ihandling per bag. (California resi-
idents add 6.5% sales tax.)
II have enclosed a check or mon-
IC order in the amount of $ i
I for bag(s). I will wait patient- i
I ly (no pun intended) 8 to IO weeks I
:
for delivery. I
IName i
iAddress i
iCityState_Zip
iThlephoneI
i
OffCenterI
1142 Manhattan Avenue #332i
I
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266I
Void where prohibited.I
L --------------- J
MARCH 1989 SPY Q
Some of the mostmportant issuesmanagement will facen the next 12 months.
I - I -c .
'JI I
Its here Anotheryearofmcrgers, acquisi
rtrr
tions, spinoíís, layoffs, buyouts, bailouts, H- ,. ..
hirings and firings. All the things that¡
ma e i e at t e top ot t e corporate ladder !
exciting and---sometimesshort. !1 jf 7 i .. ..
Simple survival is the main reason why J I
J ,. .
1
the biweekly arrival of Forbes is so important 7 /
to so many in management. And that's not J '. I
lust our opinion. According to a studyJ
bvMaketFacts1norecofVontofhCers
gives them the best information ou 'I.%
companies, as well as the best judgments : ' . .and insïghts. But survival isn't the only ' . 'thingthey also say it's the most enjoyable.
:
,,lt's because Forbes gives both executives _ìr
and investors the information they Ii
need in a form they enjoy that Forbes I .7 ' -.
enjoys such a wealth of megarich read I
CRY.BAìS I or es 'i'" .
ers. Subscribers who have household ai.',incomes of over S160..000 and invest- i
jV
nient portfolios of over $895,000. I \ --With one out of three a millionaire.
And while America's business and No doubt this isfinancial leaders find Forbes to be why the Publishers Information Bureauthe most informative, liveliest and consistently ranks Forbes among the If you want your advertising to bemost enjoyable of the major business leaders in total advertising pages. Why seen and well received by the upper
magazines, advertisers are happy to biweekly Forbes carries more ad pages ranks of management, put it in thefind that it's the least expensive way than Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated business magazine they consistentlyto reach them. or U.S. News land, of course, Fortune). vote their favorite. Forbes.
20 SPY MARCH 1989
DEAR EDITORS hen I was in school,I used to amuse my-
seW during boring classes by making ana-grams. (E. Graydon Carter CORNETREADY: RAG!, GRODY CAREERANT.) But my teachers discouraged me.They told me no one could make a livingfrom anagrams. (Kurt Andersen STAR-KEEN NURD, DRUNKEN STARE.)Like a fool, I believed them.
John T Durkip,Monk/air. Neu jersey
DEAR EDITORS satirical magazinemust keep its credibil-
ity, or it becomes like the hyperyellow jour-nais sold in supermarkets. Ned Zemanspiece [Will the Real Man Behind INYPlease Stand Up, October) not only smellsof desperation trying to get enough ma-terial for a basically good ideabut someof it is so false that even the opposite of hisstatements is not true. Take the case of theFour Seasons, for instance. Philip Johnsonnever claimed to invent Chocolate Velvet,Mies van der Rohe took no credit for thebrilliant concept, George Lois is perfectlyhappy with rcceiving credit for translating
the concept into a public message, and Icertainly have not claimed credit for any ofthe above, as my bio in Whos Who clearlyindicates. There are several people whoshould take credit for being part of a teamled by Joe Baum who deserves a good-size chapter in a book yet to be written,namely the history of twentieth-centuryrestaurants as a social institution. Pleasealso read my article in Travel & Leisure inconnection with the 25th anniversary ofthis extraordinary institution.
Although J don't usually dispense freeadvice, I will make an exception at thistime: dont try ¡o had, because, in theimmortal words of A. J. Liebling, youwill boot yourself in the posterior.
George LangNeu York
DEAR EDITORS hile it is plain in thefinal analysis in Ned
Zeman's story that I created the INYcampaign and that I was the only persontelling the truth, I wish that the piece hadconducted further investigation into the or-igins of the campaign.
I would gladly have made my files avail-
able ro you, and you would have seen foryourself the lengthy, in-depth, detailed let-ters that I had sent to numerous peopleupwards of a year and a half before anymeetings actually took place relative to thecampaign.
These letters outline the concept andneeds for such a campaign and like myclient pitch lettersserved as the basisfor the campaign.
Charles Moss at Wells, Rich. Greeneknew of my plan my dream for over ayear before I actually laid out a specificprogram and corralled him into getting in-volved in the campaign. Moss sat at mybedside while I nursed a broken leg and fornearly a year heard me outline my plan tosave New York.
For a long time Moss credited me withhaving created the campaign. Then MaryWells Lawrence stopped him because sherealized Wells, Rich, Greene could buildtheir future on supposedly having createdthe campaign. They realized I wasnt look-ing for credit, and it was the most con-structive, successful campaign of its naturein history.
Robert M . Zaren:New York
"ffyoiivebeen searchingfor :
something to enflance thesensual side of your life...Yellow Silk offers fiction, po-etiy, art, reminiscences, andreviews of material that cele-brate the erotic In a way that
manages to be both tastefulI
andjuicy. The writing ranges ': from earthy and funny to: tender and thoughtfui, and
the art is exquisite. Highly: recommended."
Medic.a1 Si1f-Care
J!)I29RT
:'\\I
L_,,AII persuassnn%; no bruiaIit."
\v s M.rwin Ntoiake Shinge Susan
:(;ritÍr Roh(rt Silvcrherg \4avuni
I k'rn Gcnit .. T.e Corinne Pierrv Lous(;.ir Soto Itid Dater Marg Piercyk..ica Hagedorn 'Nul an KotiwinkkFrie Gill Marilyn I Licker Iìn ArgüeIIp'c
ChirIotte MIfld(í O(taio l'di :
ys, ro 6374. Albany CA 94706
$20/year Quarterly
ADoless
I OLJTSIDLS..ADDS6/SLJRACE. i
!$20/AIR PIR VEAL U.S. FUNDS. i
I.
22SPYMARCH 19S9
DEAR EDITORS y fears for the futureof the Review of Re-
viewers column have been allayed. Ignatz'spiece about dance critics in the Novemberissue was trenchant and marvelously funny.I'll never read Kisselgoff again withoutgiggling. I never read Kisselgoff before
without giggling, but now the future issecure.
Art MirraySaddlebrook, New Jersey
DEAR EDITORS guess you can be toothin. The arrival of VG-
Day has reminded me of your recent articleon Grenada [Rccurn to Grenada,' by GuyMartin, July), to which I'd like to appendthe following fashion tip: in any formerlyleftist country that has recently been over-run by U.S. Marines, no matter how litheand stylish you may look in black it's un-wise for Americans to wear clothing clearlylabeled spy, as illustrated by your corre-spondent's jungle photo. You're likely toearn the undeserved appellation CIA red-neck" from the entertaining but uniri-formed natives.
Incidentally, black tees and sweatshirtsclearly labeled CIA Can be obtained fromche California Institute of the Arts, in Va-lencia, California, alma mater of such po-rentially suspicious operatives as Pee-weeHerman and Tim Burton.
Ker'in Bfrìrke
Hell's Kitchen
DEAR EDIToRs couple issues havereally got me per-
plexed. Why is it that every time Ignatz'sname appears in print, it seems to pick upan extra vowel or consonant along the way(A simple issue, I know, but I have a lowGaslight threshold.) Also, the wordpreterizatarally appeared no fewer than tentimes in your November issue. Was thisdeliberate, or did one of your editorialstaffers forget ro change his word-a-daycalendar Straight answers are not expectedbut would be greatly appreciated. Asidefrom that. you guys make me scream.
Thrtse L. HentzPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Although the word preternaturally appears inevery issue of spy, it's possible that the No-vember issue was preternaturally brinming.As for Ratzwizkiwzki s name chan,ging itsspelling, nonsense. Surely you're imagining
thiigs. Ratzu.'ikzizwki 's name has alu'aysbeen spelled the saine in si"i' always. Yots
overiired. Get some rest, Mc. ¡-leniz. See a'movie. How about a good George Cukor filen?Now that you enentioci it, Gaslight u'ould 6ean excellent choice.
DEAR EDITORS hile perusing yourlatest issue and
reading the article on the basically nonexis-tent boundaries between politicians andjournalists [Everybodys a Great Commu-nicatoi by Jack Hitt and Bob Mack.November] I was struck by your commenton William Safire. Besr New York Timescolumnist This commendation for a manwho, among his many other egregious acts,felt compelled to write a nauseating paeanto Roy Cohn in his column at the time ofthat slimeballs death After a few mo-ments' reflection I realized that you put inthe little zinger for Sake as a payback forthe Times column each month. In otherwords, William Salire is really ghosting forJ. J. Hunsecker. lsnt he?
De Kenneth R. WeinbergNew York
Na. In fact, Mr. Hnnsecker has been ghosting
Mr. Safire 's column all these years.
DEAR EDITORS how me to congratu-late you on this year's
excellent SPY I 00 issue [October). Espe-ciaHy gratifying to me were the copiousreferences to professional wrestling (my fa-vorite sport) scattered discreetly throughseveral articles:(1) My own letter on lron Mike DiBi-ase's heart attack on page 37(2) Frank from the Bronx in WEANtranscript on page 62 mentions anotherwrestling death, Bruiser Brody's stabbing inPuerto Rico at the hands of Invader No. 3(3) Monstrous Henchrnen on page 77includes Andre the Giant(4) John Brodie's Rcgi.ilar Guy Manhat-tan map on page 1 06 includes WorldWrestling Federation wrestling at MadisonSquare Garden under events.
Clinton S. FreemanNew York
DEAR EDITORS our FEUDS! cover story(by Lynn Hirschberg,
November) was interesting, funny andepic in scope.
Ud like to use SPY as a forum to start aj,ersonal feud (being a celebrated letterwriter, considering t've had two lettersprinted in the past year in Rolling Stone,
check issue Nos. 5 19 and 538) with self-appointed old-style SPY crusader MichaelGates of Brooklyn (Letters, November].Where do you get off, Gates, criticizingthis wonderfully perfect example of a satir-ical monthly simply b«ause ir has morepages? A magazine is not like a model;having fewer pages is not tastefullysvelte, but usually means less content;having more pages is not corpulent, butrather a way to give you more for yourmoney. However, my main peeve againstGates is his description of s' as a whim-skai alternative ro the humorless Neu'Yorker. Ridiculous! SPY is the eightiessemisophisricated distillation of the satiro-paranoid attitude of mid-fifties Mad. To
SPY, I give the best of luck in the future.To Michael Hideously Bloated GatesIthrow down the gauntlet.
Dave Platt
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
DEAR EDITORS et your act together,SPY. Feuding is an in-
teresting subject, but you've made a messof it. You've also got a number of factsor 'facts, as a SPY would writewrong.Now, we all know that when the computercomes up with a good quote, it's better notto check it out because even the mostvenerable quotes are wrong. I assumethat's why you checked almost nothingwith me. Worse, as there is no context ofany kind, no one who reads you will everknow why I said any of the things artrib-uted to me, Apparently, out of the blue, Iinsult someone for no reason.
When you first rang mc, I told yougently, firmly, that my feuds are usuallypolitical in origin. But you weren't buyingthat. You also never explain how Ioranyonecan have a feud (which impliessome sort of intimacy at some rime) with amere acquaintance like R. F. Kennedy,W. F. Buckley, R. Guccione and T. Bro-kaw. If politics (artistic matters also in-volve the po/ii) are not the common dc-nominator, what on earth is?
Now, I know that you find ir impossibleto believe that anyone can be interested inanything outside himself. Out there inHustler-land all is Hype, Turf, Vanity andSpy's own most powerful emotion, Envy.
Each licked
the last kiss
- of chocolate
7frouIade from the
other's lips. Thenthey = went homeand made love.
The food
that good.
JOHN CLANCY'S1181 WEST 10TH STREET 242-7350. I
JOHNCLANCY'S C
206 EAST 63RD STREET 752-6666
\1 R( 1») SPY
To take seriously something outside one'sown hustle is as mysterious to SPY as Graceis to me. This means that there is no wayfor you to understand why I should objectso strenuously to Mailer's attack on Wo-mens Liberation in The PriionerofSex. Thebest explanation that you can come upwith is that Mailer nailed Vidai early onby saying, 'He lacks the wound. Yes,Mailer did write that ( I still don't knowwhat he meant by it), in a book calledAder:isernen:sfor Myself which I reviewedmost favorably in The Nation. Surely if Ilusted for Revenge, I would have got itthen.
Your report of my TV debate withBuckley makes it seem as if I suddenlyturned to him on air and called him aNazi. Aren't you even mildly curious as towhy I said this? For sPy it is enough that Imust, somehow, have Envied him for hisastonishing beauty arid long words re-verse the adjectives if you like, if youhaven't already, and so, Viciously, Outra-geously (two words applied by our masters(O anyone who gives away the scam), I
called him a Nazi. Even if you aren't curi-ous, I'm sure your readers must be. Sohere's the context: At the 1968 Chicagoconvention of the Democratic Parry, the
24 SPY MARCH 1989
police were rioting as Buckley and I wereon air; police were beating up and teargas-sing antiVietnam War demonstrators;delegates too. Buckley characterized thosebeing beaten up as Nazis, and i said thatthey werent Nazis but if there was oneanywhere on the premises, etc. . . . If thisexchange with someone who was, socially,a stranger to me, isn't political. what is?
Errors: When Vidai sued Guccione (healso sued Capote, William F. Buckley Jr.and many, many others) . . . Real dumb,spy. Real lazy too. I have never sued any-one except Capote (for libel, which I won).I have never been sued by anyone exceptBuckley, as a result of my response in Es-quire to his attack (in Esquire) on me. Youwrite, Lawsuits and countersuits followedbut Vidai settled out of court. I did notsettle out of court. I was eager to go totrial. But shortly before we were due in court,Buckley dropped his suit against me. Chatwith your lawyers, si'y. I hear the creak ofprison doors, and there is no MikeDukakis to furlough you.
The final error is not entirely your fault.You write that before I went on the Todayshow (1980?), Tom Brokaw asked mc todiscuss politics, not bisexuality. Then, onair, I, Viciously, Outrageously, talked bi-
sexuality, to poor Tom's despair. You gotthis particular story from a Time magazinecover piece on the vicissitudes of TV'snewsreaders. The truth? The reverse. Onair, Brokaw asked me why I wrote so muchabout bisexuality (I don't), and I made amild joke, said ir was too early in themorning for such talk and I preferred totalk politics. Pluckily, he reread the ques-tion that someone else, I hope, had writtendown for him. Fed up, I said that I was notgoing co discuss bisexuality with him butthat I was going to talk about JimmyCarer, whom we'd just been watching On
the monitor; and I did. lt was not TomBrokaw's finest hour. He got Even, as a spywould say, in the Time interview by revers-ing the story. Later I ran into him at a partyand asked him why he'd lied to TimeIused a nicer verb. He couldn't rememberexactly, he said. Anyway, its flOt his wordagainst mine, the sort of vague, messystory SPY truly loves: you can look at thetape.
Lesson: when you deal with me or MaryMcCarthy, you are moving out of hustler-land to a high ground where you stray atyour peril. lt is called Criticism, and at itsbest, no matter how harsh or even unfair, itis disinterested. McCarthy was not jealous
Finally.
lVs here.
The Warner Bros. debut
of a beloved entertainer
who
But you
introduction.
PRODUCED BY ELVIS COSTELLO, KEVIN KILLEN AND T BONE BURNETTFEATURING THE SNGLE "VERONICA'
VAftABLE NOW ON WARNER BROS. CASSETTES, COMPACT DISCS AND RECORDS
ofHeilman; she thought her a literary andpolitical fraud. I was not jealous of Mailer;I thought him wrong on the sexual politicsof women's liberation.
Final thought: the inability to tell goodfrom bad, relevant from irrelevant, thejoke (this is crucial) from the straight line,is true decadence. That's it, spy.
See you in federal court. Have a nicepretrial deposition.
Gore VidaiHoIIyu.00d, California
Shortly after Mr. Vidai uni this letter. heca/leds' tojind out ¡fue d received it. ¡n thecourse ofa diSCUr5iz;e and wholly pleasant col-
/oqiy. Mr. Vidai. who once jaid. 'Ai one getsolder, litigation replaces sex. delivered atongue-lashing for n'hai he claimed wen nu-merouss errors. J'undaunenta/ among them thathe was not a recidivist litigator. Mr. Vidaiclaimed to have sued only one perso?! in his iiJ',
and that was Truman Capote. Th say other-u'ise. he informed sis solemnly. wouid be ac-
tionable. SPY stands by its story.
spy u.'elcomes letters from its readers. Addresscorrespondence to s"' , The Puck Bnilding,295 Lafayette Street, New York. N. Y.¡0012. Please include your daytime telephonenumber. )
':
And from the spy mailroom floor: Possi-bly because of our recently adoptedscorchedearth policy regarding unso-licited manuscripts, the pickings latelyhave been slimmer but of greater ambi-tion. Viz,: At last, someone has sent
along a 4,800-word sat-
'ire about cheese in fu-
Nturistic America. Atlast, someone has writ-ten proposing an articleon Samoan sexual prac-
tices today. At last, we have been of-fered the opportunity to assign a storyon a specific aspect of Spain's post-Franco culture. At last.
The cover letters are improving aswell, as more and more would-be con-tributors are discovering flattery. "lt oc-curs to me that your publication mightappreciate some of my work," writes anOttawa man, enclosing some poems.Another man writes, "After a few badones, the November issue was reallyfunny." No question, we are predis-posed to send this writer a contract.And another man encloses what hedescribes as "a really bitchen film arti-de" a Los Angeles manbut predicts
4
ßßVED EN1ÌR.4,
we won't publish it. How can we lose ifhe's expecting rejection?
Someone in Bellevue, Washington,wants to submit a 1,100-word recipe for"The Best Pizza You Ever Ate" atopic, critics of SPY have long main-tamed, that we have covered to death.A Canadian-bred Manhattanite pro-poses a piece titled "Particle Metaphys-ics: Subjective Reality and The LastTemptation of Christ"; his postscript isa siy appeal to the tragic fellow-Cona-dian-ness of one of spy's editors, Awoman keeps sending us snapshotsthe latest are of dinosaurs, tanks, T-shirts and canned goodsand demand-ing a check. Andpay attention, all ofyouthe editors of the North AtlanticReview have sent us an announcementstating that they (unlike SPY) are "look-ing for fiction, poetry, humor, satire, es-says, criticism, book reviews, art workand photos." Address: 15 ArbutusLane, Stony Brook, N.Y. i 1790-1408.
Oh, and here's one more envelope,addressed to the "Light Verse Editor."We'll just put it right over here until oneof spy's light verse editors gets backfrom his or her sabbatical. )
MAR(:H i'.x'spv2
z
Ôe
o
z
a'a'a'
i
1
lt began as
a restaurant so
good, people
wanted to stay
:i!1 iìight. Now
it's a hotel. Ma
Maison Sofftel.
ONIX LiN LA.
--:-
KMrt Ad.nsn C. Grsydon Cwt.vE9ITOK%
Thom.. L Phini kPUBISHI.
Si.vs S.thrssPLbLIMH\G 1)1*1(1(1K
$411011 MonsonLXI I ((fl.E 11)110*
B. W. Honiyc*,t*All 1)1*11 TOI
Jill Okk.yMANAOO(. I )Il0R
G.org. KaIorrcisSINR)K KiTIR
Jon. Grub., Buc. Hlindy Jamis Mot*nowsklcFI()K 11)10 (R'
Cor.n W,jn.rI (1111 01 KESLA&( Il
Pl1I SiflWflISIAIF (1 RITtI
Amy StadiP1(11*1 11)1101
Aliiond.r KnowtRonA1.S(XIATE ARI 1)111(101
Jot,t M,str4anrtiA'((N All folTI0
Bob Mock D.boch Mich.l14da St.rn Radial Urquhar?
1111)111*).
Jahn Irodis Peter He$arnonKate McDow.Il [hua Schopp.II
1IJITORIAL AIAOTAI..TS
Scott Fromm., Nch..l HolmarenASSII.T?IT ART 01*1< lORS
H.n.t I.r.vlck Ce4c Hollr,is., Wlfflatn R. Sti,tthKI'4 ARCHERS
M,r.&t$e Oais fIizob.t+i D.v.r,ouxRita NoeI, L L Vand,pa.r
(Of) O)IT(lR\
Nicks Gostin 10,4010 Holfr.nnrnçIdi Wilsoti J.nni4.r Winston
ART M.SllANTS
(rk KaçonI I lI RIINlIIFI Al-I AOl
Andy Aaron. Jack Barth. Roy Slount Jr.,C.liu Srudy, Holly Br(AtOCIl, Chnt Collés,
CyIthia Costs, Brvce Puritain, Driw Friedman,lad Fn,nd, Marino Gamier. Jo. Giflée,
Jam., Grant, John H.p.m. Tony Hind,.,Lnr Hirschb.r, Ann Ho4nicn, J. J. Hu,es.cker
Howard Kaplan, Milik Kaylen, G.o« Kern,Mimi Kram.,, Modi Lo,ew.il T. S. Lard,l'homo. Muro, Guy Mortin, Patty Mir.,
Poritk McMullon, Marte O'Donn.U, Derid O.r.n,Jo. Queman, I,ati Riitwiikiwiki, Paul Rudnick,
Luc Sont., John Siabro-ok, Harry Sh.ar.r,Rod,i Shopii, Paul Slonsky, Mcka.l Sodiin,
Richcrd St.r,.l, Jo Stockton, Tek,Jomss Traub, f4i(hooe non Hoftnisn, Ellis W.jn.r
Philipp. W.isb.ck.r, Philip W,.5,P4.d Limon arid [dw3rd Zuk.,vnon, among others
1 OATRlblJTIAO II)lT()Rs
Ann. Kr..m«MA*KL'TlNG 05*1(101
ISII K. FuL
AIWE*TISINC, SALES DIREcTOR
Cindy ArIinsky Constanc. DraytanPamela Clark Raddin9 (va Sullivan
AI)VFRTISOJ(. SALIS RFPRI).OSTAI IVI S
Las. Ausknd.r(IE( (lI,ATION SIANAGER
Adam 0.1gm.PROM()TtllN ,lANA((R
G.offr.y leusPROOLCEION %IANA(;EE
Siid F. Hsh.iOFHCI MANAGER
Candac. M.lØwnAC(OUNTIN(i MANAGEL
mdId lum.m L.aanc. Hsithm.nADVERIISINC,, SALE) ASSISTANTS
M.igc. M.b.is.y tl.in. WilkinsPUBLISHING ASSISTANTS
A*ees Dylan CUlIlke L.vTodd MSIg.,InI Rebut Dw.k
INTERNS
)
'With the new tax laws,
these are the only loopholes we
encourage OU to look for'
I(enneth Cole
New York Kennet.h Cole shoes a re also avaikil San Francisco353 (o1u11hLJs at selected 1)cpariinetit and 1)cciaIt\ tures. 2078 Union St.
LOOK WHAT SUO BUYSIM MEW YORK.
\ MORNING EDITION WASHINGTON WEEK ' I ' %'A)
V':. ÌTI41 L
EASTENDERS,
/ ------ r' / e\\' «de' s.. ))L;1; WITH
*4? -'L: II_9
L THE KWITNY REPORT MEW YORK. . . .l S WITH JONAThAN KWITFIY ND MPAMY
. A4 .
ThesearesomeofWNYC'sshiningstan.And Ihere is why we riced your help: All three WNYC S40 Basic Membership D $25 StxidenVScnior
stations are public broadcasting stations, depen- o so o S75 D sioo o $250 Other
dent on the support of our audience.Ifyou're a fan ofone ofourshows, ifyou care I
about radio and television that's inteffigent, enter- Address Apt.taming and provocative, we invite you to join Cih 7jWNYC and become a member of the country's "
fastest growing public station. I vt to charge it to my:For only $40 a year you can help us bring you D VISA D MC
programs with an innovative difference. And in # Exp.Dateappreciation, you'll receive our monthly program I Uguide, and the\VNYC Membership ARTSCARD, Signature
Ugood for admission and ticket discounts in leading Send to: WNYC Membership,area theaters and museums. One Centre Street, N NY 10007.
Ifyou think $40 doesn't go far in New York, U 105 Attn: Gloria FriedmanjustlookhowfaritcangoonWNYC.
WNYCMew York Public Radio and Television
65th Anniversary Season
;
Stríkinu New Yorkers.I,
-T:::I. -----
ICHARIVARINEW YORK
Matsuda Spring Collection
T Hf R I N T
h)'JtJfll4C 1'iftilti,,oi kI
ThACKWIG A UADIAUOON:HHUGHfl OP THEOPPICIAL DUKAKISCAMPAIGN "TALXNIGPOINTS
As DtfflU(tII COflTIflUC hcirquidrcnnI4I IITortlh(atiofl(crcron1 - thes ar now inche hisrsh scII-eximin4cIoiIptLasc. Thy (int chat tOII()WS ClIC
halluin.uonlv OptimStI ¿udhv &rashiti dcfc.0 lI4 -thcs vull bUSI uhmschc byassigning hLmc for IJ.SC faltloss ii thr prcIidcnnl rk uutiui
Duoc who tI)IitCfld tiut Clic
tatult lies with thc campaignshould luok no turther thauu tiiccampaign's own talkingpointa. thr onñdcnnal dailydisphcs issucd by thc crutraIufike to kcv operalîvts aroundthc ounCr lu mal.c suitCS'CiVt)nC is dchvenng tut Saintriwabage . Thc) re'caI .icampaign haracucnicc1 bymisjudgment. misperception.defensivcnrss. delusion arid theunmistakable odor ol flopsweaC Here arc somehighlights.
AUgUSt 1 . 1HE !. UORDis i.I:.iDERSiilP: The
Rcpublatuis dies vant thisclesitoti to be aotit issues. Sowhy o they kcp talkingabout labrls
August lS A noiI today in theUfJb:NjIos Poi: showedDukais lead r.arrowung to49'ç -46' . This is exaculy
o spy MARCH 1989
.IuIIi:,uILujI1LujpuIuI1LuII1jr.IIlIuIuIIu:
Ii l:Ets i il.vr \\.\ j\( ()N Nvs Ags. bosomydiny-hooL writcr. SALLY QUINN. was upset about arecic E.w1,are' prolik UI her triend 1wd OfletirncWa.chángiim Pou CIICagLlc. SHari' COFFEY. thc fresalyinstalled executive cdiror of he Lo. Ang/., Iwi.c.
11'i: E.k/Hlrt 5(5)1v %%.tS iiiiIdIv criti:aI ot Coffèv. hutQ uinn was irked by Sorne passing swipes the E.sqs:re
Titcr baci taken at ber(suh as repeating old rsmmrsthat Post wrirtrs had ghosted her novd. RegretsOn/ ). So Quinn did wlì.s .tnvone vouId do: sheitsiiipIauicd tO AMANDA 'BINKY" URBAN. who h..p-pens to bc. both Quinns trmnd and tI agent for theCoffey proflics author. CRAmG UNGER. I low in Godsnamile. Quinn wanted to know. could Bmnky haveallowed a licnt to sa so many horrible thmgs abouther' Bin$.y was apoIogcti. Binky was reassuring.Unger was not reall her dient. she said. She hadagrerd. she c.sid. to represent Unger only Exause hisformer agent had died. and Binky rcaIl had noth-Ing to do with him. Binky never so much as re-turned his phone cIIs. and so on. End of girl ta'k.\Vithin the week. however. Binkv received a a11
Iroin Unger a IS()fle call that she inincdiatcI)took, oddly tiiough \X'hat had she thought of therqií:re pie.et. Unger asked. She had liked it verymuch indeed. Binkv replied. e.cpee:d13 :h bits a/Ms:t
Sa/I) Qu:z.
HE Is Ol UI THE VERY FIW Hollvwoodworkerswhose talent is conirnensura(e with his arroganeabosit his caleiu. atiti his tiiìCOmflptOmfliSing take-it-or-leave-it approad to selling the ¿loonstrukscreenplay probably did as mntich to enhante screen-writers status as any gassy \Vriters Guild I11LitteStO.Nevertheless. JOHN PATRICK SHANUYS impassionedpro-union spee(h to 'X'riters Guild Last memberslast year. itist before their long. difficult strike u!-
lapsed. seemed somewhat lesc moving alter e were
told that Shalev had been surreptitioush sendingin regular rc rites on his new script. January ¡lan.which was being filnied during the long. difficultstrike about which he so movingly rhapsodized.
S .1 SH.si F5 J tHai is IIMA.
PRI )I I.l(,A( i t4LlIS \ Ill R I( Al I the s .isting C t ssal SU%11eN. Deemiiher I 98 i that i M. PEis ovcrseeIIIg .tr SnVEN Joss5 Sui Renio 1'ied-i-terre,It cOIltlflLICS. I11C price t. .tlin yourself; IlLisli (lie
plight of the homndess from your thoughts nowruiu at S 2 . I I per square tOot t or about t': t:;c
the u)St ut building a skyst raper.
N,Vlk)NAI. Rin i Aot IAl ION ieiiitxr and SirnuiiSthtistcr e(llti)r ¡n i.lict MICHAEL KORDA has always
htnied hiiiiself, despite his a maus111.111 . Airer comidtnrumi a lung. SJ( mal relationshipwith LALRIE LISTER. ami emplivec who edited B-lustniemnoirs. kurda dcidccl l.rt t.11 ro . . . lornialiv'?pr:»r:tlr tlic. Woifleil in lii lite. His wik. MAR.GARET, h1td titliti ideas. and rel)rredlv delivered anAnnie Oakleylike. Poz C, hOU ¡O Ute It. Ihit ¡6
(,ci lt -ish ultini.truni . Kurda capittilarrd Ikier waPUr.tl by DucK SNYDER. SS cliiirman mui(l Kuril.isl)ltIsrerhuticl The K.ordas sceni lii have we.irheredthe mnisunderstandiuig; they dancd together at tIlel.vcrn on the (reemi tie tIirovn to olillik-tiioratekirLts ?i(l years am S&S k.or(la (-Veli roasted his" ite. tuIaIILInLZ her tor ismttin UI) ich wli.tt ht-
' lne tu tall his O??/?IllWdflt.i a i an
r/:f.r over tht stars.
li vot x in F a Suuìon & Schuster author and cele-brated X'atergarc reporter. ()U 'ere. naturaIl. iii.sited to K()tda s let s-pretemid-mx lungs-wrong tetecle'ribed above. \'oLi sscrc also imiviteti it ynu seresifliOIi & Schuswr author auiti \Vatergate fclon JOHNEHRUCHMAN. Trying to let bygones be bygones. theerstwhile Nixon man used the occasion co liase aImite chat with his erstwhile nemesis. amiably alliuigtutu Bob agaiii 411tI .tgaiii. \\'hich did flot. per-liaps. endear Ehrlichman to CARL BERpismN. whosenickmianie is nut Bob. and svlio during the last dei-idc has produted three t'wcr best-sellers than histormer partner. Boi W000WARD.
.
CELESTIAL HINDSIGHT/-1 spy 'j Horoscopefor Skeptici
nother look at the horoscopes of familiarpeople on momentous days of their lives.
Subject: GEORGE BUSH
Sign: Gemini (b. 6/ 1 2/24)Dote: November 8, 1988Notable Acthity: Won presidential electionHoroscope: Anyone who thinks you are scatter-brained or irresponsible is about to discover thatyou have been plotting and scheming for a longtirnc. Patric Walker, Neu' York Pou
Subjech DAN QUAYLE
Sign: Aquarius (b. 2/4/47)Doti: November 8, 1988Notoble Activity: Was elected vice president of theUnited States of America
Horoicope: You may feel youre simply playing arole, but the better the show you put on, the betterthe outcome. Katharine Merlin,
Toti't, & Country
Subjeth NANCY REAGAN
Sign: Cancer (b. 7/6/2 1 ) _
Dot.: October 17, 1988Notable Activity: Acknowledged that she had beenborrowing designer clothing, in breach of promiseshe had made in i 982 to discontinue the practiceHoroscope: Open lines of communication . . . addto wardrohe. Sydney Omarr,
The Wathingion Pout
Subject: MIcHAEL DUKAKISSign: Scorpio (b. 1 1/3/33)Date: November 8, 1988Notable Activity: Lost presidential electionHoroscope: "Thanks to your determined efforts thismonth to conceal your motives and emotions, feware likely to see that beneath your enigmatic facadeyoure undergoing a profound process of changeand reorientacion. Katharine Merlin,
Town & Country- George Mannes
, q $,e e e y , y t y y y y y y y , y y
PRIVATE LIVES
Longtime Yankee manager Bill;' Martin prepares/or the start ofanother season.IU.USTRATION BY DREW FRIEDMAN
THE S PY Lisj
Sammy Davis Jr.
James Dean
Pamela Des Barres
Marianne Faithfull
Susan Gutfreund
Jerry Hall
Leona Helmsley
Jackie in Shampoo
Bianca Jagger
Angela Janklow
Sally Kellerman
Sally Kirkland
Linda Lovelace
Terri Nunn ofthe group Berlin
Nancy Reagan
Loree Rodkin
::...YHI EINE PuNT COPUTINU(D
whaE we expected: its going tobe a vety close. tough race. ...Tonight George Bush makesthe most important speech ofhis life. . . Lets face it: itsTension City. He has to hic agrand siam.
August 24: Mike Dukakispledged the flag every day heserved his country in Korea. Hecontinues to recise the pledgetoday, and schoolchildrenacross . . Massachusetts recite
the pledge each morning.
August 26: Today. Bentsendemonstrates the broad appesio( the Dukakis-Bentsen ticketin the South.
August 29: Dukakis said: TheAmerican people aientinterested . . in a debate overwhich of us loves his countrythe most.
September 2: FAMILYREUNION: . , . In response toquestions about whether hisreturn signified a problem withthe Dukakis campaign. Sassopointed out that Dukakis is theDemocratic nominee. presidedover the best convention inrecent Democratic history.picked a first-rate running mateand is now running neck andneck with the incumbentVice President. None of thisseemed . . . plausible a yearago.
September 3: 1n one of themost dramatic and movingmoments of the Presidentialcampaign. Euterpe Dukakiswill join her son Michael atEllis Island.
September 9: Correctionalprograms are not mistake proof.The real issue is how youreduce crime. and on that scoreDukakis is a real leadee.
September 16: Bush is on cheropes. . . this week.
September 22: Bush will be inBoston today to receive theendorsement of the Boston
Ikiice PtroImens BenevolentAssociation. Bush will try tomake headlines cíanendorsement that has nothingto do with who would be thebest president.
MARCH 1989 SPY 31
. ( 1.a, (($f)( ( //
(f
TNt FINI PuNI CONTINUID
Spcetnbcr 30 Bush unucsto flail uy.ng lu sigc uIflc'
poInt% with ChC middle t Izas.
Lles ining decrardy io
portray MSD as a big
go%criimcsil type.
October . Thc MSDcamplign has scrtcd a sertes of
ads . . calkd Thy Packaging01 (iCotgc Bush (chat) showaides Io I3ush deciditig toøuli it, ihe sag.
Ociobcr S To rcc' Busti
stands lot the stuus quo;
Dukakis ciands (or h&ngc.Bush stands (or compiacnc.Dukakis si*nds tor ihLngcBush stands for running inplace. Dukakis wants to movetorward. Bush will sccth for thebuxtze Dukakis wanta the goldter Anterka; Bush is looking
tor an mntenuonal walk.
DuaLis wasit a hoinc riiii.
Cktnb«r 6 (after chc &ncsenQ uayle debaict: ow the raieis a statssttcal dead hrar
Otobcr 7 REPUBLI(:ANELECTORAl. LOCK Diere is
none The vocrs t.oncrnuc toreject (ieorge Bush. MSD(is) doing well in CA
OEtober I 4 (after Dukakis lostthc hnal dcbtc). c lion Last
night atcoding w a US/I ToIs
(:al,knia poll. . . . The polls
that show a Bush win fail toflO(C the obvious - BucF kl
going into the debate. andomrnittcd Bush voters arc
skesing the score Wcbegm th hnal three 4iid a hail
weeks with a dvtutni thatstarted to turn last night to ourgtuuiid - a iOSiCIsC. future-oricnicd debate about the realIsaucs that affect peoples lives.
O(tober I 7 Thr eleie,00 is
still up (or grabs. . There arca number ol ekition stenalioswhich lead to an MSD vturv.MSDs ek«oral hase. plus
states on both toasts. plus stichkey battle ground states s.s TX
and ¡L give a malOElty
Octobct 18. Mike Dukakiswants to bring prosperity humetus many Americans. GeorgeMusli wants io bring prospetityto Americans with -nanvhomcs.
32SPYMARCH 19S9
MARCH
DATEBOOKEnchanting anar
Alarming Events
Upcoming
3-5 Ijftlt AflflLlaIIturnationaI Cat Show;Madison SquareGtrdcn. The furriest.most self-satisfiedcrctttires to assemble attht: Garden since DuranDuran last plavud there.8-12 The Otflcgd
Institute for HolistkStudies ¡s offering atOUe called lnrerpeciesConnectton: Swirntninvith che Dolphins;Key Largo. Florida.$675. lhrough threeseparare 4S-nsinuteswims with thedolphins. participantsenter deeply lUto thedolphin-humanConneCtiOn and learnfirst-hand what thedolphins have to teachaboLit relationships toself, to others and othe planct. Analternative for thoseremaining here: standnext to some icedmahirnahi at (irarcllasand t 'intent raie.i i Five-Kilometer1-loroscope Run;(:eirrai Park. Awardsfor top finishers undercatit zodiac sign.Almost (00 repellent k)rwords: thousands ofjoggers talking abouttheir signs.13 Neil Sedaka turns50. Oubreak of officeviolence among co-workers traccd toindividuals hummingsnatches of Laughter inthe Rait ali morning.15 Ides.
16 FIa.hback.' I 964:
Alex Karras, who hadbven suspended by clicNFL for betting ongames. is reinstated.thereby making hinieligible to play himselfin Papc Lion in 1968.17 Sc. Vatricks DaBlock associations forstreets intersecting FifthAvenue regret coo-hastydetision flot to installPortosans on everycorner this year.18 Thirtiethanniversary of Presidentlisenhowers signingHawaiis statehoodlegislation. paving theway for (al the AlohaState's future as aPacihc Elba for deposedFilipino despots arid(b) Don Ho maniasweeping che Firsth)r(y-eight.25 A reconstruction ofa Malagasy village is
part ofthe 1adagascar:
J
Island oh che Aucestorsexhibit opening todayat the Museum ofNatural History.Madagascar's lemursbear clic closest
rescmL,lance of aiiliving creatures tohuman ancestors ofsome 50 million yearsago, says the pressrelease, cujiiVefliefitIS
forgetting about JutidNelson.25 The InternationalAuto Show begins atthe Javits Center.Terrific a gathering oKing-Crusher-truckbuffs in a city where noone has a driverslicense.25 New YorkUniversity s School ofContinuing i:dLicatkn iSoffering a one-sesSioli
WAgIJARLES c.AN'T
.-
AFFORD 77i147 RiZP.
tlEn GENT
GOES NEGATIVE
course sallcd Giving
and Getting PositiveFevdback. One session\'ice idea. lt goes trom9:O am. co 4:30 p.m.
Fine tiione of hoursze,
ciz:/izea'. The cost iss I 05. Very fair prru-c.
good :'a/e. in/ in faa
¡he u 'hole prograi)i soundi
te7Jit- you gii)J are
doing a great ¡ob. But ¡11
"5 did yo!.' like' tix ita;
we handled this list i,sgt
26 Easter and theEaser Parade on FilthAvenue. l:orger Sr.Patrick s Day ihn isthe wildest parade ofthe month. ir can get alittle zany, cautioned aspokesperson for theNew York Conventionatid Visitors Bureau.Pcoplc put anything
and everything on tbe:rheadc.
28 Terrh anniversary ofnear meltdown atihrte lile Island. b
WHAT'S IN
A NAME?¿4 ¿1onth/)
Anagram Ana/isis
IDES OF MARCH
MODISH FARCE
JOHN HENRY SUNUNU
ENJOY RUN. SHUN HUN
VICE PRESIDENT
QUAYUEVIDENTLY QUASI-CREEP
EVIDENTLY EPIC SQUARE
PERCEIVED TINY SQUEAL
QUflUAVE PRESIDENCY
NICE DEPRAVITY SEQUEL
pr;
'
:'
)F.i
'-
.J__
,,AI..
"ku;
ri
'4:34
19
\,_
o
/.
f,
'.:-:-'
I(111'(f((1sf
I.
You ARE THERESpy 's Exclusive Monthly Behind-the-Scenes Celebrity Vignette
TUI FSM$ pii.iT CONTeNUID
October 19: Dukakis is out onthe stump with a 'ñghtingspeh. . . . The response has
bccn ekttnc.
October 20: An invigacdMSD conunuts to tear up thecampaign trail wich a powerfulmessage that is catching ñre.
October 27: Only 8 pcintsbetween MSD and Bush.
November 4: ThE SURGE:l(RC poll this morning showsMSI) pulling within 6points. If Reggie Jackson isMr. Ouober. Mike Dukakis
will be Mr Novembre
INVESTMENT TIP&Is(t? il or noi', gi:'írzg largeamowrli oflJ7Ofle) to complete
tiraogeri in exchange for thengbti to all the gold ¡bat canex:rac:edfrom big piles o/dinthat the buyer 1at ocien icen z,00:4' zonjiderrd an im/»iidentiniyjtmc,,t. According io theNorth American S«anztáeiAdministrators Ai,oziation. tensofthoiiandi ofAmenicani hazelost an estimated $250 ms/lionin dirt pile wind/ei. N/tSAAwants that inch scams areproliferating There are now 52sod' szams under investzgalson:in ¡lx spring of 1987 there urneonly 8. NASAA attribute, theïncrease Io the dzc/ine of investorconfidence in the stability of thejim-k market since she Oaoben1987 crash. (Too risky! I toldmy broker. 1m psating my moneyinto pocen(íally gold-bearingdirt.)
I' typical dint-pile swindleinvol&fs a zallfnom a salespersonsss:ng a WATS line to phone list,ofpotennal sntystors. each ofwhom ti told thai for a paymezziofaroand $5.000. he orjhe willobtain title to 100 tons ofunprocessed dirt - what thesalesperson probably callsaggregate Ort. The dint ii
gtearanò'eed to contain at least20 owrnes ofgold. Thosççh
investors are told they will hazyIO watt between one and threeyears he/ore seeing a return. theyare hooked by ¡lx opportonity tobuy gold/or $250 an onna ai atime when st is selling/oraround $400 an onoce.
What s urong with ¡bi, deal?The gold dotjnt exist beysnd
microJTopic, economically
34 SPY MARCH 1989
Jk)STPARTY ANIMALs: lis 6:00 a.rn. in Beverly Hi/lido you know where Chuck Norrij is? Why, hes sii/I alWarren Beatty 's supergiamoroiss, ultrajiash all-night blowota bachelor bash (lo benejit Cerebral Palsy), gettingby with a little help frotta Lawrence Taylor and an unidetitijied Etiropean while he feels a little iffy flexing hisabdominal tituscies at poolside. Meanwhile, Eddie ¿Mierphy (reprising his timeless Guniby bit) splashes arottndi?, the drink, soaking ¡'p the adulation he gets et'en frotti fellow superstars. And rounding 01st this hard-corepart; corps is none other than conch potato LeVar Kimta Kinte Bllrton, who spent most o/the evening ttying tohide from jot.rsting nut Val Kilnier. PHOTOGRAPFI 13V STEPHEN FRAILEY
BLURB.O.MAT
Capsule Movie Reviews by Eric KaplanTM,
the Movie Publwist's Friend
SKIN DEEP, starring John Ritter (20th Century Fax)Eric Kaplan says. "Now it can be said: the silver screen is John Rittercountry!"
CousiNs, starring Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini (Pararnoun)Eric Kaplan says, "With cousins like these, there's sure to be an Oscar inthe family!"
A DRY WHITE SEASON, starring Donald Sutherland, Marion Brando (MGM/UA)Eric Kaplan says. "Brando and Sutherland'nuf said!"
LEVIATHAN, starring Peter Weller, Richard Crenna (MGM/UA)Eric Kaplan says, "Weller and Crenna'nuf said!"
TRUE BELIEVER, starringJames Woods, Robert DowneyJr. (Columbia)Eric Kaplan says. "Robert Downey Jr. made me a true believerhe's theTom Honks of the '90s!")
THE
ENVRONM ENT
OF THE
Bo
- -------------------- -1
- 1-.800-999-7997 EXT. DSP1
R YOUR TWEEDS CATALOG I
tR vRITE:
\AMI
\l)I)RFSSI
C!I\ 'FAIEZIP
:
T\VEEI)SI ONE AVERY Row. R0AN0KF. VA 24o12-8,28 I
L ----------------------
::.:::;
1- 1 ¡(J).,0 I(lh(Y( ('
(I
THI liNt PlINY COHYINUID
ta,rvrovcrable level:, explainiJames Meyer. a killjoy a:NASAA. T/X mineprobably isnothing more than a godforsakenpatch ofdeier: sru6land.Permits haten : been acquired.7eií resse/is hat keen cooked up.in shori. these dea/i are a rip-off
from the word so.i: migb seem thai ¡ho iic:imi
of:/sese scams unu/df: a typegreedy. credulous. ¡enwsrIdI.Bu: no: some of them are greedyand credulous bu: qso:eexperienced in jome of the waysoftix um-Id. Me/t'in Bell:. one of
America j premier ambulancechasers and the ho of Bhopal.loi: $300.000 in a dirt-pilesr/seme masterminded by af urniture salesman inCalifornia. in faa, the salesmanused a personal leuerfrom Bellito promote the scam, u.'bich. allsold, cois :ni'estors more than$20 million.
JUDGE WAPNR1 DECISION.WITh JUDGE HARDY, JUDGEHARDCASTLE AND JUDGEREWIHOLD CONCURRING ...
A rath« ordinary case involvinglast year's (avocice non-gold-in-dirt-pile scam, the AirplaneGame, managed to create somecurious legai histoy. In NewYork. four plaintiff KafenDuncan, Victoria Meakin,Maureen Schmalzbauer andElizabeth Brown were
latcomers co the game, whichis a variation on the oldpyramid scheme generic. Whenit collapsed, they sued LauraNorman and Haza Taicher thetwo people who had broughtthem into the racket. As partof her defense, Normanintroduced a number ofdecisions citing the doctrine ofunclean hands' - a doctrinethat holds that a defendant isnot responsible when theplaintiff is equally guiltyincluding a decision issued byJudgejoseph Wapncr of ThePeople's Cour: broadcw onSeptember 16, 1988.
Asjudge Wapncr learnedlyput it, ThiS whole thing, thiswhole operation, is an illegaloperation. lt's all gamblingIdon't care whether you caH itPyramid or you call it Pilot oryou call it Crash Plane or whatyou call it, it's illegal wait,wait, wait, wait! Young lady. letme finish. When it's illegal,
36 SPY MARcH 1989
'i12 the hot Santa Ana winds blow in fromthe desert and the hairs on the nape oía man's neckstand on end, most anything can happen. In Ray-mond Chandler's California, it is then that a screamechoes up from the valley or over the canyon oracross the hills. In Charlie Sheen's California, it isthen that the young, idle and well-to-do Califor-nianthe one who feels an obligation to at leastplayact the state's long-standing reputation for sor-
THEY SHOOT BRAT PACKERS, DON'T THEYA Peek Inside the Hollywood Handg:n Fantasy
ç(w did, random violencesteps into the
l?1I Beverly Hills Gun Club and spendshours firing holes in menacing-look-ing paper targets. Charlie Sheen,confides his publicist, eager for hisnow-sober client to seem alluringlyon-the-edge, practically has an arse-
nal. That Sheen is not the only celebrityfaux gun-slinger is unsettling. Sylvester Stallone, Billy Crystal,Arnold Schwarzenegger, Raider running back Mar-cus Allen. Sean Penn. Jamie Lee Curtis, Sheen's bigbrother Emilio Estevez andhey, this really isHollywood - Madonna's agent's brother have gonethere to learn to aim and fire powerful handguns at
targets.The Beverly Hills Gun Club is
not in Beverly Hills at all, but inthe wasteland between Century Cityand the airport, in a flyspecked
' warehouselike building near several' movie studios and talent agencies.
Readers who have not managed to blot out allmemory of &verly Hills Cop II will recall the scene ina shooting range that appeared to be in the high-tech basement of a White's-like oak-paneled men'sclub. In fact, the BHGC has about all the charm ofa bowling alley on league nightan imposinglysecure bowling alley, to be surewhere decorationson the painted-plywood walls consist of a target
personally bullet-ridden by politicalcriminal - Super Password contestant
: G. Gordon Liddy, and a pinup of abosomy, gun-toting model with the
\ slogan You can't rape aThe decor, which contributes so
. . much to the gritty, seen-it-all-beforeatmosphere that so appeals to pretend G-men, car-ries through to the fashion code. Regulars know todress down. The only people who wear suits areagentstalent and FBI. In the afternoon, writersshow up in Banana Republic khakis, actors inripped jeans and cowboy boots. All of them put onthe regulation fashion equalizersprotective earcoverings and shatterproof plastic eyeglasses.
BHGC attendants still snicker about the sartorialfaux pas of Romina Danielson, Peter Holm's goofygirlfriend who swooned on the stand during theHoimJoan Collins divorce trial. On the night shevisited the gun club she wore a skintight, see-through black girdle skirt, stiletto heels and, appar-ently, no underwear. She started grabbing my shirtand coming on like a real vixcn, recalls discreet clubemployee Chris Wise, and when that didn't work,
she made like she was going to tear;-__ her own shirt off. Wise, ofcourse, is
not made of stone; he admits ro be-ing impressed with the way Daniel-
l& 50fl handled the .38 Smith & Wes-,
son Special her three Eurogentcompanions had rented,
The range officers - the collection of retired cops,exmilirary police, and completely sane and stablevets who run the placehave a favorite celebritycustomer: Bill Paxton, star of Weird Science and Passthe Ammo. This proves that while the range officersmay be able to make split-second distinctions be-tween friend and foe, they don't seem to have aworking definition of celeMty. (Their least favoritecustomers are Japanese nobodies. They love topoint a loaded gun in your face, says Wise. Thenthey laugh like crazy.) - Deborah Michel
OGRO[LINC IN OUR TIME
"Every life is a series of small miraclesif only wecan see them. Dan Wakefield's book helped mesee mine." James Carroll on Dan Wakefield's
Returning: A Spiritual Journey
"A beautifully told, passionate story,"Wakefield on Carroll's Supply of Heroes
"By a good distance her strongest novel,"Reynolds Price on Anne Tyler's
A Slipping-Down Life
"It's not just the tone that's right; it's the startling,almost incongruous eloquence,"
Tyler on Price's Kate Voiden
"Both breathtaking and heartbreaking,"Carolyn See on Josephine Humphreys's
Rich ¡n Love
"lt took my breath away."Humphreys on See's Golden Days
- Howard Kaplan
1* iL¿t
fEii
Vk :
1
i
''r, j Lt
Ii wr1 '?IHIIP I
\i.
(«I\
D
s
*T:ON HAND WAS THAT MARVELOUS NEW WHITE WINE.
I naio b Ritlur.ô C 'ß8 mporti . :r tço- L Søre (; Ne i. V
Hit-i
,1:
- 14 L
MATSUDAPRINTEMPSETE 1989YUKJO KOBAYASHI PhotogrQphe: Juergen Teller
mñTc'UDñ854 MADISON. AT 10TH. N Y. NY. (2I2988 9514
I U 461 PARK AVE AT 57fll. N.Y..N.Y. (212)9356%9
Design by Yukio Kobayashi. Photograpi by Juergon Telle-. Photograc Asystance by Stephane Grundi. Ha r and Make up by David Grainger. Copyright C 988 Ncole Co Ltd
.
: . .,
s
- .i.4:.:lP*::-_ ___ . g
Ip (#Tae( (f /1(I
TNt PINI PuNT CONTINUED
its gambling. and even ¡1 uts aconttact, it's an illegal contract,and you cannot collect on anillegal contract. That's the longand short of it. I don't care ifshe cheated you out of themoney if it was gambling. . ..You can't collect from herbecause the contract's illegal.The whole basis for it's illegal. Idon't think you even doubt methat it's illegal. . . . Well. nowyou know. . . . No moreairplanes and no morepassengers and no more crashes.
I'm judging for the defendanc.But unfo«unately (or the
two defendants here, New Yorklaw was interpreted differentlyfrom Califomia Televisionlandlaw, and Judge Carol Ätherrejected the Wapner precedent.The defendants' claim that theywere as victimized as cheplaintiffs was rejeaed by JudgeÄther. who observed thatNorman made more than$10.000 and Taicher more than$20,000, while the plaintiffslost between $750 and $1,500apiece. She ordered thedefendants to reimburse theplaintiffs.)
SEPARATED
Donald Trump ...
George Bush ...
1
AT BIRTH?
and the police sketchof Son of Sam?
and socialiteBetsey Whitney?
Khste Alley . . . and Meg Foster?
WHEN HIGH PRICES
HAPPEN TO BAD Foou
very year, the Zaga: Neu' York City RestauranSurvey rates more than 700 dining establishments inManhattan, based no on the wisdom of professionalreviewers but rather on responses culled from severalthousand regular restaurant-goers . A quesrionnaircasks diners to record the cost of their meal (includ1ing one drink and tip) and then rate, on a scale ofto 30, food, decor and service. In addiion tocritique of each restaurant, Zagal publishes varioulists of recommendations: Top Steakhouses, Tojl
Views and Super Buys. to name a few thatcontinually consult.
Zagat also compiles lists that, for some reason. iihas kept secretincluding the worst values in NeYork City dining, as ranked by an utterly mathe'matical formula that divides the level of customeisatisfaction by the average cost of a meal. Publishedhere for the first time anywhere are last year's elevespoorest culinary buys according to Zagal.
I. Elaine's2. Regi ne's3. Bel/ini by Cipriani4. Maxim's5. Mortimer's6. Gloucester House
INFOTAINMENT i 01-I-i Lkople Magazine's Guidelinesfor Gossip-Collecting
eople magazine's list of contributor guidelines (circulated ofli-cially ro freelance writers and unofficially to Rupert Pupkin-esque celebrity hounds, friends of friends and other eavesdrop-
ping hangers-on) claims that covering an event for Chatter orTake One [People's short-gossip-item sections) can be fun and easytoo!!!! Sound fun Easy? Are you willing to refer to well-knownpeople as celebs'? Then you just may have what it takes to dredgecelebrity small talk for People. And remember (as the guidelinessay), lf you aren't sure who is who, don't hesitate to strike up aconversation with some of the nerds hanging out next to the bar.They often recognize the celebs because they always come toparties or because they're related to someone's cOusin.' Or be-cause, like you, they're covering the event for People.
Other casually horrifying instructions from the People tip sheet:
L Always try to find the appropriate publicist when you enter theparty. He or she will probably agree to throw you up againstcelebs and force them to talk with you.
2. Always try to eavesdrop a bit before you descend on a celeb.Unless you have really great hearing you rarely get anything this
40 SPY MARCH 1989
7. Sardi's
8. The '2!' Club
9. The Quilted GiraffeIo. Panoli Romapzissimoi I . Sammy 'i Rumanian
Steakhouse- Harriet BarovicA
wa But it does make you feel like a real gossip hound and thaigets you in the right mood.'
3. 'Any funny stories about the guest of honor? . . . II you fail witFthis line ofquestioning, don't despair. Most celebs have nothing tcsay about a guest of honor.'
4. Every celeb including the oft-encountered cement-brainedones - can answer these questions: . . . What has the celeb beesworking on? . . . What does the celeb have planned for the fu'turc? . . . When all else fails, sometimes it pays to ask a celeb whaihe or she did that day. Short-term memory always proves the mosifruitful.
5. 1f you can, try to find out if your celeb ever told your funnystory to another reporterand try to convince the celeb not torepeat the story to others till you print i
6. The bribe method: Basically, you can only publicize the celeb'icurrent project if you have an exclusive tidbit or a zippy story togo with it. Remind the celebs about that and they may suddenlyremember something to tell you.' D
Imagine a makeup and powderso light, they won't streak,
cake, clog pores or even bedetected by the naked eye...
Revolutionary Award winning:
POUDRE MAJEURLoose Powder with Micro-bubbles
TEINT MAJEURCreme Compact Makeup with Micro-bubbles
Revolutionary micro-bubbles, dispersedinto two exclusive formulations, to give you
a iook as elegant as the light of day.
Teint Majeur Creme Compact Makeup:An air-light creme foundation that sponges
on exquisitely. Allows you the choice ofcoverage from next-to-natural to
ultimately glamorous.Poudre Majg Loose Powder: Thanks to
the ¡nnovathie micro-bubbles, there's no talc. . never a "powdered look' So sheer it can
be worn alone, over Teint Majeur, orany Lancôme foundation.
Teint Majeur and Poudre Majeur...You'll wonder how
you ever went out without them.
LAr--!-t
t,
cOPARIS
ECCosnij rBtotise CE&,,r,s T,
-r «
Ah
I J ¡(c).jI((/e1'(
Dear Dr. Nick,I am worried about a friend. He has a lot
going for himh&s rich, handsome,friendly and shoots a mean game of golf.Unfortunately, hes a trifle lazy, and he hashad to rely on family connections to gethim into schoolswhere he didnt even dowelland out of jams. They've alsohelped him get work. For 12 years he hashad a good job in Washington. Recently hegot a big promotion. The trouble is, hesnot qualified for the new positionand htknows it. The change in his personality hasbeen startling. He used to be enthusiasticand gung ho. Now hes nervous and un-easy. He says things like There is nothingthat a good offense cannot beat a betterdefense. Everything else he says soundslike its been programmed or something,and he seems overdependent on his newassociates. Most disturbing of all, hestaken to comparing himself to John F.Kennedy What do you thinkdoes heneed to seek professional help?
co-1O FOL! TAÑS
Sco
¡,1 k&wx-.
Bfore Af&r:
,K'/í4ftcr
4 SPY MARCH 1YS9
Time/y Advice Jrom the SPY Psychiatrist
Dr. Nick replies:Rather than answer yes or no, let me pose a
feu' questions of own. Does your friendreally believe hes the equal o/John F Ken-nedj. or is itjiist sorne sort ofcareerploy? Ifhe sincerely belier'es that, we may be dealinguith pathological grandiosity - a worrisometrait :fyourfriend ¡s, saj. a public serzant.
I uould ask u;hat it is about bis personal-ity that allia)! allows him to be manipu-lated by others. It could be dependent per-
sonality disorder uhereby someone allowsothers to assume responsibility for majorareas ofhis own life because ofan inabilityto ftinaion independently.
Regarding yoitr assertion that he s a lit-tIe dumb, I would ask how old your friendis. If he un t that old, then certainly thereare signs o/ what we professionals call low-normal intelligence or borderline intellec-tuoi functioning. Psychological testingwould be able ¡o et'aluate his intellectualcapaci!) and deter,'nine hou' iìiuch it impairshim.
Furihertiiore, his reaction to his promotionmight bespeak an adjustment disorder,which is a molodaptive reaction to an iden-tifiable psychosocial stressor occurringwithin three months of the onset of thestressor. The .ítresior ¿n thu ase u the bigpromotion. So I would ask, in determiningwhether 1/Jere is an)' adjustment disorder,did the reaction occur within three monthsofthe promotion?
Finally. you say he knows he is not quali-fled for his new post. This suggests he hassome insight, which could mean a hopefulprognosis. On the other hand, does he regu-larly accept positions for which he feels un-qualified? This suggests a reckless, impul-sitie nature and a questionable moral fiber¡he .utuffofwhich a sociopath is made.
(Dr. Nick, the nom de plume of anactual psychiatrist, points out that he hasnever seen or spoken to the subject, andsays that its highly irresponsible of him tooffer a diagnosis in a magazine. The sub-ject. Dr. Nick notes. might he just fine.)
SATHT's Goo UusîiowA Regular SPY Service Feotur.
This Monihs Topic: Wine
e following classified ad appeared in aSunday Neu York Times:
. LIQUtOATIONWill trade $250,000 bottle of wineworth $350,000 for oportment, airplaneor boat. Must hquidate. 2'
Wc here at (212) 925-5509 dialed thenumber in the ad and had the followingconversation.
What kind ofwine is this?
lt's a Thomas Jefferson 1787 Lafitte. No,excuse mc a Chateau Margaux.
And why is it worth $350,000?
lt's a ThomasJeffcrson bottle. Its part of hiscompany. lts a piece of histoty
Say I had a Cessna I was willing to trade for
the nine. Could I taste the wi ne first?
No way.
Why not?
Because there's only one bottle.
So it s a reahy small bottle?
No, it's a regular-size bottle, You're sayingyou want to open it and taste it and thenrescal ir?
Yes.
No wa
Then hou' do I know the wine is good?
How do I know the Cessna is good? How doyou know a piece of art is good? They sellPicassos these days for $60 million. How doyou know any piece of art is good?
Um . . , trust?
That's right. Trust. - Paul Simmu
Tip O'Neill. Cardmember since 1973.
Me,nbersb4ìhas its prlvi1eges
_J .' iid
1!I2 SQDbj
$S1&au(UL-
1)nì't icave home without it
Call 1-8(I)-luE CARI) to appi):
A few hundred feetfrom the Fountain ofYouth (sought by Span-ish explorer Ponce deLeon in 1513) stands theTragedy in U.S. HistoryMuseum (founded byformer gas and oil dis-tributor L. H. 'Buddy"F-tough in 1964), a publicattraction that is, likethe Frick, established ina private home but, un-like the Frick, jam-packed with artifactsfrom automobile andtrain accidents, mcm-orabilia of the John F.Kennedy assassinationand a wide variety of an-tique torture devices.And while the Fricksmoved out of their FifthAvenue home a longtime ago, the Houghsstill live in their St.Augustine, Florida,museum.
The tourist guide toSt. Augustine includes alisting for the institutionthat promises docu-
. áfl/a1'(f ('i/i,
TE SPY T'p Ti SPRING VACATION EDITION
ments and pictures thatwill "[put] you in themood" to "completelyunderstand the assassi-nation of the Presi-dent." In all, they prom-ise, a visit will be "enjoy-able and educational."
In fact, a visit to thesmallish wood-framehouse is like being atrick-or-treater at a
home where the ownershave gone all out forHalloween. After pull-in9 your car into thegraveled-over part ofthe front yard, scan thecrudely illustrated signs,even more primitivecousins to the primitivecanvas banners adver-tising sideshow freaks;they proclaim the pres-ence within of FamousMovie Star Joyne Mans-field's car (the one shewas killed in), PresidentKennedy's car (not theone he was killed in) andBonnie and Clyde's car(the one they were killed
NTIF BAtLET IJANCERS VIERESUBJECT TO LEASH LAWs?
: 1.3 a_m. lni n t r. 'in ltn cr'. 'l!.Lr .t:.tlII'.,1.l,,', I )tnLtri i. r li itnul
2i a. _ I ).tr i tr i in, 'i .tri h thvxrIu ' t lr' 'U(Ct1,
1220 p.i. L)tiì tr i itd t( .t I rue ( 'Lt idt .t rest1tur.tnt
itil's t li.ttd k. ,I11'h(s lI)tI()fl
2.» p.s. Rirter h rr .r.tlar IllL1rr.ttu L'
. I kil' h '' t in tr l.tri r .tuL lus ir h hu.t
3:30 p.... Einhrr.tud h.1llrii.1 .tnd Peter tariiìs,'- . :. et,tlIv lc,tlìu knt ted i )gether; must ast.
.JLw tu U!1Lt11Ie Henry A/for;
44 $pY MARCH 1989
1, i \ ¡h .l'u.'ii'
in, but in the movie).Step up on the porch
and ring the doorbell,Fuller brush man-style.As you wait for an an-swer there's plenty oftime to scrutinize thefront window displayatoupee-wearing, rifle-toting wax figure of LeeHarvey Oswald peeringthrough the glass, TexasSchool Book Deposi-tory-style. He looks likeWilliam Shallert, PattyDuke's TV father.
Once admitted, youare left pretty much onyour own to strollthrough four crowdedrooms and an open area
out back. lt's quietenough to hear throughthe walls that the mu-scum curators arewatching TV gameshows. The indoor col-lection is dominated byJFK murderabiliawitha few old-fashionedshackles and bear trapstossed in near the exit.
The promised assassi-
nation-related automo-biles serve as the undis-putcd centerpieces,though they are weirdlytangential to the event:the car Oswald wasgiven o litt in on themorning of November22 in Dallas, a limo Ken-nedy rode in but not inDallas, and the ambu-lance that carried Os-wald to the hospital of-ter he was shot On thewall near the latter is asigned 8 X1O glossy ofRed YagerRed Yager,the fateful driver of theOswald ambulance.
Here too is the fumi-
turc from Lee Harvey'sDallas apartmentbed,bureau, his actualpocket comb. Concern-ing this display is o let-ter from Oswald's sore-head widow saying shewants no part of BuddyHough or his collection.The museum acquiredthe assassin's furnish-ungs directly from Os-wald's landlady, MaryBledsoe, who vouchesfor their authenticity inanother letter hungnearby. The letterdoesn't mention thatpart of the deal for thefurniture was thatHough repair the roofon hem rooming houseporch.
The museum curatorsnowhere define whatexactly they mean bytragedy, or for that mat-ter American history. Itmight otherwise makeproblematic the indu-sion of old blacksmithtools and a genuinewhiskey still. Theme's noquestion about thevideo game in the lastroom, though. It's justfor fun.
An apparently mum-mified corpse, whosetragic place in Amen-can history is also unex-plained, resides in a
glass case by the backdoor. lt holds a hand-lettered sign askingLONESOME TAKE ME HOME
WITH YOU FOR $3000 a
seamless intersection ofexhibition space andgift shop.
In the fenced-in back-yard is a weathered or-ray of headstocks, whip-
ping posts and old gasa.
line engines, as well as owagon, supposedly ofCivil War vintage, pulledby a life-size plasterhorse.
Over by the bushesame the Jayne Mansfield
vehicle, with sheared-offroof, in which the starletdied, and the bullet-rid-dIed Bonnie-and-Clydemobile in which actorspretended to die.
The museum hadtrouble for many yearsgaining membership inthe St. Augustine cham-bem of commerce. Ac-cording to that body'sexecutive vice presi-dent, Coralee Pomar,this was primarily be-cause "no one couldvouch for their hours ofoperation" and bccausMr. Hough would "takeparts of the museum upto Gatlinburg . . . at
will." In 1987 the mu-scum was finallyaccepted.
The curiously punctuatcd flier for this tour-ist spot may explainsome of the underat-tendance: DON'T DARE,MISS SEEING THIS MUSEUM.
- Steve O'Donnell
The Museum of Tra gcd
in U.S. History, 7 Wi!-hams Street. Take Interstate 95 fo State Rood
16 exit. Go cost scvnmiles. Turn right (southon San Marco Avenuc(one block east of U.S.1), then left on WilliamsStreet. Admission is
$3.50; the museum isopen every day from9:00 am. until dark.
Jessica Tandy and Hurnc ( r iiviì . ( ardtìicmhcrs sincc 1978.
MembershipHas Its Privlleges
I)unt tcac hOfllCWiitllOtIt il
( all l-8O- l'li!: (1R/) 1 (1/)/)/
THE Li SMITH
lOTE BUARO VHY SIIOULDNTTHE MAYOR HAVE HIS..' ¡1(flt)I) 'LI/I) I :'i ['aui: ïhe Koch W'iirkoii4
Barbaro Walters . 7 t 6:15 a.m. three to five days a week, a tallElizabeth Taylor ..........4 bald stroke victim with a pear-shaped body stops ¡nDan Aykroyd ............... 3 at the pricey Executive Fitness Center. There, on theBill Blass ...................... 3 22nd floor of the Vista International Hotel, he isThe Carlyle .................3 put through a 45-minute workout of less thanRobert De Niro ............ 3 Olympian rigor.icone Kirkpatrick ........ 3 1ts more like baby-sitting than fitness rraining,Henry Kissinger ........... 3 explains Maria Versella, the 25-year-old fitnessHenry Krovis ............... 3 ounselor whose job it is to train the mayor of NewMike Nichols .............. 3 York City. He once said to me, i'm just like a littleMike Oviti ..................3 child, arent I? And I said, 'Yes, and that's exactlySean Penn ................... 3 how I'm going to treat you.'Robin Williams ............ 3 He just about sleeps through his routines, con-Tom Wolfe .................. 3 tinues Maria, a graduate student of exercise physiol-Mery Adelson .............2 ogy. He'll ride on an exercise bicycle with his eyesBrooke Astor ...............2 dosed the whole time. More typically, the grunting,Arlene Francis .............2 moaning mayor will trudge in place on a treadmillMary Martin ............... 2 for 30 minutes. With a fan cooling his substantialThe Liz Smith brow, he will trot against a 5.5 percent tilted grade
Tote Board ............... i at 4.2 miles per hour (meaning the mayor jogs aslightly-better-than- 1 5-minute mile). Although the
I aging politician frequently loses his balance, even at
I ' Ithis faintly brisk pace, Maria gives little quarter. Hekisses my hand in the hope that I'll slow down the
I I I treadmill, she says. Then he holds on to the rails,
My pal Donald Trump. . . said that spi masa-zine is in trouble finan-cially and will not bearound much longer. I
chided the handsomemogul, of whom I amvery fond . . . that heshould not indulge inwishful thinking. Hesaid, No, youil findthis is true if you 'ustinvestigate. I predictthey won't even bearound ¡n a year.'"
Liz Smith in theDaily News.September 29, ¡988
1rs,
46SPYMARCH f989
,,,..,,,,..v.,,,,v,,v. V ?
I'74)(f (W.,
OvN D0MINATRIX?
which is cheating. II I walk our, he may shut off thetreadmill. I have to check the mileage meter.
Mayoral hand kisses are unseemly enough, butMaria must endure even worse: While he's work-ing out he'll listen to Barbra Streisand on a headsetand sing along. His singing is really deadly to listento in the morning, especially when he does 'TheWay We Were.'
Neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Maria hasa policy of neverevertaking any gulf from themayor. Instead, when he talks fresh to her, she talksfresh back. The other day he came in and said,'Good morning, little girl. And I said, 'Goodmorning, old man. i treat him as I would anyoneelse. I dont call him Mayor, eithereven thougheveryone else does. I call him Darling.
The mayor, a member of the fitness center's GoldClub ($350 initiation fee, $1,500 annual dues),outfits himself in a club-supplied uniform of blueshorts, snug white T-shirt, white athletic socks, andsneakers. Usually happy to wear silly costumes andpose for photographers, he prudently forbids thetaking of any pictures during his workouts. Foronce, Maria equivocates: He looks interesting. Justsay he looks interesting. - Robert Bred;'
1
njT&unTh
f:A] i/c'iQ
"I%Ip Spielberg uil/I see YOU new!"
JLICS Clavell. (:ar(Imc'1I)ersincc 1967
/I'Ie?;thelshi/)
Has Its P,ii 'ikgesM
flI3CL
1)nt 1uLC1)IflCVVitl)OUt iL
( i!f I '«Y).77IIfCARI)toa/)/)IE
. LAUGHTER, THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGEToday New York Tomorrow Nice, The Hague, Riyadh and Tel Aviv
n a very sincere plea for global peace, we at py believe thatworld unity can be achieved by talking with one another in theonly language we all have in commonthe international languageof laughter. So we crafted a manifesto, painting our prose withbroad, flag-size strokes rather than the chiaroscuro and gossamerscumbling ofdelicate idiom that mark our usual manner. Subtletyfell victim to our revolutionary zeal. We contacted some of NewYork's best foreign-language translators and asked them to join usin our impassioned pursuit of this pan-Utopian goal. One diligentexpert very carefully and very literally translated the text belowinto French. Then the French version was translated by anotherskilled professional into Dutch, the Dutch into Arabic, the Arabicinto Hebrew and the Hebrew back into Englishuntil the quin-tuply translated py manifesto of peace lit up the globe like anaurora borealis of mirth and good cheer. In retrospect, maybe thiswasnt such a great idea.
ENGLISH: spy magazine: Smart. Fun. Funny. Fearless. And, wedon't mind adding, the only antidote to the nutty, head-spinningwhirligig ofdaily life in this or any international megalopolis, eachissue a virtual Swiss Army knife of postmod journalism. Fed upwith short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump and unbearablePlay-Dohfaced homunculusaction toy Sylvester Sly Stallone?Want the inside line on high-domed garden gnome LaurenceTisch or marionettish former frat-boy Dan Quayle
Then get with the program now: pencil in SPY on your shortlistofmust-haves for the nineties. lts time to hit the gridiron, toss theold pigskin around and win one for the Gipperfigurativelyspeaking. spy's got more pizzazz and panache than a barrelful ofmonkeys in top hats and spats. Every issue is a brand-newchucklefestchock-full of over-the-top, whiz-bang gut-busters,sidesplitters and other assorted scrupulously fact-checked knee-slappers. So don't be a dork. Subscribe now.
,D4c* ag.t Pfos E1r,,: Arkum,',: iw;aN. ftdoiiii purr' E: o, , fauowi piII.n$. Au, .IIHISIMIfW. AmwsM,. L...
I (IprIl ,, dJIt,OP?JRt .,,usd.0 a tóunuqwr: .s hi irotx r ¡eu' de qiveiiztIIv de la sir
6kr55J1ilY dr ,u, ii toNte diet', meaI'poI:i ,ivterwatviivaír C.h.sqMe tort:, is,, oMisas, r triad de.
I th. only .s,ftd.ts t. 5h. u,s.4ss.d.d ,ø.olviis, 4... .f di.5.ø .f d.iy 1sf qIa'wqet q,iiv Jq joir,isI:i,ie dv wods pouvrleisrr Noirrs ris h.iut p.sr D.sId Trw'sp Ir Vulgaire .mx
eekrt £SOS1J C, pr Is !'' .1 . ::on. y/sstrr .f, StiIloqe.' isssiilis, . 1tsr;zepportbI, s tssge drs 5t, -Wily- SIsUIsI
Jokv-Ddh I'.'i loisir: ¡a /iglu I intasear, ¡se, Lakreike Tuch. ¡e gsrssv dc jard:is Is.iq:,-d..ws', q
nIq, w,t( R,tr7Qqett, oasi Qse.iylv. gar'o sursessr Jr ¡a Fra:rns,te>is b.y of1h. k.*.sIs..d
E'v,h,k, J)rZ .sse le /'rvgYJJ'SA$ v.,:sstriJi (rdoKsxfZ t ESPION mr Iotrr ceirt, (life dis obisgét
d.s,'cur poe' Is's 90. C.,: ll.r de .ogv' iùr la grill, dc Jet. de fain s.si:s'r la stalle pea. Je csrhosr
(t deq ig'srr NW ps,q, le Gsppe' -figrsetIs'emtIst prlasvt. tss'it» a plie: d oli l. l e: le pah
qkkns £imqsse ple:t de ,sise, vis shssprsex de sommet it g'trrJ. Chasis iritis r,! NRC sTolssvlle
usarqNe ¿e fei::s4 dv g/oNiuiasesu; Cale ple:ssr de s 4iie-oy.i1X dii 64J7 JIffiJIt5 /'J Icisii les wh4i5liusg b.is
de /cstdeiri dv ;ieJ .. ¿trvs laqq,wrs de gessois' faits u rpklrasieiseist .1 JrviJh .iiiOrttjo sqhft..s .1 th .dei sed oth., bon,. .1 kiwi
Alcr is soyez pa soir uit/Ir ' Soktirzle: isasntrqaistr d.øl b. .
DUTCI+ spt(n. isagassse Eleait imkir"seirt Ami.sss: M,ssder srsk F* isv snakri ;frooki And w. más sso bwii
do." bet ,n:e :eges,gsfbij te toegen a.i.v be: drze&k rite: 'site's sa dr ,vrw i.e's ui ip:ivi:s.kkop s.s.s ne:
d.sgvlstk. ¡rien sun dv:, veigv aulne :irer,,dt,os,a/c esrt.ilop.lvs.
File s:g «n eh: mii ,an ha Zu:ticrse ¡sgr sais sidsioqrssali,:sk je hirns., &syq.aan
48 SPY MARCH 1989
- (i.q! (( 'f«)( ((/J
(J
gssneddossr Doqjld irxw4p de Vilgaire sei de k.,r: t tigiri ri h: citv-ifeeelgrwd. Syliviter de Slqqv
fj//qq îvipsvrd io: 4rt eee((rdrdaglql( reel gv::bi ,i cpetl-Dnh' Wv.it a de b:iriesiltji, aiws 5I'iiiii the Cvsiiøi SiaIIon.
L.ai,n.ce Tush. de durrg rai de ¡asir,', "ici hoi euelseq" o) zn,r:, .sl, *.snolrt Odi,Lsqasiwc. Tê.ch. ib. d.si4 hiwi Pli. s,d.n ih hs,ls .e
ilergeTe /ngrn d.' bswd.rKhap
Verte/ges,:. blij/ bi/ hei xi prv«rasnraJ: ks'dbbel 5)1 SP1O i/s Mli kirie l::t s .i he6i.eq roer dv
/J,vq 9() Di: i. lMt qq, orn op de :/o'vi n'o,lrs" te kloppv. de oMde i .,thept,hkfd t, devi, barsten eq ivI,
a's te ii:qqvq to:f de Gtppvr' -/,giearlik gesprsskes, sric 6vzs: ,re, oh he hi re si-:,r dan vos to
t'ei .vprsv met ip::ihoedess en slobkoq:cs. Elke Ns:ag si ven iuMs isvr,ê :.,i ¿iv! gitffe,Ñiisvai " Heichucbkfili.d
kirn sii seu.sidrn.krake,i" mr: cvi flue::uzdr 6'rm' ¿'rire dc ¡p::i. ei fiak-ipls:us-: v'i aide'si, b.w.l.c,iwk.,s ' u4istliø, b.n
hiur-kletite, :osRskld:g gvmaak: uit Iii1 elkaar pssisevsde s':erkaisqvs
lVvrs Jajrvm eve irsdel." AÑqi,eer i.5 Th.,.f.i. . q.s bi o
ARAIK: ._- a . _ bi )....-. 't- _ : "--- -i Siww« Hiwi: b4*4OOfl ,s*kii. . . . A..w i,wsUw. lis i wyf.k 5w. I«ss - hi wyk. bolfi
. -s---- /.- C. :- . - . . -
V.,.. If vid. e aies. end i,. ke.e. sed ,see i. Sumes ¡uSuel. siw.iw.ft We bsn.yrcssiMi. w' ceich hi.
-wekj,rn.- :
. __,p, _, - . ,k__ . . ,.,. . . s. _ _- - .:-
-
J___ .-'-
.--- :.ii: .-_- .. . A?..
-? ( . .ss-1,- C'-- ::e b. . s usss.wnI 4 _, fii*e.s Su.d.w.sy fIIIboS,USIIN.
HUUW: ...srv ni-r .'»s' gy, r's' ,i,si w
1'!.,l-1, ?i3 -si'st: 'wy, 113 rir 'y'syr x' ':'
::,q r"t"' »' ' n11, l-I' y roi
.r-,r,pi -s'y i
;'sivy 'y' fl?' fl'IvP rl,;'''-s ''yl, nvtv, i'o
VV '',1,'?); o',FSK 'W O' 5UD (,i-v 'n v"',)
_,,, r,.,n,3
.flq;, -'n'y n pin-i n ..q 'o'' ii', i',r 'K
ENGLISH AGAIN: spy's magazine: closet, bad joke and anecdote.
Lcss comuwre. Was not a mirage donc in addition flew against
and on the single metropolis, spinning on its axis shaped like the
head of a stick to the song of love for everyday life to this or any
other big city. Any exit to drowning a real Swiss army to methods
of the popular press. A restaurant above Donald will welcome
the vulgar with short fingers and game of labor. Sylvester
Cheater Stallone as a muscle to an unreasonable point in a form
of a mixed game: if you want an internal line to Laurence Tisch
like the embarrassed bride Dan Quayle son of the seventh brother.
Following this leave the nations plans: mix the spy on your
short height to rich people's world, forever to the nineties. This
will be the hour to hit on an iron tool, to blast the old pigskin and
you will have one to the man. The spy to him is more La-Ri-Ra
and methods from a barrel high above the others. Any exit place
will be a new sign for a festival of laughter. A waiter signaled with
interest to bombs at strict accuracy with empty hands on a narrow
position and slaps knees of others manufactured with concern.
Therefore don't be drafted. Take for granted the nation's
cooperation. Paul Sirnrns
For a taste of DeWilder life, try the newWild Fling: 1½ oz. WilclerBerry,' 4 oz.pineapple juice and a splash of cranberryjuice over ice. Like anything that getsmixed-up with DeKuypei; it's DeFinitelyout of DeOrdinary
DeLiciously DeKuyperMq?Ç.n1ias.mc1 L*ywur. 5fl.aI TO thd hJbn D.«uvperai,d Sai. E3mnd PIao.OHIII Thwwi ajfl ot I)oXuvpr nui M42.$ÀI,L 1E n,, I $&NBE.THRE(w,i.1 where prohnhiled by law)
No flip out.
r
It's the world's first Print Video lhke it out. Give it a flip.
Or if this one is gone, get. yours wherever DeKuyper is sold.
i ?If/ r
'ITHE FYIN VALLEHUAS: FAMOUs AERIALISIS?
j),,.,, e,., I?cì,, ; (J'i. (./'du?is. IflIt,,n. !c ; 'e! .St' :..,; :
Basketball Playeri and Practically Everyone Eise in These Precarious Times?
veryone knows who the Flying Wallendas arc. Or do they? Weconducted a random survey and found considerable disagree-mentand learned, moreover, that while few are born, many arecalled Flying WaHendas.
Edwin Diamond, New York's media critic, contends that News-week's former top editors were the Flying Wallendas: OsbornElliott, Kcrmit Lansner and Gordon Manning . . . along with theirsenior editor colleagues, became known as the Flying Wallendas«he Neu Rep#b/w, February 28, 1983).
Scott Ostler of thc Los Angeles Ti,,ies disagrees. He says theJacional Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks are the Flying
Wallendas: (Abdul-Jabbar's) shoukkrs have become a launchingpad for fRoy) Tarpley and the Flying Wallenda Mavcricks (Los4ngeIesTéiies. May 31, 1988).
Me! Gussow. Off-Broadway theater critic for The New Ywk
Tirns, has his own opinK)n. He argues that the little-known clownJango Edwards is a singular Flying Wallenda: Srrapping wings toius elbows, rippling his muscles so that they can be seen up in thebalcony, he is a Flying Wallenda abotit to jump from the EifFelTower' (The New York fimes, October 1 3, 1 98 i).
A fashion writer at the Los Angeles Times isnt sure but thinks.Lc(ress Cloris Leachman might be a Flying Wallenda. ClorisLeachman . dashed clown the aisle so fast that she looked like aFlying Walknda. But a pretty one (L'is unge/es Times, June 10,1988).
Roger Neal of Forbes is defensive when it comes co his opinion.ibout who belongs in the Flying Wallendas. Lee Ault IlI, bewrites, is as much a Flying Wallenda as a businessman (Forbes,
'ovcmber?l. 1983).UPI wont say directly who the Flying Wallendas are but is
tonfident that rheyre the sort of outfit one obscure midwesternstare4egislator would feel comfortable in. 1f the Flying 'X1a1-lendas need a new recruit, [Indiana] state senator Patricia L.Miller has earned the job (UPI Recional News. March 9. 1988).
TEN YEARS AGo N SPY
Ann-Morgret. it seems. used to be a Flying Wallenda, and wasable to draw upon that experience in playing the tragic belleBlanche DuBois. Dealing with her torments, her repressed desiresand her dreams has been a little like being a Flying Wallenda, shesaid (The New York Times, August I 4, 1983).
Some people won't say who the Flying Wallendas are, but theyarc swift to find Flying Wallenda-ness in themselves and others.Movie Producer and Rocky costar Talio Shire claims she and herhusband, Jack, are Flying Wallendas: We are the Flying Wal-lendas of movie financing' (UP!, April 3, 1986). Art spud JamieWyeth told The Christian Science Monitor that he and his folkscould also be Wallendas when their works arc exhibited together:We . . . have always fought against having shows like this. . .
Its sort of like (being) the Walkndas of painting' (The ChristianScience Monitor, July 8. 1987). Reporter Jerry Knight thinks thatarbitrageurs. greenmailers and leveragcd-buyout specialists areFlying Wallendas: Takeover strategists [are) the Flying Wal-lendas of high finance (The Washington Post, September 13.1982). Finally, Bryan Miller, restaurant critic for The New YorkTimes, insists, 'The estimabk Rostang clan from France [are) theFlying Wallendas of French cuisine (The New York Ti,ne.c, January8, 1988).
There is one man who knows who the Flying Wallendas avi't.Loyola Marymount basketball coach Paul Westhead, the formercoach of the Los Angeles Lakers whose bring was engineered byMagic Johnson, acknowledged after a game against the Universityof North Carolina, We werent the Flying Wallendas today,'leaving open the possibility that he thinks that on other days theymay be (Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1988).
Ironically. Karl Wallenda, the now deceased patriarch of theWallenda clan, disliked the name Flying Wallendas because itconnoted trapeze work, which the Wallendas (lidnt do. He muchpreferred The Great Wallendas.
Too late now. Eddie Steni
"A reputation as a sexual adventurer has dogged Bush,and the rumors are sure to gain momentum as the mod-erate Bush prepares to run against a phalanx of right-
next winter's primaries and caucuses. Bush has beenARAB
wingers (Connolly, Reagan, Congressman Phil Crane) in
linked romantically with everyone from a longtime aideto a Timos journalistand, less believably, to o young AI.ARM!
Indiana Republican congressman named J. D. Quayle." The OPEcchemo to Seduce
from "Lillian Carter's Gonorrhea and Other Wacky York Cít)
Washington Rumors," by David Owen, SPY, March 1979
C'n arid Lìai. tòke t'Jet
o-k C'tY'S fòO5 cb\Sb0t&°-' bus t0u.
YI
. ..-; C
tAR( H ''ì SPY ';
Go FishPan1l:?i' /iir Spare (J;ançc in ía,i/itlani l',,iiiíiii
nce upon a tinic I1anhattan's fountains ghtrercd with a wealth of submerged pennies. nickels and quarters the oprornetallk spoleft by wandcring bands of wish-makers and peniìv-a-sho drauiers. But tlwn. (or Sorne reason, people stopp<d making wishes. N1awe Ios( the childlike sense of wonder and gullihditv that OflcC led us to make wishes. Maybe loose change got scarcer. But whateverreason, one t1iins tor sure: aiiatk Coin-prospecting in midtown Manhattau isn't what it was hack in 49.
Paramount Plaza,Broadway and51st Street
Lincoln Center,Broadway arid63rd Street
1\v ptiintc'
Four pennies Inprohibitively deepwater
Exxon Building, Six penniesSixth Avenue and50th Street
McGraw-Hill A single pennyBuilding,Sixth Avenue and48th Street
Tropic Zonc Seven pennies,waterfall in two nickels,Central Park Zoo numerous bird
droppingsand dead insects
IBM Plazas Slice can, cigaretteLevitatcd butts, paper bags,
Mass fountain. foil-wrapped hail56th Street and sandwich.Madison Avenue one penny
Bethesda Fountain, Bottle capsCentral Park
Thick meringue of green foamover drains; watchful eyes of sweatingaerobicizers in adjacent Living WellLady Fitness Center
'There's a mechanism in the fountain thatmakes it so that no one would want tojthrow coinsl, says a sPokesman. Mech-anism' involves a lot ofpipes andthings'
Coins accessible only by wading throughsoggy leaves and unnaturally white foam
Volkswagen-size stainless-steel model ofsolar system in fountain disorients would-be prospectors, as do watchful diners inadjacen BeanStalk restaurant
'Monkeys, crocodilians, snakes, hats, in-sects, free-flying birds, and many othertropical species,' according to brochure
Rushing water, wet garbage
Extremely easy access causes fierce compe-titiofl among coin-(lredgers
Prometheus Fountain, No coins visible Precipitous drop to fountain necessitatesRockefeller Center rappelling gear
Steuben Glassreflecting pool,Fifth Avenue and56th Street
Trump TowerAtrium,Fifth Avenue and56th Street
2 SPY MARCH 989
Approximately i 3 Forage at your own risk: constructioncents in assorted workers across Fifth Avenue may hecoins tempted to pitch life-threatening,
high-velocity pennies from 53rd floor
Lots of pennies, Change can be rcahed only from a singlenickels and dimes fountainside table at Bistro caf
[)csptte obvious presence of two pennies iii tountain,building manager denies that people ever throw changeit, saying, Nope. Nope. Nope
Money thrown into fountain (as much as 12 cents aweek) funds maintenance of fountain and, presumably,the notorious mechanism'
Custodian can keep whatever he finds, though 'a lot ofit's taken care of by the local characters . . who make atour very early in the morning'
Despite empirical proof, building manager insists peoplenever throw money in fountain because it's 'not a wishingwell'
Even though coins (as much as i 7 cents a week) go intozoo's petty cash, zoo discourages tinaulicited projectilecontributions, which arc 'bad for the animais.' Spokes-person also notes that the zoos 20 bodies oí water 'arcnot wishing wells'
Cleaning crew permitted to keep change, hut cultured PRperson notes, 'It's not the Fountain olTrevi'
Spokesperson says the fountain is 'more or less self-cleaning; passersby usually take care of the change. Alsotravel'savvy he adds, k's not like the Fontana di Trevi
-I don't think there's a policy set for that,' says aRockefeller Center spokesperson, who made no mentionofthc Fountain of Trevi
'On the average, we collect about six dollars a week,' thebuilding manager says. 'At the end of the year we give itto the Salvation Army'
Every one to three weeks, fountain cleaners collect abouts 18 in small change. Trump employee says money is
donated to Unïtcd Cerebral Palsy and the Ilice AthleticLeague, or any charity that comes to mind, (hen adds, 'Idon't know why I'm so cooperative with you guys whenyou always write such garbage about us. I guess I should'vtsaid it goes straight into Mr. Trump's pocket, right"
Paul
I)L!vER PEOPLES
"'y-
working opticians.
OLIVER PEOPLES
SYYMR
SE
T B
OU
LCV
AF
D, LO
S A
NG
ELE
SOLIVE
i-2553D
IST
RIB
UT
ED
BY
PE
OP
LES
L.A 8620A
SU
NS
ET
BO
ULE
VA
RD
, LOS
AN
GE
LES
90069T
EL (213) 657-5475
FA
X (213)657-2372
. (1..'a
C i A R E T T E
IR
(?(I hI4r(I lOtS 01 JeCb1C S.Ly tILt
M(I.tt)I(: Griffith, thc griveI1y voiccd star ofYo"icthing li'.// and WiiAjiiç Girl.s;noIkrI on -scrcn ; fl( ) v( underst andwha( (htV iiu:.tu.
.Ie1anie Griffith sits 'i ria Hoor . .
Iighcsng ()flÇ i_ Igarerrc tri in hu Iiit . . .
Sh: cxhaks .* toluinn ut II1Ik(. . . . Letsput it this jy. Grilfith ,ays. akitg a long(Irag . S1(. ttfl)S her izarcrte. . . .
flkLs ari invisible spxk of cobJc(o tronihcr lip afl(1 rciLglirs. Prepijure. Dcceniber1988
Shc was stiiokiig a long In(rlthoI ciga-rrte. . . . On the floor ixt to the hair layliti pack of cigarettts. an tshtr.iv. Iictwecii.tppli(atIoflS ot brush .iiid sponge. slic. lit
tir. . . . Shy haLf lwr ugaretics. \X(: had anashtr.iv. . . . She l.nightd and put Utit hercigarette. - D(1I1i.. 1)eteinbcr -January1989
Oiie in a dream movie. she lit a blackdgirett& ith t gold tip. I .tlw.ivsl:ghr ii igarer (('. i r h a gold t ip. 1ie
explained. . . . Lanr I iive tile tip io thc%vaItet. - ì%F'ic': .z' Fzl,:. March I 988
- .%Id,k .zl/;er
spy SHOWCASES
TOMORROWS STARS TODAY
r4S
54 spy MARCH 1989
SPY's REviEws You CAN UO?) :/i '('UP! U ¡ti' \fr Io?Jd-A(ïtr
vervone knows ahoui the honorabletradition t1flOfl show people of sliingInto theaters at Intermission in order tocath a PliYS seu)Ild att. Once UOfl a
riFfle. a penniless actor would do this iii
ordc-r to see :h work. Todas', e'en thoughAnieruan cheater is dea1. actors still sneakIn for Iree - and now t) a:i
I leres how:l.eave VOLIt ovCr(nat att honie. folti ali
old P/aim/I Ufl(lCr your ariil and bring.ilong i transiLicelir 1'1aSt LIp. Arrive atthe theater a kw minutes before th end oftue first at t and loiter in Iront. out of viewof the lobby staff. liiig1e with the rovdthai spills our ()flt() the street tor fresh air atintermission . t lieti stride ptiTl'IOSCIUI Iv intothe liibbv with sour cup in hand. Hangartflifld unturtiveiv and wait until the lastpossible moment co take an available seat.Figuring (Rl! the plot so tar sla)L1lclr1t be atrLIetii, especially for those acctistozne<I) Wttt hing TV with a rniote-control de-'ice_ Seule in I11(l enjoy the satisting (eel-ins ihtr votire one up on th Peapackorthodontist Silt lug neXt R) i)U.
The following is a up sheet tor gettingInto tV() fiore 01 less Lurrent Broadwayshovs ncither nt which is a sellout. andOIIC nl vhkh. 1r. seoiid-A«cr (cars. ni.i001V be avuilalile through Peter Alkils pri-vate Video Iibrar l.y the iinc this issLieSCCS print . hrlwr va. Mr. Seond-AtcrI)ror11lss: Your c' enhlig OU dic town viIl
(eel ligluer. brecicr. lcs filling.
pLY BiLL
MAJORTOM
Pu..y: Nei I Sirnon R#,,mr.t - BroadhurstTheatre. 2.5 WCSC 44th StreetREGULAR TICKET PRicE (ORcHESnA): I()
FIRST ACT CURTAIN: 9:04 p.m
kCOND ACT CURTAIN Up: 9: I H pin.
USHER AURTNEss: Moderate
]he lone guard in tue 1ohh' is a shortgray mati dressed in an old-fashionedbrown LIO ilorm , ilK I udirig a laL1f1ur-styIecap with s.ut:rniui stitched across ts brim.Hc glares. )'(t remains inert.
SE
SEAT AVAILASILITY: (UR)(l
AuDiicE Htiuii*ss IN EXPLAIIING STORY k
FAR: Excellent
A guy shoots himself in die ear anthcn che rt:inors scart. explains alewhos in town (O learn about tolletring anat Sotlwl,vs. Its alniost too funn 1w
drawls WItll4flIt sarcasm.Sonic of the guests at the dinner par
know abotit thc- shooting and some (IOn t.says a young nian in a tweed jak&Therç's a lot of slapstitk.
THE WoRK: Some good bits. but not enoughtimi: in tlit sei.ond act ( SQ minutes)(leVlO the tharacters fully. (:on°enieticlthough . Si mon accom inodates lateome- 411(1 dull-wirted first-aut-rs - by havingthe characters reap the entire plot as theSC(011il act Opelis.
PLAY: ¡.4'g.f Diamond. scarring Peter Allen -Mark I lel!inier Theatre. 'Vest 5 1 st StreetRGULAR TICKET PRICE (ORciiisTltA): $5(i
FIRsT ACT CURTAIN: t). 7 p.m.
SeCOND ACT CURTAIN Up: 9:34 l'
USIR AURTNIss: NonexistentI ) r is completely unguarded.
S(AT AvAILAIIUTy: Very good
\';'hcn I ask if I may nhuvC down. anusher shows me to a seat iO front rowoenter. Other open seats can be toothleft rear of orchestra.AUDNCE HELPFULNESS 14 EXPI.ANUNG STORY SO
FAR: ileUtllLlSLaStIt.
Iitt-rinission ero(I doesn't seem toIgl 'ery good spirits. To the lLIcSt10 DidITIiSS aiiything a man with a large trehead replies. Not muLh. A lot happeiwdbiir ir doesni inarrer.
Costumcs are great. but Id ratherhim ai Radio City, says a man with aearring.THE WORK: Halfhearted plot and lavis\'egas-v pro(luction numbers make tohigh-entertainment-value second act an
One that SeemS USt right at half the k-ngtlof rue normal Ligs. - Skte S/oil
WestBrain.
Your West Brain wants: Light. Air.Unique living space. Surrounded by thewonderful neighborhood life of the WestSide. The Boulevard offers it all. Plus:a 75-foot pool, squash and racquetballcourts,exercise room, steam room,Q1 IflQ CI mr, In n trr'i- rJ ,
EastBrain.
Your East Brain wants: Hard-nosedvalue. Financing. Parking. Convenienttransportation. Building Security. TheBoulevard offers it all. Plus: Braziliancherrywood floors, marble baths, Euro-
kitchens, top-of-the-line appliances,.UILM .L4LILLI11b }JWJL!JU11I .
f humongous closets, at thesefor grown-ups and kids, land-
RJt'ND5 common-sense prices:,
ALti .scaped roof garden, stun- , , . .
fling lobby with doormanLTH cLuBs;5OClM4CEP\\\ One-bedrooms from
and concierge. tif - --,.
?4(.\ $175,400. Two-bed-6RUNCH
-_L PARhIHG" rooms from $312,900.
-- T Three-bedroom du-';ijslc i ART TRANSPORTAT\/ plexes from $559,400.
. .1_ _ One, two and four-I,
tra"-L bedroom duplexes
also available. CallMs. Spayer for an
i appointment:(212)874-8686.
Sponsor: Broadway 86th StreeiAssociates, do Eichner Properties. Inc. Some servkes maynot be available at closing.Parking available for a fee;space limited. This is not anoffering where prohibited bylaw. The complete offeringterms are in an offering planavailable from Sponsor.CC87-050. Prices sub-ject to change.
RON
t) ULBROAD
At last, a both-brainer.
ve sales andng agent:
JAMES CHARLESSTEWART, INC.
i:isivi
:: : : : : : - : :: : :::::::::::: : :.: : : . : : : : : : : : : : . . . : : . : : : : : : : : : t : : : : : : : : . : : : : : : : : : . : : : : : : : : : : : : :::: : : :
I.(#tafl)( ((/7
here was an all bu audt-hic, sigh ol rclie(breathed by those who.,ittcnd cerain T:p,ie.c
¿1agazI?w SttW meccings
.1% word made its waythrough rhe dingy offices tha J1(ideS editorKu hIlltrsI)Il was Ieavil)g to betonw CX(1(I-
ti.e vdi(or ot 1lpthaitap,. zn. ErncrsonscoIIcagll(s xviII no doubt miss his specialbran(l ()I VitttlO%() bu!1'kiSsiflg - a skillhoned over s'ears oÍ osculation at the back-sidc ol bis mcntor. deposed TiPlleI 1agazz?l(
editor Ed Klein. ( Ruin-kissing does haveits rçwards. however: ii was Klein whosugesred to I%lfn/,aIIafl. i,i. editor (..layl:clkcr that Lmcrson would be just the sortol l)rI)wnnosing toad . . . whoops, I/i2I u io
Ji). . . . stalwart . independent editor Felkervas looking for.)
Although tlw .kparttirt of an egrc.giousfavor-curricr is alwsys cause br celebration;trnting rhc nascs at nw Tiniri. it is nut the50k eXplatflatiofl fist the guarded elation.l:merson. it scçnis. is such an on-the-go,
I:. - -I- . ). I. i sornethiiig of a repur.i-tion (or neglecting his posttoilet toilette.And so at the stafF meetings oLleagties
would assemble earls' in order to niakefevered grabs tor che assorted gunitny fishand caramel nibs in the omniunal (andytray before he arrived. When he did. hedthrust his hand into the sweets di%h inquest o his beloved M&Ms - whereupon awave of sudden, silent confection uninter-est would overcome his colleagues.
The socially unredeeming entertainmentportion of this column finished. now bakto the subject that has lately informed thispage: che Timers willfully erratic applka-non of its own conflict-of-interest guide-linesguidelines that seem to place greaterimportance on the extracurricular writingsof is reporters than on the near-corrupt
56 SPYMARCH 1989
.%.... ..,
activities that exist within its own walls.Hello. Arthur! lndeed, the Timer is a
newspaper that saw nothing amiss in themarriage of John Corn'. for years the pa-pers (hid critic of nonfiction televisionprogramning. ro Sonia Landau. the chair-man until two ears ago of the Corporationfor Public Broadcasting. the i. hid supplierof nonlicrion television programming.
The Times is a paper that promotesMartin Arnold - who, like Emerson. hadserved years of bum-kissing fealty underKlein at th magazine -- w the powerfulpost of cornlntlnications cear. in diarge utboth television and publishing ioverage.hie paper evidently sees no problem 4it allin Arnolds live-in arrangement withKathy Robbins. a prominent New Yorkagent with a lienc list of media maneuver-ers including \illiani Pale and formerjournalIst Tony Schwartz.
Last year Carol Vogel. a dign reporterat t)w paper. igi.jcsted a story to the niaga-Lilie and was .L)parcIiclv giveti the go-ahead on it. But the subject was off herbeat. and so she was told that she wouldhave to work on it nights and weekends.Which \'ogel did. Because ir wasnt a storyabout Middle Last geopolitics. the maga-zinc Law no reason to run it; Vogel decidedto shop ir elsewhere. She first sought thecounsel of her agent. who told her thatbefore shc did anything she ought tobroach the idea of selling the piece else-where to Warren Hoge. editor in charge offreelance permissions at the Times. Hogerefused Vogels requesta verdict that heragent might well have suspected all along.Her agenrs naine is Kathy Robbins.
Metro section reporter Susan HellerAnderson is one of the forwnates whohave been granted permission to write else-where in her case. for T'wrc'I ô Leiskrr.Unfortunately. she did not disdose this
sideline when she l)r)(ltic(cl a witheritstory tor the paper on Trti:eI & Leuunlar t tiore d isti rigti islied corn petitor. Con
\t5, irazeIer. Anderson managed the ne
(eat of committing this thoroughgoing etical breath and at the same time earnitvaluable Tirnei brownie pointsgood tward further frecltnec permisions by including in licr story flattent
mention of che flrneis own eflorc in tiarea . The Sophistiaud Tra: tier.
After culture reporter Leslie Bennettwho had been at the paper for a decadwrote about (.hes. (or Vanity Fair. slit. w
invited iflt() Hoges cell ton a proper dreing-down. ihough the door was losed.audible was his pique that fragments old
conversation were heard out in che neroom. Hoge told Bennetts that this wasfirst instance bed eier encountered ufwrircrs wishing to write elsewhere. \X'hBennerts pointed out than lied granufreelance permission to another writer elier that day. Hoge reportedly said. A
you Calhflg ,?le 1 I:ar.'The next day CXCCLItIVC editor M
Frankel. a mati even more obsessed b d
subject of his staffs freelance cndeavthan his predecessor. Abe RosenthPosted on the newsroom bulletin loar.iparticularly vindictive memo abuut 1kncrt%s transgression . Bennetts shortthereafter oined a distingu islie I iressïof young and youngish TIme5 talent wi
have left nbc paper and became a (('mnuting editor at 1/anit Fair. But then. til?ie.i has always had a unique lidlity fbullying its most talented reporters. hmer TV-heat reporter Peter Boyer was aparently hectored nor because tn exuifrom his hook. Who Killed CBS?. appear
in l/a',ity Fair last year but because
wasnt written in bloodless Tirnt.r style.
-J. .1. lhilJ(v4
4
i
p
KENTUCKY®UFE®N
mi
ME AND MY GRAND-DAD
¡j
__
.,ø,
.;;;:.
-:zz
\ '..
\;,. 0
\\\
\t'
1,11
L:4
_ìJ
&i1
\1!;
±1
.
j
'x Q ' ',o .
.
S \' '
t:ï&'iîfi:.FSSc ' ' . .
: . "
*.
o'E0Q.
Ss\'4 CI
%\
ç'4E1
) 4) c oi1ij
.o.p) -
(
5<z.
P10.0
: ;:' ; --'r 4V-z:-.Q- o r
b5 -Oc
:2 -o OQ
(1 p Q. o
H e was a doctor I'kc [)r. Kildire s
He sts a Ii,uut- site rrusrcd.Hc was a doctor U) whon si, had paid lors and L)tS of rnoiwy.For the last (our weeks Jane I)ot (not lier ra1 namL). a 32-
var-oId fashion consultant. had betL visiting the Park Avenue()ftkcs of Rolcrr Gilkr. t.D. nutrItionist co the stars. vitamindisi,enser to New Yorks elite hypochondriacs. author of the best-selling 1)00k ?ir1ediclI i'e1.ikeover. Hv had diagnosed till sorts of foolallergies she never knew she had by administciiìg a blood test andcarefully - .ririiiJiis/Ij - analyziii a scr.tnd of her hair. To oiitio1her cravirgs for sweets. he had prescribed a botk of chromiumpills. Costing around S2() anc ct)nvtinentiv sold right in his veryown And 1w liad ziven her lnvga(lOsvs of vittmin (.. ShebL(I l)CgLlfl to feel more alive. ht,tlthicr. . .
That s. until she had suddenly been rusliid to the em&rgencyroom btxause Licr body vas puffing up like 4t sotiffl. Strange, shehad th()Utht to herself. she liadnt had an allergic reaction like thisin six yearsand bow odd tha: it had happened only four veeksaUer she had heun seeing Dr. Gilkr. And now she was reading anarticle in Tbe New York Ti,,,e; about how to recognize a disreputa-blt fltltritiúfli%t. written by the first lady of personal hcalch lier-sell. Jane Brody (sec Eat. Drir.k and Re Merry But Sparingly.
62). As I)oe ticked oII niorç and more of Br()dvs warningsignals signals that relaed to Dr. Oilier. such as the hair teSt andrli expensive. offke-sold vitamins - it all began to make sense.She thought she heard a sound :n her riiinds eir. lt w.is the SOUnd
It duck mtkes.IWo weeks later. on IIav , I 988. Patients of yet another
a of(liet books. most notably Dr. Brer.r Imm,mc Poze r Dirt, got .tscare from the Dail) :\eui. The paper announced chat a big fitprobe was heitig C.)IldUCtCd by the New York Stette Departmentot Health into the lratice of Dr. Stuart Berger. prompted bycomplaints troni several former patients. The doctor. it seemed,had been issued a subpczia asking 111121 to turn over not just thetiles of the l)ttRfltS but also the tiames 1tiid addresses of everyonewhod V.Orkel for him Strice 1983. (As ufjanuary. the investiga-tion is proceeding; 1)r. Bergers practice remains open.)
Despite their suspect methods, both Dr. Gilkr. in his lateforties, Ifl(l I)r. Berger, in his mid-thirties. have found a loyalfolløwing of clients who PLY clearly for their advice and treat-inents not to mention the putative social standing achieved byheitig sported in their waiting moms. In fLct. although the twodoctors have no protssiotial association and (l)fit see cacti othersociall they have created some of the saine patients. I knew he
-as a 1uack, 1)LIt i kept returniii. SS t)tie teinak 1's' producerWh) tO Dr. Giller. She goes on to pr1)Iably more w thePoint - Did )'()U know Bianca Jaggers a client?
In addition to Jagger. Dr. Giller has had many other clientsknown less for their common scuse than for. as the siying goes.being k,wun. George Hamilton. for instance, and (ornier substanceal)t:SCrS Liza Minnelli. Judy Collins ¡LtId Carrie Fisher. MikhailBaryshnikov felt he needed Dr. Gilkrs vitamin supplements tokeep hini dancing, .tnd Los Angeles Laker Karcein Abdul-Jabbarsoug)n treatment troni Dr. Giller for migraines.
Dr. Bergers patients are no slouches, either. They are. hein (Ifle of his hooks, tllm and television celebrities, major ocrbrokers from Wall Street. corporate heavy hitters . . . world-renowned artists, musicians, in tel lectuals, Professional athletes,
60 SPY MARCH 1989
and nieziihvrs of the ruling families ot several continents. Mor
spe(iti(allv. they have been Ireiie Papas. ballerina-actress Lestil3rune. Bella Abztig and Roberta Flak. Mrs. Joe l3ologiia (Renc..I. Taylor) has in the past witnessed loi l)r. Berger. using sudcredil)itity-bi)osting platforms as Tht 1)'n./ne S/.'oze.
But most of Dr. Berg&s and Dr. Gitler's patients are nofamous. just as most ofthe rcople who eat at Elaine's or go to Vaiaren't \Voody Allen or Jack Nicholson. The majority of thespatients are drawn from New Yorks sizable population of aueilt vL)IIIefl willing to grasp onto any novelty in the health. beautand fitness fields - willing ro pay any price and endure any process. no matter how humiliating, in order to stave off decay. Liktused cars passing through one repair bay after another, they whilt
their days in OffCC5, gyms and salons, hoping to emergcspanking new.
Doctors Berger iIi(i (uiller have latched on to this gravy trainand become rieti themselves by wr:ting diet hooks, appearing ontalk ShOWS and expanding their private practices juti) clic mostelite and most necrotic social and celebrity circles. For thesetWo caring profssionals unlike so many of their remote col-leagues - patients arc more than just amalgams o symptoms andinsurance forms; they are friends the people the good doctor1socialize with, the people they summer with. the people- whcintroduce them to other wealthy and celebrated People. peoplewho themselves might very well have multiple allergies or needlkuid vitamin pick-me-ups. This is the nice part nl doctoring.
The tough part of doctoring is thc scientificdiagnosticHip.pocratic oath tart. lt is worth noting here that both Dr. Bergemamici Dr. Gilkr arc, in fact, real doctors - thc medical kind.Berger received his degree from Tufts University Medical Schooland also received a graduate degree from the Harvard School utPublic 1 lealdi (Lredelltials he repeats over and OVet, as if they wertmantras. in his books); he began but apparently never finishedresidency in psychiatry Dr. Giller's medical degree comes (rom thiT. 'niversity of Illinois; he served in the Army as a specialist irpreventive mcdicine but especially likes to point to the year htspent in Hong Kong training as an acupuncturist.
Anyone. however - even Paul Prudhomme car. become a nucritionist in New York State; there is no licensing or certificatiorprocess tiere. In fact. ('nC physician recently demonstrated just hoeasy it is to join the American Association of Nutrition ancDietary Consultants b sending in a S5() check and an applicatioron bchalfof his dog; soon alter, the dog was accepted for member'shii. (Dietitians, on the other hand, are required to followspecified course of study and are certified in New York State h)the American Dietetic Association. Indeed. the ADA compiainecto The Neu' York Ti,,ìtj in I 986 that there has been a dramatiincreasc in the number of unqualified nutritionists who dupe thpublic with gimmicks and quackery. ) In their books, neither DrBerger nor Dr. Gitter claims any official status as a dietitian oinutritionist; nor would they or their oices supply any professionaassociations. (just come and see him. one ol Dr. Bergers receptiOfliStS told a SPY researcher she mistook for a potential patient'All the best people see
Interestingly. the t'o doctors have niuch in common besidesbest -sellers. Iiigli-pwfile patients and an casi y exploited specialty.Both of their careers. tor instance. have thrived on otierinmz curesfor the widest-ranging ofsymptoms - symptonis St) common as teguarantee a plentiful pool of patients. According tu) Dr. Gillers
book, Medical Makeover if you suffer from headaches, afternoonfatigue, inability to concentrate. sleeplessness, depression {or) sus-ceptibility to colds . . . your body may be trying to warn you offuture chronic disease. (Your body may also be warning you thatyou live in the late twentieth century.) Stress, the complaint offvor in the 1980s. is a particular bugaboo of Dr. Gillcr's. Thebest-selling Dr. Bergers immune Pou'er Diet tells its readers that ifthey sufFer from a whole textbook's worh of symptoms, rangingfrom jet lag ro flatulence, they very likely harbor hidden allergks,not just the pedestrian ones (cat hair, dust balls, ragweed). Dr.Giller also discovers allergies, allergies that are as sophisticated astheir wealthy victims, allergies to foods such as endive, mustardseed, paprika. l have very specific allergies that I did not know Ihad until I saw hirn,' notes an enthusiastic Bianca Jagger, sound-hg like M. Jourdain, Molière's would-be gentleman, who neverrealized that he'd been speaking prose all those years.
Both doctors have gone in for the hair testing and vitaminprescribing that Jane Doe noticed on the Brody warning list, andboth doctors frequently prescribe the same regimens for manydifferent patients (yet another Brody caveat). After sacrificing adrop of blood and a strand of hair to Dr. Giller, one patient wascold that she was allergic co milk (among many other things); shelater discovered, she claims, chat he tells lots of women theyreallergic to milk." He also administers a lot of vitamin B shots(see A Visit to Vitamin Hell, page 65). A former employee ofDr. Bergers said, in an interview with ABC News, L was told toautomatically mark them off [allergies to yeast, dairy. eggs andwheati. Half of [the patients) don't even have reactions to thesefoods.
Both doctors also share a propensity for finding themselves atodds with the medical establishment. The AMA says there is nosuch thing as antistress vitamins, Dr. Giller admitted cheerfullyto People magazine. But I feel that antioxidants help people feelbetter. He also asserted that while the AMA denies that doses ofchromium, one of his favorite minerals, block a craving for sweets,his clinical experience' shows that the pills work (so conclusively,it seems, that he indiscriminately handed a bottle over to me whenI mentioned, off the cuff, that I like sweets: Here, he saidhelpfully, try I/x.re). In a New York magazine interview, Dr.Berger whined about the Food and Drug Administration's state-ment that some of the tests he used to routinely employ areworthless as a way of detecting food allergies, adding that hefound it morally roublesome that the FDAs pooh-poohing atest he had already used on thousands of people would affectgeneral opinion so drastically
And there's one other thing that Doctors Berger and Gillershare. lt's a factor that, perhaps more than anything else, explainstheir staggering success: both maintain offices within walkingdistance of Le Cirque.
r. Berger's ground-floor oí&e is located on Fifth Avenuenear 61st Street. Walking into it, one is at first impressed by thelarge David Hockney watercolor hanging on one wall (bought onthe advice of his close personal friend Leonard Bernstein). But it'sthe checkout counter, situated in the middle of the pastel-tintedlobby, with its drugstore-style display of Dr. Berger's own line ofexpensive supernutrients and fiber supplements, that really setsthe torte. lt is here that up to 40 patients a day will sit and wait toe Stuart Berger.
.
r
SLURP Dr. Bergerawkwardly demons?rates .
the good life by waving oglass and taking o big juicy .'bite out o on unortunotep,ccc of fruit.
-
A pasty, pudgy giant who appears to carry at least 250 poundson his six-foot-seven-inch frame, Dr. Berger in the flesh does notexactly inspire confidence in his regimenshow, one might ask,could a nutritionist allow himself to become so enormous that hiscollars cut into his neck like tourniquets? (Dr. Berger declined tobe interviewed by spy.)
Any fool can lose weight, Dr. Berger says in a promotionalvideo for one of his books. People in concentration camps lostweight, people in prisoner-of-war camps lost weight which isone Dr. Berger assertion that few would debate. He likes to tellthe story in his books of how, as a lonely boy growing up inBrooklyn over bis family's candy store, he ate his way throughchildhood and adolesccncc until one night, when he was tippingthe scale at over 400 pounds, he found he could no longer fit intohis seat at the opera. He promptly started a diet, taking close tofour years to lose 2 i O pounds; in the process, he says, he dcvel-oped bleeding ulcers and migraines, which led him to studydieting and nutrition.
After receiving bis degrees from Tufts and Harvard, Dr. Bergerattempted a residency in psychiatry at New York University, buthe left, according to various sources, after a clispute with thedirector; it is unclear whether he ever finished a residency any-where. Nevertheless, at age 27, Dr. Berger became a mediashrink, a lower-rent Joyce Brothers appearing on the Midday showwith Bill Boggs to discuss the psychological implications of currentevents. But it was Dr. Bcrgcrs best-selling books, and subsequentlybooming Fifth Avenue practice, that made him the millions hecontinues to earn today.
In i 982, having had apparently no specific professional or aca-demic experience in the field of nutrition, Dt Berger coauthored withMarcia Cohen the hook Southampton Diet- the diet that keeps the'Beautiful People' thin, beautiful and super active. Southampton
Diet promised a weight loss of up to I 5 pounds in two weeks andplayed profitably to readers social anxieties about l)eing snubbedby the rich. in Southampton. thin is the name of the game, thebook says, and the diet's fame lured many Hamptons residentsand many more Hamptons wanna-bes to Dr. Berger's office,which was hastily opened to cash in on the book's success. Seem-ingly overnight, Dr. Berger became a practicing nuritionist. Hebegan writing magazine articles and a weekly column for the NewYo Post, which was edited by his friend Roger Wood.
Unfortunately, Dr. Berger's new career drew the enmity of histwo alma maters. Dr. Jean Mayer, the president of Tufts and for26 years a Harvard professor of nutrition, wrote in a Wall Street
MARCH 1989 SPY 6l
BRYAN MILLER, BON VIVANT, VS. JANE E. BRODY, KILUOY
Every Friday. Bryan Miller. restaurant reviewer for The Neu York Timti,describes the putative virtues of restaurants around town in an effort tohelp New Yorkers better enjoy the pleasures of food and drink. OnThursdays, Jane E. Brody, health columnist for the Times. reports atlength the dismal news about some everyday human habit - often theeating of popular foods that has proved to be shockingly unhealthfuland, given suf&ient repetition, lethal. Whom should we believe?
At Zarela: Virtually all theappetizers arc recommended.including . . . chilaquiles. whichare frsed tortilla strips overlaidwith shredded chicken. cart sourcream and white cheddar cheese. . . (and) flautas, . . tacS servedwith fresh guacamole
At Aquavit: A salmon tartarblended with minced oysters is anethereal briny combination; dittothe sheets of this mildly smoked,silk salmon with horseradishcream . . (But) the sweet-breads (were) bland and spongy.
At Sam's: The hefty hamburger[is] among the best in town
At Meirose: Finally there as asimple but exquisite roostduck. . .
At Raintrees: Recommendedappetizers include . . . grilledfennel sausage.
At Sabor: Sabor will prepare acomplete feast around a roastsuckling pig for groups ofeight ocmore. . . Another winner is cocoquemado, a thick, hot coconutcustard . . . served under a meltingglacier of fresh whipped creom.
(Frying is) not advisable il youretrying to cut down on fat.
Sour cream . . . is at least 18percent fat, use yogurt rnstead.
1n cheddar . . . 75 percent of thecalories are fat calories.
Avocados also have a lot of fat.
High fat fish include salmon....
Switch to skim milk. . .
Evaporated skim milk can besubstituted for Cream.
High cholesterol meats to avoidinclude all the organ meatsbrains, sweetbreads . . . andheart.
Avoid . . . hamburger..
...duck. ..
- sausages.
There are no very lean cuts ofpork.
The highest blood cholesterollevels resulted from coconut oil.
Heavy whipping cream is 38percent buttcrfat
At The Rainbow Room: A . . . Chocolote . . . icings are on thefrozen praline souffl6 is watch-out list.lubricated with hot chocolatesauce.
We mustn't, however, be overly quick to judge Brody as a stick-in-the-mud. I agree with Dr. Myron Winick, she has written, who says youdon't have to abandon fine dining . . . to eat prudently. . . . Dr. Winicksuggests that you avoid items described (on menusi in any of the followingterms: buttery, buttered or butter sauce; sautéed, (ned. pan-fried, orcrispy; creamed, cream sauce, or in its own gravy; au gratin, Parmesan, incheese sauce. or escalloped; au lait, la mode, or au fromage; marinated,stewed, basted, or casserole; prime, hash, pot pie, and hollandaise. Otherthan that, bon appbit! Jarnie Malanowski
All quotes are from the best-selling Jane Brady's Nntrition Book
62 SPY MARCH 1989
J ournal review of another of 1)r. Berger's books, It is my ho)that no future graduate of the Toits Medical School will exhibitlittle knowledge of nutrition as does Dr. Berger. Fredrick Statthe chairman of Harvard's nutrition department when Berger wa student, has taken the trouble to point out in a televised nereport that Dr. Berger, despite his claims, never cook a singnutrition course at Harvard. And not long after the publicationSoithampton Diet, American Health magazine declared that the diwas "little more than a semantically upscakcl version of a diconcept devised . . . by the late nutrition pioneer Norman JollifiM.D., when he was working for the decidedly unchic New YoCity Department of Health.
None of the naysaying. however, has mattered. Dr. &rgemain purpose in life is to he an actor, to be among the rich arfamous, but not helping pcple, says a former employee. Acconing to a source, around the time of Southampton Diet Dr. Bergbegan frantically looking for a Hamptons house of his own; Ibought one shortly thereafter. (In New York, he lives in a penhouse duplex in The Beaumont, on West 6 ist Street, and can Iseen around town driving up to his favorite Italian restaurants inRolls-Royce Silver Shadow.)
lt wasn't long before Dr. Berger realized that while exploicirpeople's fears of looking unattractive was profitable, exploitirtheir fear of death was even more profitable. In 1985, 'ust as riAIDS epidemic was beginning to frighten heterosexuals, Dr. Beger published Immune Power Diet. Given the increasingly paniciclimate, that title alone was enough to cause a sensation, and clbook copped the Neu York Times best-seller list for 1 6 weeks. Ifact. Dr. Berger didn't directly address the question of AIDS; 1just claimed chat his new diet had the power to strengthen anrevitalize your body's immune system by eliminating the foods iwhich everyone has "hidden food sensitivities.
Once again the medical establishment rained on Dr. Bergerparade. Dr. Mayer, the Tufts president and Dr. Berger debunkwrote in a review of Inmune Power Diet that food allergies are rardiflicult to diagnose and properly treated only by a registeRdietitian. In his defense Dr. Berger has said, 1'he medical esta)lishment has long debated the evidence on food sensitivities. .As I 've said before, my practice is highly controversial and baston hypotheses only now being proved in the research laboratoriesMedical ethics. of course - not to mention common sense us
ally require treatments to be proved efficacious before they aindiscriminately put into practice.
To find out what lood sensitivities a patient has. Dr. Berghas done tests in his own laboratory (the laboratory, presumabiwhere all his hypotheses are currently being proved). In a l9ABC News report on Dr. Berger, a number of his former empIo'ces revealed that they fabricated test results and got rid of the reslides. (We were told to) throw them out, said one ex-employion the program. He had the disease of the week, another remployee told si'v. One week all his patients had candida (a yeainfection). The next week it was thyroid problems. He doesnknow what h&s doing. Indeed, even before she could finirattling off her symptoms, one recent prospective patient of EBerger's was told by his cheerful receptionist, Yup! Sounds IiIyeast!
J oy Gabel, a former patient of Dr. Bergers, spent rient$2,000 before realizing that he was not helping her. The hornof this is, she told ABC, thar one of the things he told me I w
:_:'Ç I
!*.
Iccçu"1
Ii
I
-
g
clotnes may mase me i' u
.
T.I
II
.man. ipreterto see wtìts
.
i:!'' inhis huuor cabinet. A.
4I
1!iii-
¿
-..
,..
::
K-'
:e.
1
fr
-lu--
.C
.
.
..
'
'
..:.
,%\
:
;
.
: :i:''
.
-
-.f
.
ç
F r
_,-E:1
Ii'
.-
-.----
\..'.. ..
:
---- .- ----Y--
I4'
. __Ii&
U;T1i
,3
_,/
. .
I
4';\
.
..
:1':
.
..,.. -.
...
..
;
.I\ ì:..;
.. :
.
.
Makea statementwithE&j
deathly allergic to was soy, and the supplement he gave mc rodrink twice a day was soy powder.
Dr. Berger's next book. Hou' to Be Your Ou.',j Nutritioni.ri, waspublished in i 987. Finally he seemed to be providing a realserviceeliminating the need to see Stuart Berger. With an eyetoward exploiting the publics occasional resentment of the medi-cal establishment, the book cries ro play up ¡rs supposedly pio-fleeting iconoclasm by uoring the hostile reviews garnered byIDilnufle Power Diet, including one that called ir a collection ofquack ideas about food allergies.
Despite SUCh bravado, patient complaints have prompted theinvestigation uf Dr. Bergers practice by the New York StateDepartment of Health. Just over a year ago Dr. Berger was serveda subpoena requiring him to turn over records as well as provide adescription of the ingredients in eleven different manufactured-exclusively-for-Dr. - Berger vitamin supplements with such ener-getic-sounding names as Power Booster, Power B-90 and AminoPower. According to papers filed by his lawyer. Anthony Scher. thedoctor believes the investigation was spurred by insurance compa-nies who disagree with Dr. Berger's methods.
As the investigation continues. Dr. Berger not only continues topractice but has also been promoting yet another new book, thehonestly titled What Your Doctor Didu t Learn in Medical School.On The Donahue Show last year. he blasted away at colleagues,accusing doctors of not washing their hands, and urged his audi-ences to police their hospitals and demand the best treatmentssuch as the ones he provides.
or. C i I I e r s best - sellini Medical Ma,&oz'er offers a revnlu-
tionary no-willpower program for lifetime hcaIch. The book, aswell as his current high-grossing practice, is based on the discoverythat stress causes bad habits and that bad habits cause bad health.Dr. Giller described his unscartling epiphany to Interriew maga-zinc in 1986: About four or fivc years ago. J noticed that I didnrhave as much energy. . . . I noticed I was drinking more coffee . .
having a glass or two of wine . . . and eating more sugar andsweets. . . . I thought that might have been contributing ro myfeeling run-down.
What more likely was contributing ro his blab feeling were rhtoo many nights he spent at Studio 54 in the late 1970s and early'80s, burning the candle with such close personal friends as Jag-get, Warhol and Steve Rubell. With the aid of his own reat-
merits, he continues to lead a glamorous. somewhat fast-pacedlife. Two summers ago Dr. Giller and Jagger shared a house inEast Hampton. Since then, like Dr. Berger. he has been able romove into his own Hamptons home, and he can be seen touringaround eastern Long Island in his pink 1979 Cadillac. 1 wantedsomething to make me laugh, Dr. Giller says ofthc color. In NewYork, Dr. Giller lives in a duplex on East 87th Street, filled withthe ubiquitous Warhols. One member of the early-eighties NewYork demimonde remembers visiting the doctors pad for a partyand being struck by the pornt flhovies being played on the large-screen video projector in the master bedroom.
Getting one socially connected client is the ticket to succcss,says a friend. And although Dr. Giller had been practicing in NewYork since 1973 (specializing then in holistic medicine and acu-puncture), his career didnt really take off until he met Halstonand the two became friendly while working out together at thegym of Radu, the Romanian trainer who has also been paid to
64 SPY MARCH 1989
bully John Kennedy Jr. and Bianca Jagger. Dr. Gilkr bcgahanging out with Halstons crowd at Studio 54 and the Hamptonswhere. of course, he met many other credulous. wealthpotential patients. A lot of times the celebrities are friends of onanother, says Dr. GiHer, who, unlike Dr. Berger, was happy tdiscuss his professional techniques with sv. You get one ansthey tell their friends.
He became sort of . . . well, tacky about connections, sayswOfl)afl who knew him at the time his practice began to take oHMy friend took him ro a Michaeljackson party at the Museum a
Natural History and he dumped her at the door. Dr. Gilknetworked at Studio 54 and started meeting a lot of celcbritiewho started coming to see him for the vitamin shots that made ipossil)k to party the way everyone did then, says an early patienof Dr. Gillefs and fellow Studio 54 habiru&.
This patient was referring to the famous B shot. While mudof Dr. Giller's practice involves such commonsense advice atelling patients to eliminate had habits and eat well-balancomeals, the B. shot is the sexy drawing card. One former Dr. CilleJ)atient remembers in detail her first visit to his office in the earl1980s. l went to him specifically to get the orgasm shot, sh
says. Tliats what it was called, you know, at least around Studi'54. On her first visit, after prescribing enough pills to fillmedicine cabinet and suggesting that she considcr sroppinsmoking, Dr. Giller finally got down to business. lts reallyvitamin shot, the former patient insists. nor wishing ro draw ananalogy between Dr. Giller and Dr. Charles Roberts, the shotgiving doctor who made much of the New York nightlife of thsixties possible. I was really run-down, going through a divoradoing too much cocaine. Dr. Giller said ir would help, and in 1a
said chat biweekly vitamin shots would counteract any bad effectso(the drugs.
The shot she received, which she remembers as a combinationofvitamins C and B and ACE (adrenal cortical extract). did nothavv xactIy the effect she hoped. Shortly after the cherry-coloredsyrup was injected into her arm through at least eight inchesworth of hypodermic needle. she saw the white Lrrnica counterand peach-colored sheet spinning around thc room. Thcre wasthe promised rush and then a tingling like alter youre givennitrous oxide at the dentist's office, recalls the patient, addingthat she began sneezing and coughing soon after and eventuallyexperienced breathing difficulties. Dr. Giller promised her that onher second visit he wouldnc use the ACE. since she must have asensicivity to one of the preservatives used by the pharmaceutical
tompanv. She left his office about $300 poorer only to be sur-prisid that night at 1 :00 a.m. by a delayed burst of energy, whichshe attributes to the shot, that kept her up all night pacing. Afterher second visit, during which Dr. Gilkr gave her a shot of B,2
alonc. she stopped going to him. Says another former Dr. Gillerpatient. l would sit there for 20 minutes while the vitamins weremainlined into my arm. When I got up, I was flying! Many. ofcourse. enjoy these infusions it vim. Eighty-one-year-old EvelynKovncr. who sees Dr. Gullet once a week for B,2 shots, says she hasthe energy of a 40-year-old. 1 believe in him I 000 percent, sheenthuses.
There is nevertheless widespread skepticism of vitamin shotswithin th medical community. There is not a real need, in myview, to inject vitamins, says Patricia Hausman, author of a hookon vitamin nutrition called The Right Dose. Dr. Marie Smith of the
i
I
search of the legendary "vitamin B7" shot andarmed with nothing but brio and blank checks,healthy spy reporters RACHEL URQUHART andLISSA SCHAPPELL paid two undercover visits each
to the Pork Avenue offices of celebrity nutritionistr. Robert Gifler. Schappell complained of these im-
ginary symptoms: dry skin, hyperactivity, head-ches, stomachaches and insomnia, as well as asire to lose a few pounds. Urquhart feigned theseore or less opposite complaints: fatigue, loss ofppetite, frequent infections and overstimulatedivory glandsso-called wet mouth. Here is whatese intrepid and still alive reporters found.
CENES FROM THE VIAITING ROOM. crt is no Muzak; instead, a tabletop humidifierums softly, breathing sterilized oxygen into the
m. There are no magazinesno People, no dog-red copies of National Geographic, no Coinopolitan,
ot even any giveaway copies of Special Reports;stead there is a bookcase with an old volume of1»s Who, coffee-table art books and a copy ofcorge Plimptons Fireworks. There is nothinguch to look at beyond the spare gray-and-white-
me decormainly a dozen stressed-out, al-
American Society of Hospital Pharmacists agrees: (Vitamins] allhave good oral absorption. Dr. Giller admits the practice iscontroversial hut says he has found that B,: shots do revitalizefatigued patients. As for the patients who have experienced un-usual reactions to the shot, he says, I can't say that in all my yearsof practice no one has felt light-headed or sick after the shot . .
but I don't recall any severe reactions.J ack M. Rosenberg, the director of the International Drug
Information Center, admits that B2 is sometimes better ahsorbedwhen injected. [But) a good, balanced diet should get a person allthe necessary vitamins. When asked for his opinion of prescribingchromium and Supernutrient supplements frequent Dr. GillernostrumsRoscnberg replied, lt's pretty much hocus-pocus.
But for the posh and would-bc P°1 patients of both Dr. Gillerand Dr. Berger. hocus-pocus is perhaps the point. After all, itscertainly far more Pleasant tO trust one's health to something likea vitamin shot or a no-willpowcr diet than to acquire the self-discipline necessary to eat well and exercise once in a while. Andgiven the cliquishness of their two practices, becoming a patient ofDr. Giller's or Dr. Berger's can provide a reassuring sense ofcommunity. Patients get together outside the offices, sharing al-lergy anecdotes over kir royales.
One of Dr. Gillers patients recalls meeting another Dr. GillerPatiet outside the upscale I O Downing St. Cleaners in GreenwichVillage. This nice lady asked me if I would mind going in andpicking up her cleaning since she could not. I asked her why shecouldn't go in, and she said she was allergic to dry-cleaning fluid.It turned out she went to Dr. Giller, too. We became friendsimrnediatc'ly. ?
FOOTNOTESEdovt otr AIth,,igl, iv ii
(aUJ thi foc.osei c::c Dal) ÖISC
¡oiare. th opnu,u expretud sthe qotv, wriT iieraI1 hatk.dap & a ,sN,itherofthr 12,Ihtnh:oaa/ ithortti u spoke
to: opuuooi differed ox/y iie thurdegree of whvewwe.
'"Th. sificocy of hair testsis 'cry low to nil, soylJohanna Dwyer, D.Sc.,R.D., professor of m.dicân.(nut,itlon) at TuftsUnl.rsity M.dkol Schoolond director of th. FroncesStern Nutrlton Center atth. New Englond MedicalCsnter Hospital. "TheFDA doesn't biliev. inthem. . . . A doctor mightcontinus giving themb.caai. he is out of dot.,or becaus. it makes thingslook ,ci.ntfic."
lergy-ridden, acupuncture-crazed women (plus aman or two) waiting to see Dr. Giller.
Lotta nice new patients this week," says one ofthe two receptionists at the front desk, surveying theregister of upcoming appointments and, perhaps,silently calculating the week's gross. Real nice."
As a client checks out, the receptionist asks her ifshe has had a shot or just a treatment.
You always ask me if I got a shot," answers thebewildered client. What are these shots?"
A chorus of patients and personnel sings outcheerfully and in unison: "The B,2 shot!"
[LISSA SCHAPPELL'S FIRST VISIT
Since doctors, in my experience, require criminallylong waits, I am surprised when a nurse comes andretrieves me from the waiting room shortly after Ifinish filling out Dr. Giller's copious forms. I am ledinto a small white room. The nurse takes a sampleof my blood. Then I am seated in a low chair."Don't be surprised," she cautions as a sharp stain-less-steel instrument enters my peripheral vision."These are thinning scissors. It sounds like I'm cut-ting a lot, but you won't be able to see a thing."Schuich, schutch, .rchutch, Locks of my hair fall awayand are slipped into a pre-addressed envelope. I
write the first check of my visit, made out to Doc-tor's Data Hair Test, for $23.'
I am led into another white room, where a nurse 2Hoef.th.rs, says Dr. attributable to low blood sugar. He gives me a list
I
comes in and takes my blood pressure. I tell her my Victor H,,bs,t, chi.f ofh.matoIo und nutrition flOflO s: no sweets, no coffee or tea, no cigarettes-'
Isymptoms:anxiety, headaches, stomachaches, dry ° " Bronx V.t.rons and cut back on the red meat and diet soda. No
mouth, dry skin and inability to sleep. Without Administration MedicalCSn?.r. os will ai o dangerous quackery, but not exactly ground-break4
I even glancing up from her notepad she makes a professor at Mount Sinai ing work in the field of nutrition, either.snap diagnosis: That would be calcium, she says School of Medicine.
Colcium deficiency is a What we will do is give you some vitamins, noconfidently.2 ii.y unlikely thing unless a lot to start, 'cause I don't want to overload you a
When I say that the concept of rampant, undiag-t
You have a metabolicdlso,.r, says Dr. Stephen first. He also gives me some soothing advice. 'Al
nosed food allergies one of the bases of Dr. Giller's Barreft, editor of the lergics don't have to be forever, he says, althouglINutrition:practice is new to me, she responds, 0h God, Forum
newsletter and o board he has yet to diagnose any. Hey, you might outeverybody's got food allergies, and assures memb.roftheNational grow some of these allergies, and some you'll learlme that Dr. Giller can help me just as he's helped Council Against Health
Fraud. tO live with. He gives me a friendly pat on thcountless others, herself included. After this shoulder and disappears, but not before telling me
i
Moonie-like outburst of faith, the doctor enters and must schedule another appointment to discuss chintroduces himself with the ease and élan of a food-allergy test- the $2 50 food-allergy test thalounge singer. As he shakes my hand and looks right he is going to run on my blood.into my eyes I thinkor am meant to think, at any At the front desk I am given a shiny red-papesrate this man cares. I discuss my symptoms and tell '' Hubert: lt is a false goody sack, which resembles a swank department-him a bit about the way I live. repr.sintotion to say
evone hoi food.
store cosmetics-sample bag. This bag, however, is
The doctor wants to know if I'm married, and if allergies. lt's like saying full of pills, and the receptionist tells me in whatmy marriage causes me any stress. He wants to everyone has automobile
accidents." dosages I am to take them: These are chromiumknow if I have read his book, Medical Makeover.
When I say I haven't, he produces a copy and, rights,, pills- they are going to stabilize your blood sugar
and control your cravings for sweets.' He want'\ 1____ Oin the middle of the examining room, personally you to take the multivitamins three times a day andautographs ir: TO ELISSA, FOR YOUR HEALTH. He these magnesium pills two times a day.'then decides that a full exam is necessary. Before The nurse also tells me that my health insurance
¡leaving the room he instructs me to get undressed 4Dr. Herbert: lt is almost won't pay for the $32 worth of vitamins. Theyand get under the towel. ceFtainly O fraudulent
diagnosis to represent that don't cover vitamins, because they don't think theyDr. Giller returns and the full exam begins. a heart condition would work; they're behind the times. They are tax-de-
4 Holding on to my calf as if to steady himself, he °away with
supplements or disti." ductible, though. She then instructs me to avoidlooks at my shins and asks me if I have leg cramps. the no-no's. I make out a check to Dr. Gifler forHe feels my throat and abdomen, quietly making $332. As I leave I notice that the waiting room isdoctor's noises Hrnm. Uh-huh. I sit up and he filling up.
r listens to my heart with his stethoscope, first at the Back at the SPY office, I take two identical-look-top of my rib cage, then, moving lower, through the 'Not all people with low ing brown capsules and a yellow onechromium,top of my right breast. blood sugar would have a
d.ciency in chromium. magnesium, a multivitamin. I am prepared to feelI He says my heartbeat sounds a little peculiar and You would have to be like a new woman, and jndeed I do. I feel gleeful,thinks it best to have a technician do an EKG on the decient in chromium for
chromium to help you," almost giddy- I feel like cleaning up my desk andspot. says Dr. Walter Mitts, scrubbing the tea stains out of my cup. Then I
The EKG finished, I am alone and half into my director of the BsltsvilleHuman Nutrition alphabetize my junk mail and scratch the rust off my
trousers when the door opens and the doctor bounds Research Center of the scissors. I'm soaring, amiable, toe-tapping and noin and sits down, which forces me to finish dressing U.S. Deportment of
Agnculture. Dr. Herbert: hungry in the least.: ¡ front of him . "The level of lugar in the
Well, how's my heartbeat? I ask. blood must be tested firstto d.teine if o low.
SECOND VISIT
He replies in a sobering tone, and I am a little blood-sugar condition A very tan woman returns to her place on the wait-l taken aback. 'You seem to have an extra heartbeat,' exists. And chromium pills ing-room sofa after filling out the preliminary pa-
he explains. Are you ever aware when you hearare not the way to treat itafter the test has been pers. No sooner has she given herself a Binaca blast
I' your heart beating . . . does it sound like bun,, burn,done." than the nurse comes and takes her into the first
bw,i. BOOM! . . . You know what I mean? I think chamber. "Oh no, not .fhot! the woman exclai,mwe should look into this. I have a friend, a very good with a thick German accent. I have bad brains foi
J
cardiologist. You should see hirn." He gives me a shots!name to call. I manage to find some comfort in the I wait.fact that the doctor thinks my skittish heartbeat 'Dr. Hither?: "There is no
basis in reolity for After almost an hour I am escorted back to amight be controlled by nothing more than a new prescribing vitamin pills small consultation room. When Dr. Giller appears.diet and vitamins.4
for insomnia. And no basisfor prescribing them for he demonstrates a memory for detail. Did you gei
He goes on to explain that my supposed stomach any ofthose other your hair cut?" he asks. it looks good, really good.'ailments, headaches and occasional sluggishness in 'mpt0m5 (dry skin,
hyperactivity, He swings into his chair and smiles at me. So hothe late afternoon (to which he got me to admit) are hsadochssl. do you feeP" I say I feel all right but not great.
66 SPY MARCH 1989
,
t
r-:!--
I
ri!
b
-1
:r
-
:T
' '.ui4i:I¼:. .\I'
'\:
I) jjt.v.I,I'\ t
:t\ :t\;%Ts\\t
eIIiWt
r
S.
I'4
"ii_i)
.
-"p--1L
,.'
i)
r
j
t
11
I
s
b
e
I
/
Ip,
s
!TN.I ';(
-J,
4
lVT\jî,r4il
q1st 'J .iIpr..rJ 'rt1
r
I'
L t'..I S. /
J .p4'% O
-
i.:
e
'IA'Is I" ,;
, 'li
ri
Hows your heart, did you schedule an appoint-
ment to have it checked out? I mention that J intend to see another cardiolo-
g:st, a friend of my fathers. -46f_v he takes c tst kwit. s
and forefinger and feels my pulse. He says, You know what I think? I think that when you go visit your father's friend he wont find anything wrong. I
think it may have just been because you hadnr eaten in i 2 hours and you were hungry.'
So my extra heartbeat is gone? It sounds crazy, but I think it may be in part due
to the vitamins and the fact that you've eaten. So
your heartbeat is regular. Maybe your heartbeat is
irregular when you haven't eaten. We discussed the results of my tests - including
r)y lmmuno I Bloodprint Food Sensitivities test. t turned out I had a predisposition for wdelayed
ood sensitivity to almonds, barley, kidney beans, tinto beans. lamb, rye, wheat, baker's yeast and
rewer's yeast, and a possible allergy to eggs. I had a sensitive reaction' to 28.4 percent of the I 02 foods
ested. He said I needed to schedule an appointment
n two weeks so we could talk about the results of ny hair sample and my computerized food-allergy
ests. As he got up to leave he reiterated, I like your haircut.
. . Ar the front desk I made out a check to Dr. Gifler
òr $50 and left without making another Lppointment.
CH[L RQVHART'S FIRST VISIT
s 9:00 a.m., and I have already spent 40 minutes Dr Giller's waiting room, filling out forms and
wing my blood taken, my urine collected and my ir snipped. I have filled out two questionnaires,
swered at least I 00 questions (How much junk food
you eat? Do you drink water from the lap? What 's
rbrazd ofshampoo?). I have spoken to three mem- rS of Dr. Giller's staff about my hypothetical
nproms: the nagging tiredness, the loss of appe-
' the inability to get up in the morning, the
xplicable wet mouth. 1 just don't feel quite right, I keep saying, and
nurses nod solemnly and scribble more and more res on their charts. \When they speak of Dr. Gitter,
y do so in hushed, reverential tones, as one would igher being endowed with unfathomable curative
Finally the healer enters. He is young, with curly
wn hair and a dazed. I-didn't-get-too-much- p-last-night look on his face. He is also, for a
:tor, rather nattily dressed. He wears a tailored dical blazer with blue panes, white bucks and a
brimming with spermatozoa-shaped squiggles. rubs his eyes and asks me many of the same
stions to which one of Dr. Giller's nurses has just shed recording the answers. Stress is what really
'Dr. Herbert: This is most likely o fraudulent
diagnosis. A heart rote wou/dnot be altered
un(ess thcrc was an underlying medical
\ hours would not ordinarily alter one's heartbeat."
!
'p ,,
'Dr. Barrett: "These are not medical terms. Either you hove on allergy or you
don't.'
'Dr. Herbert: 'Exploitative nutritionists often claim Epstein-Barr virus
infections Jas the cause of ailmentsj. Ove, 20 percent
of the population has been infected with Epstein.Borr
and therefore lias the antibody to Epstein'Barr,
but no disease requiring ont treatment."
'Profcssor Dwycr: "For most people, the U.S.
Recommended Doily Allowance (for
these nutrientsj is
enough. Those are phormacologicol dosages
he's talking about, and unless there is o specific
demonstrated deficiency, there's no reason for them."
"Professor Dwyer: lt may be true that peopie who
ore malnourished wilt be helped by vitamine where
infection is concerned. But taking 100 times the normal dosage will not
make you 100 times less susceptible to intection.'
"You cannot intelligently diagnose hypoglycemia -
which is o fancy name for low blood sugarwithout
Ri's, measuring the blood sugar," says Dr. Lynn
Bennion, author of Hypoglycemia, Fact or Fad.
interests him. Am I under a lot of it? Am I married?
Does my marriage cause me stress?
Nor really, I answer ro ail his questions. I get a lot of people suffering from fatìgue, he
._'cb Th''bc3o"e:s eis, \\t 'y
read my book?
No, I answer. How did you hear abotn mt 'flu. L
about me? he asks, his eyes focusing sharply on me for the first time.
Yes, I did, I say enthusiastically. Dr. Giller continues with his diagnosis: Tatigue comes from stress, lack of vitamins and a poor diet. They call it Chronic Fatigue Syndrome these days.'
Then he hits me with the bad news, the bad news that I suspect Giller's patients both fear and long to
hear: But I'm also going to test you for Epstein- Barr. It's a virus. You've heard about it, right? lt's got a lot of the same symptoms as those you
described." Before leaving the room Dr. Giller instructs me ro
remove my clothes and lie down tinder a small white towel. When he returns, he walks straight over to
my feet and grabs my calves, checking for muscle
cramps. I tell him that I don't suffer from sore muscles, but he checks anyway. He then moves on
to my stomach and, after a few pokes and pronounces me "very healthy.'
Your habits aren't half as bad as most patients'," he says. .
'What do they do that's so badi" I ask. .
Dr. Gifler smiles and dismisses the question with a vague shrug.
Okay, he says, patting my knee. 'You can get dressed now. And off lie goes again into the busy
corridor. I barely have time to slip back into my dress and
stockings before Dr. Giller returns with my chart in
one hand and a shiny red bag in the other. He sits down, pulls from the bag a paperback copy of Medi-
cal Makeover and autographs it: TO RACHEL, FOR
YOUR HEALTH.
Dr. Giller then goes over the six bottles of megavitamins he's chosen for my particular case of
(imaginary) fatigue, infections and wet moutha multivitamin, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, a hypoglycemia formula and catcium reading me
the names on each bottle, telling me how often I am supposed to take them, referring only vaguely to
what they are supposed to help: "Well, the vitamins will help guard against infection," and the other
stuffalong with the right food at the right times will help you with that low blood sugar."Ix
He then lists my "no-no's." There aren't too many surprises: no sugar, ice cream, coffee, tea, sodas,
sweeteners, honey, dried fruit, chocolate. Eat regular
meals at regular times. Eat fish and chicken. Eat fresh fruit. Eat oat bran. "Its not all that different
MAR( ti 'Px') SPY
IJJP
\'ø
I ff'1IIffi14\' 'y;,
_
j -'1q \r'-
.,....%:
II.S!Zi1á
from what youre already doing, he admits, but Ijust want to stress those good eating habits.
1'm also going to recommend a B2 shot. Its avitamin shot that helps build you up. 1t11 build upyour immune system, prevent infection, give yousome calcium and boost your energy. I take themwhenever I'm feeling run-down. When someonecomes in with the flu, I don't give them an antibi-
Dr. Giller explains. I give them one of these.We'll give you two a week for two weeks. You'll befeeling great.
He shakes my hand, tells me he will see nie foranother shot in two days and leaves me to wait forthe nurse who will administer the $50-per-shot B.
When she arrives, the nurse lays me down andopens a drawer under the table. She takes out a longtube with a small needle attached and a large sy-ringe filled with cherry-soda-colored lk1uid.
What's in ther&" I ask nervously.0h, there's vitamin B2; vitamin C; vitamin B.,
which is like an antistress vitamin; some calcium;and a little bit of bicarbonate to counter the acidityof the vitamin C.
She pokes a new hole next to my blood-testwound and empties the entire plunger into my vein.You may feel a little light-headed at first. Some
people even say they can taste itlike a cherryflavor in their mouth but I think that's because ofthe color or something, because I never taste any-thing when I take these.
She dims the lights, telling me I should just try torelax for a little while, and leaves me lying on thetable.
After a minute or two, I decide to get up andleave. i feel fine lying down, but a confusing fuzzi-ness comes over me when I stand up. In my stupor Irun headlong into Dr. Giller in the hallway, wherehe has resumed shuttling between fatigue sufferersand the allergy-ridden.
Youll pee red, he booms loudly, putting hisand on the back of my neck as we enter the waitingoom. "The nurse told you that, right? '
Yes,' I say cuietly.The receptionist who dispenses vitamins smilesd shakes her head with a that-crazy-doctor look
n her face.Pee ,d, she ducks, in mock disapproval of Dr.
Gillers outburst. I reach for my checkbook andgin calculating the damage: $225 for the initial
isit, $37 for the blood work, $23 for the hairwork, $50 for the shot and around $80 for the
itamins - approximately $4 I 5 just for starters.The waiting room is now full. There is another
oman at the counter, restocking her vitamin cabi-et. Lets see, she says, 1 need some more bran,
you know, fiber pills. And then, some calcium. Shelooks over at my list of no-no's and nods her headknowingly. She's been there.
74WYMARCH 1989
'Dr. Herbert: "Beforegetting o ehot like this,your B,, level would haveto be measured. There oreonly two reasons to havethese shots: (1) you hove odiagnosed B,, deficiency;(2) as o placebo." Dr.Meits: "The frequency ofB,, deficiency in ourpopulation is very rare."Dr. Barrett: "If o personcan absorb vitomins,there's no reoson for aninjection.'
"Dr. Borroft: "You'rc notgetting anything therethat you couldn't get inone or two pills for a dirneor so."
'Dr Herbert: "Anenormous omount ofcertain vitamins willchange the color of theurine. He gave herexpensive urine. This is olucrative nutrition fraud."
'Professor Dwyer "Thechances are infinitesimaltfat this would be true."
SECOND VISIT
One week later I am back in Dr. Giller's waitingroom. Among the patients there is much talk of theB, shot, which, as it made me feel alternately woozyand wound-up for an entire da) I have decided thistime to decline.
One well-dressed woman is trying to switch her"treatment and instead receive the B sho, whichshe is officially scheduled to get later in the week."Eve had an awfully difficult week," she pleads tothe receptionist. My mother passed away, and Icould really use the boost.
Another young woman, clad almost entirely inblack, paces restlessly between the reception deskand several differen waiting-room chairs. She isjockeying to get her shot before her consultationinstead of after. It is easily arranged. How many ofthese shots do I have to take before I feel likeWonder Woman" she asks.
A lot," the receptionist answers.I wait a solid hour before the nurse who took my
blood last time shows me into a consultation roomand starts rolling up my sleeve for a second jolt ofB,2. When I inform her that l've decided not to takeany more shots, she looks surprised and leads meinto another room.
"The doctor will be with you shortly,' she says.In fact, it takes a good half hour for Dr. Giller to
appear. When he does, it takes him another tenminutes to tell me that I look much better alreadythis despite the fact that I am suffering from apowerful hangover and have not been taking any ofthe vitamins he has prescribed. Dr. Giller says thatmy tests look good, that although the lab has notyet run the Epstein-Barr test he asked for, he never-theless thinks the root of my problem may be left-over traces of the mononucleosis virus I had sevenyears earlier," and that thcyll have to draw moreof my blood so that he can look at the Epstein-Barrresults. When I ask him about the jittery feeling Ihad after the shot, he tells me he doesn't understandthis but not to worry, that the concentration of Cand B1 sometimes accounts for a burst of energy"similar to the one I experienced.
Later, as Fm leaving the building, the doormanasks, "Feel better? For that kinda money, you better,right? But h&s good. Lotta famous people go tohim."
When I ask him who, he says, "Like FarrahFawcett and Ryan ONeal, they were here the otherday. And Nipsey Russell. And another actor came inon a Saturdayyou know, special-so he could goonstage."
He scratched his head, concentrating hard onwhat other names he could dredge up. "Oh, yeah.Bianca Jagger comes here quite a bit. Shes nice. Igot her autograph.')
'4%
e
's
M il As with most legends, the details tiere may ha:e grown fy wit!ì th years.:&! BUt OflC thing remains crysta' cIea I)rambuie is tIì unique liqueur flavored with
wild heatherhoney and the finest ruait whiskies. So it has a taste thai people wouldkill for. Drambuie. Scottish in Origill. distinctive in taste. unchanged since 1745.
--- Drambuie.The stuff legends are made of.----
To send a gift of Drambuic anywhere iii t!i L S where 1ci.aj, call 1.sOO238-4:373.
LIFEIMITATESART
People We Confuse With
Paintings and Sculpture,
Paintings and Sculpture
We Confuse With People
76 RY MARCH 1989
' Wtyøuy A M*soous}r(ormanceshy Gaily Simon (b. 1945)
Irey grew up in che Psris of thetiercées. not che Riverdale of the fifties.Otherwise. where could she possiblyhave pued for Pablo Picasso ( I 88 I1973? Mayb, Marthas VIneyard,except chat che diminutive artist. unlikeCarly. never played cherc On the otherhand. Picasso nev« played Tahoe either.
Whe1ievcr we think of SamsnyDavLs Jr., which is oÑen. wethink of the singer, the dancer,the entertainer. We think ofJerry and Frank and the bigrooms in Vegas and Nixon andLinda Lovelace. We think ofCandy Man. And we think of
cubism.
That's right. Cs.bism.And to be perfectly honest
about it, whenever we look atcertain Picassos, we think ofSammy.
lt may l)(: an ünintcnded by-product of an art-history lec-lure that Rosamond Berniergave years agoback in thedays whcn .... by, it was stillHoving's Met. Whatever thecause, we can't help seeinggreat art everywhere we look. Aglance at the New York DailyNtwi tells us that it is not LizSmith writing the gossip col-umn hut a Willem de KooningUnvas come ro heavily air-brushed photographic life.Keith Richards (English, h.1942 goes on tour and welink of the terrifying Expres-onist faces of Egon Schieleustrian, 1890-1918). And
to us, the hellish canvases ofH ieronvmous Bosch teem withall manner of Roy Cohns(Ameriian, 1927-86).
In every case, it isn't somuch that the.re people look ex-actly like those paintings. 1f thatwere so, e would simply havepresented you with a series ofcheap analogies: Frank Zappaand Leon Redbone as VanDycks, Katharine Hepburn asNude Desending a Staitrase,
Buddy Holly and the Big Bop-per as . . . well . . . a JacksonPollock. (Did we mention thatsome of the cheap analogieswould also have been in ques-rionabk taste?) And we couldhave stretched things a bit toinClUde works of contemporaryarchitecture, so many of whichlook like De Chiricos with taxabatements (although Peter AI-len, it must Ie said, reminds LIS
of certain Helmut Jahn build-ings). On the other band. thataftnity is half deliberate on thepart of the architects (and pos-sibly even in Peter Allen's case).Similarly, Henry Geldzahlerseems to have leapt to life froma Hockney Paintins only be-
cause Hockney has paintedhim. And just because SarahBrightman describes ber hair asPrc-Raphaclite (toesilt cucanwe'll run a publicity shot of hernext to a color plate of aRossen i
No, what we've gatheredhere in this pioneering art-his-tonca! monograph are notlook-alikes. Rather, the peoplein our gallery profoundly fieggestthe work of a certain painter orsculptor or school. And weknow this could be a littlealarming to those who taketheir art seriously vice versa.How utterly remarkable thatDiego VeIzquez, applying hisrich brush strokes in seven-teenth-century Madrid, couldhave captured the essence, thevery soul, of Herve Villechaize;and yet he has. Uncannily. theirnames are similar, too.
Having such a peculiarlytrained eye is a curse as well asa blessing. It's now impossiblefor us to look at a Brancusi with-out thinking of a Grimaldispecifically, of Princess Stepha-nie and thcn, in rapid succes-sion, of whucher she was actu-
yet here, undeniably. is multiulentedingerdaier drurnm,r-CuL,ist
masterpiece Sammy Dcis Jr. tb. 1925).Note the tenscon Picassu achievesthrough the interplay between Davissmutually exclusive orbs. Picassoesqurdraftsmanship is also apparent in thesliding. colliding, disconcertinglymasklike (estures of Academy Awardscutup Bette Davis (b. 1908)
ally driving. of the youngGrace Kelly, of Gary Cooperand High Noon and the melodyto Do Not Forsake Me,which subsequently lodges it-self in our heads for the nexttwo days as if on a maddeninginternal ta[) loop. 'X'hen thisstarts to happen, museums andgalleries l)C(t)ITIC dangerous,strictly off-limits. As are, by thesame tøken, any celebrity-clogged venues. (When the twotypes of danger spots converge,as at last fall's sale of Frenchlmprecsionists at Sotheby's, for-get itthat night we asked De-gas's Danseuses Russes for itsautograph and carne very closen) bidding $3.2 milli(Ifl for
Gayfryd Steinberg.)In the pages ahead. suffer us
our appreciation, and appreci-ate our suffering as we catalogthe well-known late-twentieth-century people who look likeart and the art that looks likewel I known late-twentieth-cen-tlIf'/ people. If nothing else, itshOuld give you a whole newappreciation for the surface dy-namism and iconographic sub-tieties of Shelley Duvall.
MARCH $989 SPY 77
In DILISUATELY ELO4ATW
AT TNt Ta
How ian it be thai suchglamorous. high-profile andaIi'e! ukbÑies summon lorchthe oeuvre of so wdtschmcrzy¿iui otnI,4rac1vcIy obscurcan Exprcssonist as EgonSchiele (1890-1918)?Nouveau tncrlleuuat actressDoryl Hannah (b. 1960) uses
'T!'!V'V
Pt%
J 'g
L,hcr atzcnusted. highlyd('.( rptive limbs. Sleeping-wich -fashion-rcuxlels r(xkmusiusns Ric Ocosek(probably vou:gcr rh.in BillWyrnn) .snd Keith Richards
(b. 1943) are kit co use theirhaggsrd Los Generation laces.Oasck came by his &hicismsgenctita1l) while Richardsachicvd hi dsri,uh )C4I5 and
years of toc) muh lun. plus onepicture (hail! flail.' Rok n
Rnl/ wirh Chiil R,rrv
78 SPY MARCH 1989
£XQUS$ITI SoLmTY
ks no surprise hac Colombianpainter Fmndo Ioerob. 1932). vein-clotted
conglomeraceur Soul St.inb.rgb. 1939) and spooky matriciiJc
manqu& Suklw.,t GabelCb. 1949 are contemporaries.
A. Sia DIDNT Evr NAM( HtiNAQIANca GtaicaThere is no question chatPaloma Pkosso (b. 1949) hasan interesting provenance. Andso ics disuicting that thetwentieth-century painter sheevokes so insistently is noi herfather. Pablo. the misogynistCubist. hut his second-drawercontemporary. Femand Léger(1881-1955). Go figure.AbJfra(! figure.
Although Steinberg remainstethered co his wifcs side inManhattan, and althoughGabel doesni get out much.colier. now char the Myersontrial is over. who can deny theirinflucnc on Boteros work.and/or vice versai Daniing le
Colomhia (oil on canvas. I 9NO)boasts a playful cameoappearance by Steinberg (there,on the far teli (l(XS paintingSteinberg qualify Botero as alandscapist?). And there'sGabel (note the virtuallyexpressionist gestures
isrecemacurally red hair.
overstuffed-rag-doll lace). Andthere. finall. is Steinberghimsell. looking as though he'sbeing squeezed out of the cupof a tUXedt)shaped oil-paintcube. No preo«upation wich(orm here!
tr'VÎEL0OY 'I)_44f/
REVERtE..
f\,
GiossoPumping and selling ironthat's just Oflr 01 che thingsUmberto Boccio,d ( I RR2I 9 1 CL che Italian Funirist, andArnold Schworzenegg.r (b.1947). the Austriaci Reaganite.have in common. Here'sanother: although it wascompleted in 1913. Boccioni'sUnique Formt of Continuity so
Spose, some scholars nowbelirve. was conceived as asculptural ixie to the dynamismof last Christmas's comeds' latí-riot. Tri'snj.
Piincî REPLICAS
Critics who suspect that popartist Roy Lichtenstss(b. ¡923) comic-scrip characterstk)flt resemble living. breachinghuman beings any more closelythan does your average PaulKlee will find all the proof theyrequire in plastieman NewYork Das/y Neu's publisherJimHog.(b. 1935) andplasriuwoman Vanna White(b. 1957). Only the thoughtbubbles are missing.
MARCH 1989 SPY 79
CHICKS NOUVEAUX
ThCrcS certainly a case comade: that author-study-in-black-and-white lamaJanovitz (b. 1956) has takenan Aubrey Isordaley (1872-98) drawing as one of herspiritual/aesthetic mentors. Butit takes two really grra:decorative artists tu bridc thegap between TIx Yellow Book
and Jack La Lanne televisionads Beardsley (sinful.decadent) and Ch.r (game.untnhtbited). Forget about thesort uf technical problems onlyrime rrael (an solve: Cher(b.1946) ts a walking. talkingpen-and-ink drawing at cvrryaward ceremony she attends.and the influence of her leveredpOStBol) Mackie dressmakers(Xt Beardsleys illustrations ofSalome and 1.yststraca is
undeniable. Do we have to addthat an Osar ñgurcdprominently in both theiresreers
i,I
u
I
NM SPY MAR il
.
..:-'---. e,; , fr'
.- ,.ç-./,, o,
Ti:1
r!BEYOND THE LIMITS O FORM AND FEMIPIINITY
Woman and B:c)ck. you say' Thats no bicycle. thars CarolChonning. Only the wild brushstrokes uf Wilkm de Kooning(b. I 904) could capturr so splendidly the exuberant vigor. not cosay syntactical icnbalance. of stich merr cackling ladies-about-townas Cbanning (b. 192 I ). Liz Smith (b. circa 1928). Bubbl.'Rothenn.ri (b. l934)and AiLsen 'Suzy Mihi. (b. 1924thatsAD.). And only De Koonings drawing, with cts haunting teeth-in-a-windstorm effects. could do 1usticc to this group.
se. ThOMPI iOv'Once sec-n, the overripe,
,grotewue faces painted byJom.s Ensor (1860-1949)arc not forgotten: smiling
hideous. they terrify even
Çe-
... ,- as they would be Jolly. The,_ same might be said about the
.I eXpresSionist comedy (5f Jocki.
Mason(b. 1931). the
;expressionist eyeliner of Louis.
.
Nevalson ( 1900-88) and the
: .exprcsit>nist ersatz-personality
'
ofRonoldR.ogan(h. 1911).
QUASI-STARRY NioiîCertain questions arise. DoesLinda Hunt (b. 1945) eatpotatocs Would Vjnc.nt vanGogh (1853-90) have pacntcdso many self-portraits if bedknown that a century later theywould end up kxking likepublicity stills for Platoon andThe Las: Temptation ofChns:Meanwhile. contemporarypostimpressionism buffs debatethe restoration of I.u,: for Ltfr,with Wilism Dafo. (b. 1955)as \ifl(eflt and Harvey Keitelas Paul!
,, . ........ '.,. ",' ....
gallery off Spring Street.Monut. Bol (b. 1962). by theway. may pull down about$-1(x).000 a year from theWarriors. hut one piere fromthe W'alking Man seriesbrought $7.65 million atChristies in London lastNovember, a new auctionretord for Aibsito Giacom.td(1901-66). the Bob Cousy ofigurative twentieth-centurysculpture. Way to go. 'Beno!
kA.Mp4G/RfptLUM1 WAws
toadway, &hmraday we an catch Lizo MJnn.Ui (h I 946) onkh street and in scrip-mall bad-art stores a(n)ss the ountry ¿nyd time, ourtcs of Ainerxan ntastcr W.Ot.rK..m. (b. 1921).:a che early Goldie Hown (b. 1945) on the nghc (ca. 1968)3sgIvcIs' radiates hlak -velvet-painting bathos.
DYL ON CANVAS
The ovoid faces and elongatedbodies of Amid.. Modigliani( 1884 1920) enpoy a revival inthe form of actresscableproducer Sh&l.y DuyaIl (b.1949), provmg chat rs but a
shortish kap ¡croas inedia -and decades - from the state-Ijictic of ßamsna (_on jrers.e( I 9 I 6) to the statement of!aeric Ta/c Th.a:rv (ongoing).Promising pupils in the cehool)t 1).ivall: drs:gner Corolyn.
Rochm ( ne k :001 novelistJoyce Carol Oat.s (eyes).
Du'rcw UNCWIts a pity Fron. Hola (ca1)81-1666) worked inHolland in the seventeenthcentury matead of at Elauccs orSpago on a Tuesday Get thefiorid. gouty countenances ofhyperbolic publicist BobbyZor.m (b. 1936), hyperbolicproducer Bernie Brilln.ln(b. 1931). hyperbolic actorErnest Borgnin. (b. 1917) and
ls:prbOIi omcdian SamKinison (b. 1953) together inone room. and you might aswell call ir Frani Hali Lit.'?¿cd sell tickers.
-"
W1\' 7___ .
:
¼,
(.r-'
,
1Two VGtwGiotto, Duccio, Giulioni.Str..p . . dcv000nal artis all:chc hrst two (Tusan andSimese shools, rcspecivc1y) roGid and chc perpeuarion ofthe Byzanrine cryie; the third(NYU School of Law) coPress Conference; and rhc
fourth (Yale School of Drama)to clw Show-OfT-y Role. In chework of chest four. one canalways depend on life. texture.piety, impeccable renditions ofsundry World spce.h patterns,
and maior indictmenrc )
'I'
.
IC4
Mon Is MooeeThe solds' rounded sculpturesof Haney Moora (1898-1986)are well knovrn: Bss: F:gureRecI:nsnj Worears Nial.; Brie:,Woman; Fa:g:r/ With Pur,.'.Whoa' :j,gjrJ W'i:h :' Look
again: sensuous outlines andmaccr.al-idebucing contours,yes hut nor bronzerubber. In
rIser worIs, fashion designer'Dianne Brui (b. circa 1950).Also pictured hcte: actressToukie Smith (b. mid-twentieth .entury), a Robert DeNiro paramour impersonates ;iMoore at Pier 92. where it ishopeci she will rcnsaili untilJuly, when she embarks on an18-mouth tohacco-crmpat.y-
sponsored tour chat will see lscrsimilarly placed in variousembassy gardens. universityquadrangles and meadows.
IAK(.H 9$') SPY SI
Men have a theory,
THE PICKUPor so we've heard. Itgoes like this: On anygiven evening, if a guytries to pick up loo
women, at least one of them will, in fact,go to bed with him.Very few men,"I"'however, are able to muster the sheerfortitude and shamelessness necessary toput this theory into practice, even if theywere SO inclined. Even fewer men can (orwould) flaunt membership in both theDirectorsGuild ofAmerica and tHarvard Club of New York in antempt to increase the odds in their faFewer still can (and frequently do) babout being pictured unflatteringly ibook of Helmut Newton photographa means ofestablishing credibility. Aonly one man we know combinesthese attributes into a single, very instent, creative personality. His nameJamesToback. A simple catalog ofttitles of Toback's avowedly "personamajor motion pictures (some of whicstayed in release for more than a weekwill shed light on this 44-year-old diretor's unique single-mindedness : TbGambler (which he wrote but did nodirect), Fingers, Love and Money, Exposed, The Pick-Up Artist and The BiBang (this latest, not-yet-released majormotion picture was inspired, he says, byhis charming belief that Creation wasthe residual ejaculate of a divine or-gasrn).Even before he became a some-what visible tax write-off for friend andproducer Warren Beatty, Toback hadcaptured a portion of the public's atten-iion by writing a book (Jim, published in
t
Lf.f;?I d--í77k:-;
pI,otogrOP by S°'°
siA Vord of Varning: This chart contains frank,
by a man, "Just touch my niIes and I'll come'explicit language, ncluding the phrase, uttered
%I what follows is not for the squeamish.
1'''
A CASE-BY-CASE LOOK AT MOVIE DIRECTOR JAMES2 SPY MARCH 1989
suring Toback that we vcrc nor
interested in gambling withhim but were inrriucd by thejournalistic possibilities oí apolygraph exam conccrnin thesubsancc of this article, weagreed to ser up such a rest forhim alone with a polygrapherot our choosing. \'hen Sched-uling the test and meetingToback's many demandsproved difficult, he rnad such
remarks as .1 hope OU knowwhat you're doing when youluck with mc. He wcnt on,
grimly, If you print this piece,: promise it will l)e the single:hing you regret most in yourlife. When pressed for details,he said, Think of your veryvery worst nightmare. [Dra-matic pause.) It//be worse than
¡bat.' When we objected toniese threats, Toback becameflustered. "I didn't threatenyou. Those were just Iorecasrs,he said, You're into slander.l'tn into astrology.'
Atrer satisfying Tohack'sdirions, we agreed on a rimeand a place for the polygraphtOSt. Toback stood us up, andspy 's editors have had no fur-ther contact with hm exceptfor a phone call and two lettersfrom his lawyer. One letter in-dicated that after reneging onhis agreement to take the poiy-
graph test we had arranged,Toback went to his own poly-graphcr and passed a lie detec-cor test based on a rough draft ofquestions we had sent h:m.Since we have no way of assess-ing the circumstances , panico-lars or results of this seret test,WC: cant consider it meaningful(let alone persuasive) informa-non. Finally, in an chott to getTobacks side of things, weasked to interview him again.He has been unwilling.
Earlier, when asked to corn-Dent on his evidently abundantpersa! magnetism, Tohakhad told spy that his ongoingsearch fon future cast membersentails approaching a great nom-ber of'mcn as well as women, Forthe record, though, Tobackboasted to in:ervieu' magazinerecently, 1ve been very luckywith womeneven. il' )oullIorive mc, I would say blessed.We don't think blessed is píe-
cisely the word we'd use.
THE WOMEN,*THE PLACE,THETIME THE INTRODUCTIOP'
I w3$ walking down che street and heSARA pulled up alongside me and said, Lis-
MovSsD3rctop I'm a film dir.ctoq and I'ver,aind, Cu:iorp fnichcd making a filmSepte*'.kr ¡985
called The Pith-Up ,trt:jt. , .
Folluwing me for two blocks up
w,,.,Brudwv. he kein saying, }cLIse
Br.adwa and 69,1, me, I1k'Se' This may sovnd sh'ange.I
Snwt but I'm a muyie dirccio,. and I really I
,Mtr'4 ¡987 WflC to talk to you lar a second. . , .
I THE CREDENTIALSi-; about Th Pick- Up A nid and then started in with
I
Expojd, starring Nastassia K,nski, using it all to the hilt.
When I 'ouldn't stop, he said. 'Jesus, you're really stapkìous.By now. Id said much more ObSCCOC things to Nasaaiiø
Kinsici, and now we're best (ricnds. You know who sh is, doncyou? I ,fl4dc hr. Heve you he,crd of 'Ibe Pick-Up ArlijI? T)my film. Here. let mc show you ray Directo GId o Americacard. . And hores rn driver's cense. lt ou donc believeme. gi o) Rames Nuble ard look up plac 88 in Por:ra::j byHelmut Newton and yxi'II see me with Naetasiia. .
He walked past mc on che subway,ALEXIA
Auction Hous. stopped arid then sac down cpposite mc
Employ,, and stared. 'You're going to think this is
IRT No. I ir:e crazy, but I'm o director and I have co use
&rMI,, ¿988 )'nhi n rI)V flex: movie.'
This guy camt up from behind me andTTIWA
Isaid. .1 really like your salk. I thinkI'Third Areke re really pretty. and I'd Ike to use
did l2edStrvr: YU in a novie I'm making.'%14) 1988
'l'knw you don't believe me' hc calci and then pulled hisdriver's license and Directors Guild cord right out Hr oIdme, I'm rrsponsíbk for Nastosaic Xinski's fame.'
He showed me his driver's lkcsise and his Di,.ct.n Guildcard He said he was on his way to Gamblers Anonymous.He also said he'd gone to Harvard and that he'd beenmarried ti) OflC ofthe richest women in the world 'i'vebeen a millionaire and a pauper,' he said. He also mid incto see E.xpoied that night.
He came running down the suces behind ffFcred to show cnr his Directors Guild Card and said
tlA1P'lE me and said, 'Youre so beautiful, I want I he'd just lnished making Thr Pick-tipAro::. He gave meaPuMiciil you to be in a moste. I know this sounds list of bu moies and cold mr ro ccc them ail, espedallv
Woe rd Sirve:. 1_A,tidiculous, but I or, a producer.' Exposed. He said he bac directed and known Nastosuia
Jasuar 1988 ___________
r; theweirdest thingthac ever happened to me.Kinsici in more chan a professional sense.
? lie was staring at nie as i was going up in sheHe said. I tired su dsangc my suede coat;DAN(U1 elevator. Then I saw him again in che same elevator(orne U to my apanment and we can talk. IEditor
Te4ad s Upper Wtitwo hours laser. He said, Exuisc toc, van I talk co
want to tell you about soy iic project. You
sue aaild,egyou. lt's an omen we're in the same clevacor again.
can stand outside I thought, W'd/, all right.° r,,"vty' ¡98'
Mv name isJames Toback. I just made The Piek-UWc went hack ip in thc tIcvator. Hv coki
LAnus. I'm o director.' He followed me out into the
stories about Nostosslo Kinaki and said hestt. -I w going to talk co you. I was tbinkinga psycho. Hc showed ow jxaers for
CLLs. l about ou in che shoer that I should have talked toExpord and abook by Helmut Nrwto that
Fosh,on Editor\
m things aren't accidents.'havI a photo ofhim and Nastassia.
.. _1,.d .1,,-,,,
nd Fifth A,'qeue man in a long black leather trench coat started __________
\.i-,mi,, !987 following alongside mc with a barrage olcompli- He rulled 5)111 olI these cords and insinuated- -J taunts like 'I can't believe how great you look I thestI wa his iw' t Nostasiia Kinski.
P4Ydon't know if you know nie, but Im o director.
I Edito, I F.xcuse me,I'mafllnidirector Plvase I akr my card. I made ii him uslied Fxpoíed withI Ba/dawi I stop. . Really I am Noitsiio Klnski.'I
May 1986I
umModd
1/ii Hjrijrd CIsbApril ¡984
KAYIto,
Seo,I Aiveara,sd 5 eh 51w,:
Scpivrsr ¡986
Wv inri through friends over drinks atthe Harvard Club- He immediatelystarted saying how easy it was (ix him tosleep with women.
Hr braed about how hr made Nostossia Kinski
,James Toback, the film dïrec- FHC was ,arryisig a wholcportf'olio o(clips about himself,tor. . . I know you don't believe ma, but which he started so show offwhile rattling offthe names ofI'm a well-known hIm director ail his films.
-
l:iìsis started chastngme down cheLYN
hr wa,s 'dishcv cled, in a raincoat,Dunce,
L,M.w' Cv,:,,
I and virrying a Monet prhir. lknow this
,Nwey Jtdiiirnsounds crazy, but I'm u big director.'
(S'104k, 1987
You've seen The Pi'k-Up Ari::!; you've seen ExpìieJ.you've seen - . .' Actually. I hadn't heard of any of them;but he went on. .1 know you chink I'm Chart's Mansoss.but trust cnr, this us how I discovered Nsstuuia Kinski
IV:i:.iis guy with an unbuttoned shirt 'I lived with Nastassia Kinski, yoscan scv oui pkcurc"]SAPCIA reached for mv forearm at che peach stand together (55 jlte 88 of Helmut Newton's new book.' He
Writs, at Fairway: 'I know this sounds ridicu- showed me his DGA card and his drivers license. He toldFairway Market, Broad' bus, but 'm o producer and I'm making me about Thi' Pick-Up Arid: and that Finger; had been
say ael 74th Street movie and youd be perfect for it.' I singled out by Truffaut as one of the best American filins.4aguit ¡988 told him co leave tee alone. He alco told me about being married to a British heiress.
JAMES TORACKI
WITH SPY
AJ'tc' pho::ng !" PY ,rd,i.r ha:'iisg
flee,: told abou: ,r(fi/v:What I'd Iikr it, vio is get together whh
'.5 ihr n'Ivphort you and .Iiscuss chisNovmber tyHti
5not their r.aI names
What dc you say to a stranger yoi want co be cri yourfilms You say. 'HI, I'm Jim TObOCk, Irr o movie direct.,.''(Atkrcl about Nastassia Kinsiu, Tobad, insisted, 'She scru'pulously CI)t herself at arco" length froto inc. t
: SETTING, THE HOOK:
FLATTERYYoure the moie
beaut4uI girl Ivc- ever sn .
You have sudi apowerful b.auty. . .
I can't take my eyes offyou . You havc a ver)'commanding stride. . .
Youve got chis vibrancyYou have this energy em-anacing from you. I felt itIn the elevator.
. You re so unusual.
Your i*n .y.s!
.1 couLdn't help nodci.ngsour presence and yourstar quaîity.
Your eyes! You're soprovocativ.. You knowthat, don't you'
PITCH"G THEPROiE CT
-,ç"CALL ME" THE ANSWERING SERVICE
.1 want to give you my telephone nun,bir. I said, Forget It I to flevur giiig couse it, because Im a film director. coo.
1 want to talk to you about a docum.ntary Now, don't give me your phone number. J left a m.uag. on his home answering machine,ffiml'm making involving five women and a Here, take mine, and after you've and within 30 minutes he called back from thcman. I want ro show how interesting the real checked me out and crust chat I am who I street. Can you mast ini at my place at 10:30 ' ''lives of women are. say I am, then you can call mi. . . . tomght2 I said, Those are strange office hours.
That's how I work. I said, No thanks.
l-le wrote his nunther on a piece of news- I kit a m.ssag. on his machine that I wasn'tpaper. Promise you'll coil ms, he said. interested.and .1 know you're suspicious. but afteryou check roc out. give mc a call. He kepsaying over and over. Check me out. __________________________
He saId he was making a movie about I left several messages. and when I rcahcd him, hewalking. I told him I wasn't an actress. l-le wrote his number on a piece of put mc on hold for I 5 mtnuc. It took me severai callsHe said that didn't matter, it was going to newspaper. lt was a studio number before wc IRX)kcd up; he always seemed to he caringbe a 'natural film. and that it wasn't for Tix P:k-L Artist. He caid. into the phone. I kept asking. this loe rcal He said,about acting hut would start production Call me, after )'(>U'Ve Seen You have to uU me. I told him to call me
F N isoon. Exposed. if he was interested. He didn't.
CONTGT
He made i very clear chat he was work- I called him three days later from L.A. and he waaing on a project that he had directed, at a poseproduction facility. 1'm so glad you ca1ledwritten and produced. He said the movie I didn't think you would. He said he'd have to cdwould be true to Lifesomething about me back when he 3t back to LA, on a certainhis story date. He didn't.
'Im making a ne experimental movie Wc left his apartment. .l think tItis He called the ncxt day. Can you come to mywith five unknown people and Mike would be re-ally cool. Think about it. apartment at ten at night My mom said no way. ITyson. Im putting people in a room to Cd m.. wanted to mccc at a restaurant for coffee. He said,sec how the)' interact and I need three Okay, I'll call you bak. He called once. Imore women. returned his call. He never called me hack.
He didn't mention a project. but he didask mc out tu lunch.
When I called, a sc':rccar}' gave trie a number at aproduction ofike, He didn't seem to remember who
He gave me his card and told me to call. I was, but he said, 'L.t's meet later at the Harvard
I aie. I said, 'How about next week!' Bot he wasre-ally forceful and said it had to be that night.
GWIN A friend gave me his number and______________________________- Production told me to call him because I was____________________________________ -
He wanted co discuss a semidocum.ntary Assistant looking for a job in produchon.abotit five different women. lic said hr ° Hanjrd Club
wanted to elevate the female race in the Outòbr ¡98'
film.
He wantedme co re-ad for a part in The Hcrc's my number at Fox I want you to t called Fox. he took my call right awayPith-Up Arti:!, read with Rober DowneyJr. When con you come up' I said I'd come b)' at
hvu
'I told him I was a dancer and hc said that I told him I was in a hurry and gave him He called me at I 2:30 that night and wasn't íaedhe was just looking for a dancer in this my number. or actually my boyfriend's at ail when my boyfriend answered. Con you comeprojed involving five women. He said I'd number. ov now? No way, I said, and told him he couldbe perfect for it. meet me for lunch in a public pLace ilhe wanted to
caik about a film project.
He said the him was a new kind of film He left me his number on a comer of the I ran into him at a party'. He said he hod to s.. meabout astrology and the creation of ehe Sunday T:rne and told me to col aftrt the next day and that I should call. I left a msuoeuniverse. There would be interviews with I'd seen Exposd. He was with a woman on his machine and he called about I 5 minutespeople talking about real experiences. He that he'd left waiting with a bag of gro- later to make a date for that night at the Harvardsaid it didn't matter that I wasn't an certes; she was obviously getting Club. co discuss the filin he was making.actress. impatient.
Ans' one individual I 'I lead as work-oriented a life as anyone I know. I am [Ocer tuo dayi. Tobak le/i fFit'e phone me.oagvi carve proie/s!I) left b) src.Jwould approach [in a completely and totally and wholeheartedly uninterested in ui'oi phenr merrages at
manner) according to meeting anyone ¿r thin poin in my life who does not suggest the' s'i' officvt.!
who that person is. some cinematic capacir)' male or female, >'nung or oId.
THE DATEWe walked (lOwn thC street and he kd me tothy Harvard Club. He ¿sked for his mailbefore we sat down.
I mcc hun in the lobby of the Horvsrd Club;hc looked disheveled. We went co the bit,where hr stirted jamming gobs of nuts in hismouth. I-Ic didn't ask me anything aboutmysell and told mc a lot about his cazecr inthe movies.
He said he was staying at the Horvord Club and wewcrc supposed to mccc at I :00 p.m. He left a notesaying he woutdnt be bak until 6:00, and when tshowed up again, he said that we iouldnt have adrink in the lobby because I was wearing jeans, sowe wcnt up to his room,
TALKING DIRTYlt wasn't two minutes before be wastalking about sex. i think he startedby asking me, Do you like to fuck
.,-;. '-,
A FÄ&T I O N
WITH NUMBERSHe told me how he'd first had sex atavesy early age.maybe 12. when he hooked up wich an older composer.Toward the end ol lunch he said he found me incrediblyattractive. There are rooms here. W. could go upstairs.I said I'd already taken a long enough lunch.
He didnt v.asce any time getting disgusting.maybe IO or I S miaules. 'I (eel like we'reold losers. I t'ed like l'vt' already ted sexwith you many rimes. that we have this spe-cial sexual rapport
He jumped right in when I got tohis room. And he kept getting alls(rom women and lse'd say, No. Ican't tuck you again coni1ht.'
We were all drinking and taiking openly When I told him t was probably more inter-about sex. He gave his entire sexual history ested in other women than men. that onlyand then said we should all go up to his room made him more interested.at the Harvard Club
When I got to his office at Fox, he told me allabout his career anti his credits as a director.He kept picking up the phone and calling hisbookie to place huge bets. He was abo get-ting calls from women. and he'd say. Okahoney. meet me at the Hoa Club at Xtime.'
He started in with the gross stufi' fairlycuickl) 1'm a freak. Do you know what afreak is? lt's someone who is totally into sex.Are you a freak. tood' When he said h.wanted to tuck m, I told him I martied.He said, Let me call your husband.' I gavehim the number, hut he backed off.
We mec at an Upper West Side health food restaurant. lie wasI
He made inc some pasta. putreally interesting at first. We talked about film and philosophy on the films and left to do er-He was fascinated Isv mv midwestern peu. Toward the end of rands. The movies were prettylunch it started getting weird. but it couldn't have been too bad bad. When he came beck. heyet hecause when lie said. 1.isten. l've got cassettes of my hIrns sat on the couch and startedright here. lets go to my place its jsist across the street and talking. but using words likeyou can ser them lot yourself.' I alkd my boyfriend and told ajs,. iNCl and dick.hïm exactly where I would be for the next twohours. and I Vent. I Li ,I1 .;:::-::__ _ -...,.-
We met outside the Harv.rdlubar 10:00p.m. lot dinner, but it was closed, so we wentto the Algonquin.
IPrv/cmng to ta/k rn thi. t#Ii'phnc. sty didn'ttakt Tobai'k aft on hit offer to notet. J
i-iv uiu l.I. L 'JU lIÇU &UIIÇI IIUIÇ LU
unlock your sensuality. You havent come toterms with your erotic side. Youre a caidrono(complexity. With you. I would deny youthree cimes belote I hod sex with you. I'dplay with you. I'd come but I wouldn't enteryou. lt has to be an obsession, and I wouldguess you've never really needed it before.have you? I would never enter a womanwithout her needing me.'
What l've sought to do s test people with aboul and aggressive approach. b«ause . . the
easiest way cou t an tel I it someone is going ti)be lcxist in Iront of a causera s usi to av t
0lit. lust 1it it ail on the- rahk. withoutsugaroating, as boldly a possible.'
Ile said. 'i have this physical need. I have toci)me 15 t. 20 times o dey Even my therapistsays I have to have frequent ses.' I stood up anddenundesi. De ,.a reIste (t'er)thtitg :. ,ex? Hesiitl Yes
He wanted co know how many msn I'd made loveto. I said, 'That has nothing to do with my abilityto be an assistant on a film.' Later he called andsaid hr had to explore my sexuality, that i needed ateacher and that he would teach mc. liwn he wenton to say he had a large penis and asked mc howmuch pubic hair I had.
No one was sacred: he bragged about sex witheveryone. and then he claimed that even a sevsn-ysor-old was after him.
He told mc that when he wanted to be a concertpianist as a kid. he slept with a lot of people inthe music boxiness. That was when hi was 14.
You don't love your boyfriend.' he said. 'You'reso much nsore sensuous. I cats idi you masturbatethree or four times o d.y.' He said he has toOItiC 14 timsa a doy and that he stops 100
women a week. Actually. he did smell like driedcOme.
He said. '1 have approached 1,000 women. No,it's more like 500. I've used 50 in my films'
'The number of people I approach (>ii ihr street(about possible roles in movies) is about 65/35.male 'female not necessarily of any panicularage The ratto of peuple I talk to in pc'hhi ti)
P(°t'1 I use n my movies is about 1 to 100.which n about che saine as other directors, Iwould say.'
THI ¡TLUREo, DANGER
-t Iik to live on che edgc. h; said, idod.n,.r.Ias things I k rhn winc on ti,cell «ir .Lb(,(It tcding violent tirn hi w
jctIotts ovcr sotneo:ic hc.iittig on him
Lç
He alsogoc a call about gambling I-ktoki me b. thought he hod it in him tokill aomeone, t wool] just be a
LASTÓTRAWS"TRUST ME'
He said to do chis film we would haveto live together to get to know eachother. I said. No thanks.
He tracked me down in Kyotojapan. where I was modeling. He wanted to flyme to his hotel in Santa Monica. I told hm j wasnt as weird as on the hrst timewe met at che Harvard Club. I alio said Id been t hulumk. He s.aid. You'rewonderful. however you arc! I thought it might be my big break, but first jtelegrammed the friend wed had drïnks with. asking if hr thought Tobakwould cxpeit mc to have sex if I did go to Santa Monica. He wrote right backOfcoure.'
1ople kep coming tnto the othce while we were talking. To one guy he said.He claimed that his ass was on the line Thts is Kas; sites considering fucktng me right now. She hasnt luckedwith this project and that the mob was on anybody hut her husband in seven years. but she's really tempted to luck mc.his tail. He even tri.d to .t m. to be- All these women were constantly calling. After one call he said. I cant believehive that he could hove hod piopi. that as h& I was walking down Central Park West and this woman came outkilled to get movies - _ of the hushes and said. Come over here. I really want to luck you. She justEIUdC fl the past. I told him he was scaring me with the dirty talk. so he dragged me into the bushes. So we lucked. and it was really great. And that was
changed the subject for a while hut always worked back just hcr! He gave me a safe-sex rap too: he said he gets every girl teated beforearound by dcmwiding, Whv dont you trust ms? This is hell have sex with them. He said, Just touch my nippks ond ru conis. I
for the hIm. Yotill have to use these words in the movie. decided to leave; he said he still wanted me ro read with Robert Downey Jr.- _ What du voti want ¡nr to say for purs' usen hr went on..1 low often do you masturbate' Do you enjoy sex duringyour peried Ile wanted me to take offrny shoes su jieutuld massage my feet because he knew dancers like that.No was. I said. .1 cant work with people who arc ¿(raidof rue! l.istcn. j tiave an idea. Stnd up. Conte over here andtouch my ni$.s (.omc on. just touch them. Thin Mcome and you ati trust me. because youll see rhat tha(s¿jI I iiccd to be really turned osi. YOLi dont have lu tIti
anything morc'
He was cal:ng it* late at night (tir a while to teli tic aU .ihout his exrlo,1s
bovtrivtd iit sick uf the calls. I blew liiiii eifil jlir ncx time he called, he
.4tçI }W hail people over and I h,ujj ¿Uni oser t, lits bous,- j went and iIi.-phdnc LCX ringing and iuha.k making all these dates or kcr iii liii?rvviiiiig And the doorbell was ritigiti He avoided those Whets Iktl with ihr others. .inoth« omati. tri a 'oi unsin swr.iNhirt. Was eu lirtit,. The laM time hr alIcd it .tt :110 a in I lis dxrhcll rang while wert
talking. He weilt ici get it anti I heard a girls volti. I heard Ittin sa Jutit getCoke and s en the couth Sit on tite &s,tiih' I winced ws knew ilh liad a girL..
1 like to constantly surpri myscjf, I go ro He said. ï rejuire complet. TIiC and ht ws slit duing there M I (io ii lie just said she was titis sv
sleep at 4:00 am. anti Im fascinated with the trust and a jump of faith I can Itttk itig frrnn the hrnnx. I got really mail I Ir catil, Arc y.0 still g.uig r
2:00 am, ireaturcs. he said. He talked about e endlessly working with you. be up in 4- minutes' Let me ¡ust fvdi thIs i,I end Ill cil yv beck I
living with Nostouio Kinaki. and how he tried but I would need to know you not to bother.
co live beyond conventions and without domes- like no one else has ever known --_______________________ - -Ilcity in his life. Whet, he asked me il I consid- you. And you would have to l would bring you to the point where you need me so badly you wMput
cred myselfan artist. that somehow led to him truetme more than you have gsmtoyourhd.saying that whether he has killed 40 people orever trusted anyone.none. hv knows h. hoe o kilkrs instinct.
1 will du ani'th.ng j can tu get iht iSSt .1 immediately weed out people 'ies. I run rito mt shirt t'i people aho are noi inreerired n working Hut I
j netl. where therv will bC any offense isave never talked to anyone where I haven t been upen md hitneat and dire«or indignation, any hasrter tobeing open. j m incereseed inwho has good stones ro cell. thewikirar pt.rson in his sexual
________I
u ,%I tiI4pw$Irlr!k
::i: TLNV
aP ,o oep 30 o
-
OCT O Forp4Lnc
1x1 O ae Bevlc.,,
'.r.q. LVflCNOCT OzQitii Roo. Dinn,,.
T 03Od o e lvsrag, D1n,,,..-., 04 Orali
Ort
m,._.
170! 02la 11 L30 f 0240i 02¡3004Q3 147920* 0.14
4
37 2.7: 2II0O Ooi 4068604 043
o, 647201 Q,06 4.64
215t5065loo
roo. 065
6924 73 1.77
7395:19
832630
0.43 42. 33
3.26 7420Caint i, ol't1ço,.,, ,,,. b*aIt. on a 'gu1mr
W*r1,,O*%po,
Ith,,, t.
197 1by a major publishinghouse) about the orgies inwhich he had participated whilehanging out at alleged girl-friend beaterfootball legendJ im Browns house. The mostsalient piece of artistic adviceBeatty is said to have givenToback is to always include onesmall part for a pretty youngactress in every motion pic-turc - and to schedule auditionsfor that part late in (he day.
__ Out in (he field, Toback canfrequently be spotted castingfuture major motion pictures inthe Fairway Market at Broad-way and 74th Street, whilingaway entire afternoons impor-tuning females as they shop forfresh fruits and cheeses. And nodoubt he enjoys satisfyingly in-timate relations with at least Ipercent of them. Unfortu-nately, the dictates of scientificresponsibility require us to sayno doubt because, hard as we
tried, we were unable to inter-view exactly ¡00 of Tobackspickupees. We did speak atsome length with 1 3 of them,though, each ofspent a minimum of five mm-utes in his presence, some ofthem hours moreand all ofwhom had lots and lots toshare with us. Many, we canreveal here, were offered parts- how novel! - in major motionpictures to be directed byJ ames Toback.
Toback offered us no movieroles. Instead, after respondingcooperatively to some very gen-eral questions concerning thisarticle (see bottom line of- foldout chart), he became agi-
tated. .1 am going to be dan-gerous - I dont care what theconsequences are, he told aneditor, adding unnecessarily, I
am not a normal human be-ing. Toback then offered asUggestion: -I would like [thewriter of this article) to PUt upall of her money, and I'll putup ten times that much, andthen have each of us take a liedeeaor test. I ivi/I make a beiof an)' amount that I UI/I passthe lie detector test. After as-
TOBACK'S STREET TECHNIQUE'BY VINCENZA DEMETZMARCH 1989 SPY 84
THE MAN WHO t.ETS TOBACK BE TOBACKJ F E: P F U F F I%'I U II
E: u c FI II U
"This movies been playing inside my head my whole life, " says
James Toback, standing beside a rented plant, wearing a floor-
length black leather overcoat. "Nobody's ever made a film likethis before." He takes a long pull of Diet Coke. "See, I have this
theory about Creationthat Creation is God's orgasm and thatthe universe is His come spurting out into time and space."
Last summer, thanks to theintervention of a financial an-gel named Joe Kanter, Toback
had six days and an empty,newly built $2.8 million housein Tenafly, New Jersey, to bring
to life his own creation, a doc-
umentary called The Big Bang.
He assembled, among others,a nun, an Auschwitz survivor,a basketball star, a ShearsonLehman Hutton executive, aNew Yorker writer and an as-tronomer and filmed them an-swering his questions about (JREEFBALDN
OBVIOUS VIR11JES I not shysex and the cosmos (What doyou think about when you XEMPLARYPICKUP
masturbate? Is orgasm your LINE director. Pk.cRvaIIy, I am.
most satisfying state of con- AMBLINGHABITS FrvsiucntsOThh(x)kie atnds
sciousness? Where is God?). AHOI)ThOUS W. .He plans to intercut this foot- TISGJI(Y
age with a violin soloist who UNSAVORY Claims co have'ASSoCIATIONS chrcatt-ncd by t)
played the White House and a FINANCIALSTAThS pay hisClub bill 'so Chis
12-man breakdance group. ISCONSIDF.RED Young.
"Who but Jim would have CHARMINGBY a«)ulouswnm
thought of that?" Kanter, thefinancial angel, says in hissunny southern accent. "Mix-ing Bach with breakdancers"
Watching the shoot, Kanter, 65, glows with the radiance ofthe rich. Chairman of the board of the Bank of Florida, hecofinanced Ironwecdand is Toback's business partner in The Big
Bang. Sometimes he naps on the rented bed in the productionoffice, sometimes he jogs around Tenafly in the running clothes
he always carries with him. But what Kanter likes best is beingon the set, collaborating with a genius his genius.
Kanter is amazed by almost everything Toback does, so much
so that when he was unable to recruit investors with his own
enthusiasm for the film, he put up half the budget himself.Toback, also using his own funds, provided the other half.
Sitting in the foodless kitchen, dressed in a blue work shirt("bought on Rodeo Drive") and a silk jacket ("made in Italy"),
Kanter recalls meeting Tobock in 1987 at a party thrown byMario Cuomo at Club El Morocco. "I'm married for 35 years and
I'm accustomed to seeing the eleven o'clock news and going to
sleep at 1 1:30. But Jim and I started talking at a quarter to flirte
and we didn't leave each other" Kanter pauses to let the sig-nificance of this sink in " until 3: 15 in the morning."
At the end of this late-nightsession, Kanter continues,"Jim says, 'Joe, you're just the
guy I'm looking for. You're the
guy that's going to make thismovie with me.'
Haunted by his encounterwith Toback, Kanter couldn'tsleep. "And I use the wordhaunt because Jim usedhe says, eyes full of admira-tion. "Jim said this was a new
type of film that had no prece-
cent or it could be so fantastic,Teaches graik ghool, 'ares (oc hisms-a1iJgrandmnchee,savcsagirl's it would make a great deal ofIativ:t (torn inobsctis
Im Hasanyonecvertokiy'ouyouhas'e money. But more important, itthe(.isco1.Boctxelliandthebody could really be a role model forot a Degas'
sa Sa»hesiiutagambIebutcir- what film could do in the wayhkes Qlmstan«s k.id him to win Sys.00()arlicr at roulette by betting all his money of art.VhC, Ofl One spin of Che wheel . .
My life s richer and moreShoursdownmobscersinaowikd meaningful because of Jim
ob Aclanuc City easno and hiesyard Doesncpayhisrcntncimc Toback," Kanter continues.
. Indeed his 6 hours and 3051, His landlord; thr neighborhood
grngroceecheiopswhoaIways minutes with Toback, he says,caish him making out with womeninhsscar;theowner,stthelocal brought him to a deeper leveldiner; his grade hooI pupib; a muggcratConcylslandandcveiywom- of intimacy than he'd ever
.an In the hIm but onc. who musc bealesboorsomerhing reached with most of his old
P.ujISt'wj ,friends. "This was not small
talk. He asked questions about the cosmos and life and deathand sexmeaningful questions that we all want to ask butdon't have the guts."
He sprities some breath spray into his mouth. "Some of these
sex questions I haven't even talked about to my wife, " he ad-mits. "But if one person comes away from this movie and learns
to communicate, if the world out there that copies America'shamburgers and jeans and music, if they start communicating
the heads of Africa and Egypt!-then life could imitate art!"He pauses at the enormity of this thought and then adds, "Well,
everything has to start somewhere, doesn't it?"
WILL THE REALJAMES TOBACKPLEASE PIPE DOWN?
Comparing big talkerdirector James Toback with James Tobacksidealized version oíJamesToback (Robert DowneyJr.) in his 1987 film,The Pick-Up Artist, gives us a special insight into how he sees himself.Or how he wants us to see him. Or how he wants credulous video-renting women to see him.
NAME James Tohak Jack Jerich'AGE, WEIGHT, DE- 44, about 200, balding 2!. about 140, full head of hair
8 SPY MARCH 198')
ich)))
, use
Gan.0Cc t
Li mc
b«nSc 05
Hiehe
s)
The Big Bang has no scheduled release date.
- Jomie Diamond
¿ ¿ /jit % IfO[ ' ,)7r1 J
¿)ri 4e /2_t ,Cr1 4 ç,', ç v4 ' jus n j ¿;.( pi j i e -i (i. U J i k t'td fii cl-i ? ¡rn«,p-z
ForgtIt de!ieryofLa Grande Passion anywtwe. call 1.SQO-CHEERUP i exceo where prohbted by w Produc o ace 8 poo. * 1988 Caron Imporws. Ltd.. Teaneck, Ñ.J.
Haz
ardo
us m
oter
ial i
sde
fined
by
the
Trib
or-
ough
Brid
ge a
nd T
unne
lA
utho
rity
as 'a
ny e
x-pl
osiv
e or
flam
mab
le li
q-ui
d.
.. c
ombu
stib
le li
q-ui
d, fi
omm
able
sol
id,
corr
oliv
e m
ater
ial,
non-
flam
mab
le c
ompr
esse
dga
s w
hich
is p
oiso
n-ou
s. .
. rad
ioac
tivem
ate-
rial,
or a
ny o
ther
poi
son-
0Li5
sub
stan
ce.'
You
're p
roba
bly
stan
ding
in it
.N
ew Y
ork'
s ta
p-w
ater
and
smog
rat
ings
may
be a
ccep
tabl
e, b
ut in
and
arou
nd M
anha
ttan
we'
reaw
ash
in r
adio
activ
e,in
fect
ious
and
oth
er-
wis
e ha
zard
ous
was
tean
d w
e're
not
spe
ak-
in9
met
apho
rical
ly h
ere.
A u
tility
spo
kesm
ancl
aim
s he
can
saf
ely
stan
d rig
ht n
ext t
o pl
u-to
nium
"as
long
os
I
don'
t inh
ale
it, "
but
man
y of
us
don'
t kno
ww
hen
and
whe
re n
ot to
inha
le. T
hese
day
sth
ere'
s m
ore
med
ical
was
te o
n th
e st
reet
s of
Now
Yor
k th
on S
AB
Y O
NB
OA
RD
sig
ns. A
nd fa
cto-
ries
ore
requ
ired
by la
wto
rep
ort c
hem
ical
s re
-le
ased
thro
ugh
smok
e-st
acks
and
air
vent
s or
into
sew
ers,
but
you
may
not
wan
t to
hear
abou
t it.
(Not
e: w
eco
uldn
't in
clud
e ev
ery.
thin
g; s
ee fu
ture
SP
YM
aps
for
chem
ical
s re
-le
ased
into
the
air,
ra-
don
clou
ds h
over
ing
inho
mes
, ten
tons
of a
s-be
stos
sitt
ing
in o
Bro
nxpa
rkin
g lo
t and
oth
erap
ocal
yptic
hig
hlig
hts.
)
4f
11R
AD
IAC
RE
SE
AR
CH
E1
CO
RP
OR
AT
ION
, WIL
-LI
AM
SB
UR
G T
he S
uper
mon
-ihIy
nam
ed R
odio
c ii
o ito
røg
+oc
iIut.
mos
tly fo
r lo
b ch
emic
als
OE
nd Io
wle
vel r
adio
activ
e w
aite
ow
oitin
gsh
ipm
ent t
o di
spoo
I site
s el
se-
whc
rc.
_.#'
fiR
AD
IUM
CH
EM
ICA
LI-
CO
., W
OO
DS
IDE
Its
oper
atin
g lic
ense
was
res
oked
in19
83. b
ut th
at d
idn'
t sto
p th
e 76
-ye
ar-o
ld c
ompa
ny fr
om r
ecci
ing
at le
ast 3
0 m
ore
ship
men
ts o
f ra-
dium
, use
din
the
Dar
k A
ges
ofca
ncer
ther
apy,
and
sto
ring
it in
vi-
oli t
hat l
eake
d. S
ince
198
3 it'
src-
ceiv
ed o
ver
i 14
cita
tions
for
stat
esa
fety
vio
latio
ns. i
nclu
ding
miv
-ha
ndlin
g an
d lo
sing
rad
ium
.G
amm
a ra
ys o
utsi
de th
e bu
ildin
gor
e on
ly 4
0 tim
es th
c le
gal l
imit;
insi
de y
ou g
et y
our
year
ly d
ose
intw
o an
d s
holt
hcur
s, T
he o
wne
rab
ando
ned
two
othe
r co
ntam
i-
switc
hed
role
s: o
blo
ck-lo
ng tr
ail o
fhu
ndrc
ds o
f ncc
dlcs
, sca
lpel
s,bl
oody
gau
ze p
ads,
blo
od-f
illed
tube
s an
d vi
als,
and
on
issu
e of
Mod
ern
Heofthcarc
addr
esse
d to
on c
dmin
istr
ator
at S
t. Lu
ke's
-R
oose
velt
Hos
pita
l Cen
ter,
way
acro
ss to
wn
ati 1
4th
Str
eet a
ndA
mst
erda
m A
venu
e.
,')A
LL B
EA
CH
ES
:'l
jB
RO
OK
LYN
, QU
EE
NS
,S
TA
TE
N IS
LAN
D, L
ON
G IS
LAN
D,
CO
NN
EC
TIC
UT
, NE
W J
ER
SE
Y,
RH
OD
E IS
LAN
D, L
AK
E E
RIE
1:j
VA
N D
AM
ST
RE
ET
BE
-b
LIT
WE
EN
ME
EK
ER
AV
E.
NU
E A
ND
BR
IDG
EW
AT
ER
ST
RE
ET
,
GR
EE
NP
OIN
T E
ight
bag
sof
disp
os'
able
hot
ptto
l she
ets,
adu
lt di
aper
s,fo
od w
aste
, srin
qes,
blo
ody
sirg
i.ca
l g'o
ves
and
forc
eps
with
ski
nst
illattached
wer
e fo
und
Str
ewn
alon
g th
e st
reet
. Som
e of
the
was
te b
ore
labe
ls tr
arsi
two
Bro
nx
mov
ed 1
,700
truc
kloa
ds o
f PC
B-
is r
uine
d. S
urpr
isin
gly,
Mob
il P
Rco
ntam
inat
ed s
oil f
rom
the
site
man
Mar
k C
ohen
dis
agre
es: "
It's
with
out o
per
mit
not t
rue.
"
¿rj
FE
AT
UR
E E
NT
ER
-I
PR
ISE
S,
130
WE
ST
46T
H S
TR
EE
T F
eatu
re, o
jew
elry
man
ufac
ture
r, e
mpt
ies
98,0
00po
unds
of s
odiu
m h
ydro
xide
per
year
into
city
sew
ers
- al
mos
t ato
n ev
ery
wee
k, S
odiu
m h
ydro
xide
15
fata
l to
anim
als.
.U
MO
BIL
OIL
ST
OR
AG
EJ
TA
NK
S, G
RE
EN
PO
INT
Thi
s is
whe
re M
obil
stor
es 2
3 m
ii'lio
n ga
llons
of f
uel o
il, g
asol
ine
ond
napf
itha,
17
mill
ion
gallo
ns o
fw
hich
hav
e le
aked
into
the
grou
nduv
e, 4
0 ye
ars;
14
miIl
,on
gallo
nsar
e st
ill a
t lar
ge. M
obil
is o
n th
eco
se, h
owev
er, d
iggi
ng r
ecov
ery
wel
ls, w
hich
hav
e sa
far
succ
eede
don
ly in
esp
osin
g o
new
leak
The
city
's E
nviro
nmen
tal P
rote
ctio
nD
epar
tmen
t say
s th
e gr
ound
wat
er
...
Il63
RD
ST
RE
ET
-EA
ST
.
:.:j
RIV
ER
SU
BW
AY
TU
N.
NE
L A
fter
S85
0 m
illio
n an
d 20
year
s, th
e st
ill'u
nusc
dì'm
ilctu
nnel
is fl
oode
d fr
om le
aks
and
seep
age
and
has
beco
me
o ro
rnon
-tic
, Pha
ntom
-like
, gar
bage
-fill
edriv
er o
s de
ep a
s si
x fe
et. F
eatu
red
are
rotte
d el
ectr
ical
equ
ipm
ent,
stal
octit
es o
f wha
t app
ears
to b
edi
sint
egra
ted
conc
rete
, and
rus
ted
piec
es o
f tra
ck.
Ib'T
hP
YM
M T
HE
RM
OM
E-
1uT
ER
CO
MP
AN
Y In
1987
a B
rook
lyn
jury
con
vict
edow
ners
Will
iam
and
Edw
ard
Ppm
mof
ass
ault
for
forc
ing
wor
kers
toin
hale
mer
cury
fum
es in
an
unce
n-til
oted
bas
emen
t for
two
year
s.(T
he S
tate
Sup
rem
e C
ourt
set
asi
deth
e gu
ilty
verd
ict o
n o
tech
nica
lity.
(
rz
PE
LHA
M B
AY
LA
ND
-C
i¿
FIL
L F
rom
196
3 to
1979
this
spo
t was
use
d by
14
mo-
Or
corp
orat
ions
to il
lego
lly d
ump
toxi
c w
cste
t tha
t may
now
be
leak
-in
g in
to L
ong
Isla
nd S
ound
and
Eas
rche
ster
Boy
. Res
iden
ts o
fne
arby
com
mun
ities
bel
ieve
thot
os o
res
ult t
hey
arc
disp
ropo
rtio
n'at
cly
affli
cted
with
Hod
gkin
's d
ii'ea
se a
nd o
ther
kin
ds o
f can
cer,
and
that
thei
r ch
ild,e
n ar
e un
usua
lltpr
one
to a
utïs
m.
.9
LOW
ER
BA
Y B
E-
:'::
TW
EE
N B
RE
EZ
Y P
OIN
TA
ND
GR
EA
T K
ILLS
HA
RB
OR
Ath
ousa
nd y
ardi
from
the
Roc
ko'
way
s, C
oney
Isla
nd a
r.d
Sou
thB
each
is th
e A
rmy
Cor
ps o
f Eng
i.ne
ers'
pro
pose
d du
mp
site
for
PC
Bs,
hea
vy m
etal
s an
d ot
her
vari-
ousl
y le
thal
sed
imen
ts.
:1'A
TLA
NT
ICO
CE
AN
,(!
TE
N M
ILE
S E
AS
T O
FS
AN
DY
HO
OK
Site
use
d fo
r 73
year
s to
dum
p se
wag
e sl
udge
, lea
dan
d di
oxin
s.
,,
91
LON
G IS
LAN
D F
ifty'
(i't
four
pub
lic w
ells
hav
ebe
en c
lose
d be
caus
e of
con
tam
ina-
tior,
from
f.rt
dizo
rs a
nd p
et fe
ces.
oLO
NG
ISLA
ND
One
(J3
hund
red
fort
y'tw
oha
zard
ous-
was
te d
ispo
sal s
ites,
of
whi
ch 2
2 ar
c po
ison
ous
enou
gh to
qual
ify fo
r fe
dera
l Sup
erfu
ndcl
eanu
p al
loca
tions
.
GLOWI6 IN
THE
DARK
Rø
dioo
ct.c
wus
tin
thar
ioco
mpr
irnor
ilyfr
orn
nueI
arpo
wcr
plcM
s, h
ospi
tals
and
rci
earc
h la
bs.
Nuc
lear
po
wer
pio
nts
ore
gen
e ra
llylo
cate
d aw
ay fr
om e
arth
quak
e-pr
one
orco
s,"
says
the
Arn
eric
onN
ucle
ar S
ocie
ty. Y
es, g
ener
ally
'ex
cept
for
all o
f the
one
s ar
ound
New
Yor
k.am
ong
them
:
1.1
iND
iAN
PO
INT
2.I
IND
IAN
PO
INT
3,B
UC
HA
NA
N
? j
NIN
E M
ILE
PO
INT
ON
E,
IN
INE
MIL
E P
OIN
T T
WO
OS
WE
GO
t'JA
ME
SA.
FIT
ZP
AT
RIC
KI
jN
IJC
LFA
R P
LAN
T,
OS
WE
GO
-- I
GIN
NA
NU
CLE
AR
Ii
PLA
NT
,RO
CH
ES
TE
R
_tz_
"S
HO
RE
HA
M N
UC
LEA
R,,
dpowip
ST
AT
ION
Sho
re-
ham
's fa
tes
still
up
n th
e ai
r at
this
writ
ing,
but
f Cuo
mo'
s pl
anfa
r th
e st
are
to b
uy th
e LI
LCO
boon
dogg
le fc
r S
ii c
onsu
mm
at-
ed, i
t wou
ld th
en ta
ke a
t cos
t 2 to
Sye
ars
for
on e
nviro
nmen
tal-i
mpa
ctst
udy
prob
ably
S to
10 m
ore
year
s to
dis
man
tle th
e pl
ont
ndan
othe
r 10
000
year
s fo
r S
hore
harn
to s
top
glow
ing
in th
e da
rk.
.?
rB
ELL
PO
RT
Con
torn
i-I
note
d so
il ha
s be
enfo
und
ot th
e to
rn,e
r tit
O O
f the
Long
Ilon
d N
ucle
ot S
er.ic
es C
orp.
,a
nucl
ear-
was
te s
tora
ge a
nd tr
ans
fer
busi
ness
.
4f
rB
RO
OK
HA
VE
N N
*-I
TIO
NA
L LA
BO
RA
TO
RY
.U
PT
ON
Pro
lifk
low
-leve
l rad
iooc
-tir
e-w
aste
pro
duce
r.
p4f
235
EA
ST
44T
H S
TR
EE
Ta.
oJu
st o
n is
otop
es th
row
from
Kat
harin
e H
epbu
rns
brow
n-st
one,
the
build
ing
was
occ
upie
dfr
om 1
939
to 1
944
by th
e R
odiu
niC
hem
ical
Com
pany
and
now
em
itsra
diat
ioi a
t bre
Is th
ree
times
the
stat
e lim
it.
note
d fa
ctor
ies,
in G
eorg
ia a
nd Ii
i-na
is, f
orci
ng th
ose
stat
es to
pay
for
the
clea
nup;
he
ws
last
see
n tr
y-ng
to fo
ist o
ff hi
s W
oods
ide
tnve
n-to
ry o
n T
hird
Wor
ld c
ount
ries.
In19
87 o
spo
kesm
an c
laim
ed, "
In th
ehi
stor
y of
the
com
pany
, the
re h
asne
ver
becn
a s
afet
y-re
late
dmci-
dent
"; it
was
uid
cr c
rimin
al in
ves-
tigot
iOn
by th
e st
ate
Atto
rney
Gen
-er
al'
Offi
ce a
t he
time.
VA
LUA
BLE
DO
CT
OR
'S-
£Q'J
IPM
EN
TFOR FREE
1m¼
.rG
RE
EN
PO
INT
INC
IN-
ER
AT
OR
The
late
stst
tc fo
r C
abrin
i Med
ical
Cen
ter
inM
anha
ttan
to il
lega
lly d
ispo
se o
fits
infe
ctio
us w
otte
, acc
ordi
ng to
Dep
ortm
ent o
f San
itatio
n ch
arge
s
:.ìi
,ìP
LAY
GR
OU
ND
AT
-'(I
135T
H S
TR
FT
AN
DM
AD
ISO
N A
VE
NU
E It
's o
s if
Nan
el a
nd G
rete
l and
the
witc
h
hasp
itals
, St.
Bar
naba
s od
Heb
rew
Hop
itol f
or th
e C
hror
c S
tck.
Spo
kesm
en a
t bot
h de
nd a
nykn
owle
dge
of th
e ba
gs, a
nd. B
ar-
naba
s sp
okes
wom
an B
ai1b
ora
Buc
hner
told
the
Perot
'Nor
fting
like
ths
hcs
ever
hap
pene
d '
MY
ST
ER
Yr
INC
RE
11
lE N
T S
MIS
CE
LLA
NE
OU
S P
OLL
UT
ER
S
..N
EW
YO
RK
HA
RB
OR
.. ..
.
j Thr
ee b
illio
n ga
llons
ada
y of
was
te w
ater
con
tain
ing
pes-
tictd
cs, f
ertil
izcr
s, o
il, g
reas
e an
dse
wag
e en
d up
her
e.
juLT
RU
MP
(N
E T
ELE
VI
.-
US
ION
CIT
Y, W
ES
TE
ND
AV
EN
UE
BE
TW
EE
N 5
9TH
AN
D 7
2ND
ST
RE
ET
S B
ooris
hco
ndo
pedd
ler
Don
ald
Tru
mp'
s lo
t.cS
t pla
ns fo
r th
e si
te o
f his
def
unct
NB
C r
eloc
atio
n sc
hem
e. A
ccor
ding
to th
e E
nviro
nmen
tal P
rote
ctio
nD
epor
tmen
t, so
meo
ne fu
rtiv
ely
rn
r
'j j
;.I
:
j'
L4
y.
r:
a1
ILLUS
TR
AT
ION
S B
Y E
D B
RIA
NT
r,
- p
!P'
t'
L-T
h-
-f
HUVV CAMP CHANGED FROM LUSH TO UTE,
FIY DAVID LETTERMAN IS A GOD,
OUR FIELD GUIDE TO THE UNVIITTINGLY HIP
AND THE FASHIONABLY UNFASHIONABLE,
AND AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
TINY CONVERSATIONAL ART OF AIR QUOTES
Meet Bob and Betty.
Bob is wearing a\L\R SPY
LET YOUR
FINGERS DO
THE TALKING
How Hand Semaphore
Evolved from Thumbs-Up
Earnestness to
Air-Quotes Irony
1935- 44
94 SPY MARCH 1989
vintage clothing boutique for approximately sixtimes the garmcnts original 1952 price. He alsocarries his lunch in a tackle box and wears aGumby wristwatch, Converse high-tops and baggykhakis from Banana Republic; at the store, thepants had been stacked in an artfully ruinedIndiana Jonesstyle jeep. Bob describes his look asHarry Truman mixed with early Jerry Mathers.
Bob assumes we know that Mathers played thetitle role on Leave It to Beaver.
Betty wears Capri pants, ballet flats and a man'soversize white shirt, along with a multizipperedblack-leather motorcycle jacket imprinted withCyrillic letters. She's Audrey Hepburn by way ofPatty Duke as James Dean's girlfriend waiting onthe drag strip. Betty refers to herself as Bobs Soldlady. Bob calls himself Dad. When Bob andBetty describe themselves in these ways, they raisethe middle and forefingers of both hands,momentarily forming twitching bunny ears airquotes, the quintessential contemporary gesture thatsays, We're not serious.
Betty and Bob have a child, a two-year-old whomthey call Kitten. The child is probably too youngto catch the reference to Father Knows Best, eventhough she sits with her parents when they watchNfrk at Nite, the cable TV service devoted almostentirely to the quasi-ironic recapitulation of showsfrom the early 1960s. The invitations to Betty andBob's wedding were printed with sketches ofjitterbugging couples; for their honeymoon theyrented a station wagon and drove south, visitingGraceland, Cypress Gardens and the Texas SchoolBook Depository. Betty and Bob buy Fiescawareand Bakelite jewelry and beaded injun belts, aswell as souvenirs from the 1964 World's Fair andatomic furniture from the fifties rea1 Jetsons
stuff. Bob has taught the family mutt, Spot, to dothe twist. Bob dreams that his animal will one dayappear on the Stupid Pet Tricks' segment of LateNight With David Letterman. Bob works inadvertising, like Darrin on Bewitched. Betty is acorporate attorney - a lawyer from hell, she says.Bob and Betty are fictional, but Bob and Berry areeverywhere. Welcome to the wacky, totallyawesome, very late- I 980s world of heterosexualcamp, Camp Lite. This is the era of the permanentsmirk, the knowing chuckle, of jokey ambivalenceas a way of life. This is the Irony Epidemic.
No WONDER IT'S COME TO THISWE'VE BEEN
building up to a mass outbreak for a century. OscarWilde was a major celebrity, remember, even inAmerica. There were the Symbolists and RonaldFirbank and DadaMarcel Duchamp was theLetterman of his generation as much as he was theSchnabeland Hollywood comedies of the 1930s.It was Cary Grant's ironic swerves that put him
when Grant refers to Bruce Baldwin, played byRalph Bellamy, he describes him as that guy wholooks like that Iella in the moviesRalph Bellamy.
From the 1940s through the 1960s, America hadplenty of everything big appliances, steady jobs,Crest with fluorideeverything except irony. Bob'sand Betty's parents, having survived a depressionand a world war intact, were perhaps disinclined todress up in outfits amusingly evocative of theHoover era, or to see the inherent comedy in theirnew tract houses. Little Bob and little Betty,however, sprawled in front of the Sylvania, gorgingon Hydroxes and doing their social studieshomework between Soupy Sales and The GeorgeBurns and Gracie Allen Show, were learning to bitethe hands that overfed them, ironists in themaking. Instead of war and economic cataclysm,their coming-of-age rituals consisted of signingpetitions and taking drugs; more than any previousgeneration, they have the luxury of making fun, ofgrinning and scoffing, of being ironic. Irony hasalways been a luxury item, but now, like foreigntravel and original art, it is a luxury that millionsof people can afford. When you have spent yourwhole life on Easy Street, you can become DanQ uayle, or you can become part of the IronyEpidemic. Or, if you're of a mind to organize anabsolutely nutty George Hamilton MemorialLimbo Competition at the country club, both.
Among the early symptoms of the Irony Epidemicwas pop art. Paintings of soup cans, paintings ofElvis, paintings of comic-book panels, sculpturesmade out of detergent boxes . . . hey, art isn'tserious, it's a hoot! The allusions were to fiftiesHollywood and sixties television, not to PericleanAthens or the eighteenth century; irony wassuddenly accessible, irony was fun.
The year for pop art was 1964, the same yearSusan Sontag published Notes on Camp.Sontag's essay was like a thrilling, open-endedmother's excuse note for a whole generation ofgifted children: To Whom lt May Concern:Johnny basmy permission to enjoy TV andJacqueline Susanabooks. The most serious woman in America gave herimprimatur to a jolly, perverse sensibility that was,back then and in the main, homosexual and male,a sensibility that embraced pop junkJudyGarland, complicated floral prints, truck-stopwaitresses, The Supremes, plastic purses, the tango,whatever - as well as the high-culture obligatories.A campy outlook, Sontag announced, permittedrefined people to wander happily through anunrefined world: if you can't prevent MiamiBeach, you can learn to love it, sort of. Duringthe sixties, irony was camp, camp was irony.
Camp was patented by gay men; camp is a kindof gay soul . Ostracized groups tend to create theirown art forms, out of necessity; soul music, with its
41'?
gospel heritage. means something to Arerha
, t : Franklin that it cannot possibly mean to Hall and.' \ Oates. Old camp obsesses on the brazen, the
j sophisticated. even the European. Old camp wants- '
I to puffa cigarette in an ivory holder while lollingIatop a baby grand at the Ritz. Old camp fetishizes
.
,7 self-sacrifice and romantic agony, the scale of,. i. emotions usually available only to women,
/94 I 4;,; especially women in important wigs.Notes on Camp' was still ricocheting around
Cintelleauals heretofore orderly brains Diana!
Lionel! We'vejust got/en backfrom Disneyland, ojal!p/aces.'whcn Robert Venturi wrote his book
AMP LITE DOMESTIC LIFE
FOOD" "CL.OTHI"
Sno Balls Ray-Ban Wayfarers
Orcos Schott leather jackets
Fizzics Beaded cashmere sweaters
SMores Madras sports jacketsand Bermuda shortsFlurternuttersor any dessert
made from a recipe on the Rice Oversize 'vintage' overcoatsKrispies or Ritz crackers box Seamed hosiery
Tuna casserole Garter beltsJe[lO Old prom dresses
Cheez Whiz Gaudy neckties worn withPigs-in-blankets gabardine shirts and suspenders
1-v dinners Levis jackets with Elvis or Marilynhand-painted on the back
ADULT LEISURE ACTIVITIES" Opera gloves
Twister Patent-leather purses
Etch A Sketch Bright-colored Converse high-tops
Tee We Tooiiss three-volume set anof television theme songs, U (IUflTelevision 'i Greattit Hits Boomerang-shaped tables
Trade paperbacks that detail every Patterned linoleumepisode of The Honeywooner,
The Beverly ¡-ijllbjIIjt'J or Beanbag chairs
Gilhgan j Is/and i.ava lampsSlumber parties, bachelor parties Black-and-white RCA TVs
and sock hopsFramed pre- 1970 L:fe magazine
Barbecues covers
Bowling JukeboxesCocktails after work - P.R.
celebrating Las Vegas, thus pushing architecture offon its own snickery detour. After Venturi (even hisname sounded like sorne kitschy car, an Impalawith fins and cruise control), major buildings couldlook like billboards and motelsas long as they
-l-.- looked that way ironically. Or major buildings(_7J::could have columns and gables and keystones and
I//i ( all kinds olquaint bric-a-bracas long as the old-I( / fashioned geegaws were applied ironically.
Warhol, Sontag, Venturi then, during the sameBig Bang, Bairnan came to TV, demonstrating thatordinary Americans would go for stylized, mock-
bad entertainment. Roy Lichrenstein was prime-time. Camp Lite had arrived.
The larger epidemic of irony, meanwhile, wasspreading more slowly. The counterculture wasvirtually irony-free: for every Firesign Theaterrecord, there were hundreds of Earth Daymanifestos, Jane Fonda declarations of solidarity,J ohn Lindsay displays of earnestness, communalsuppers of tofu and human placenta.
J ust when it became clear that John Lindsay andplacenta-eating were not going to transform theworld, an irony industry sprang up to fill the void.Bob had subscribed to National Lampoon when hewas still in high school; for their first date, Bobtook Betty to the Lampoon's Off-Broadway show,Lemmingi-, their first purchase as a couple was acolor Sony, bought so they could watch SaturdayNight Live. In a few years, a generacions perpetualfrown had become a perpetual smirk.
One minute everything had been deadly earnest.The next minute everything was amusing. GeraldFord bumping his head was funny. Patty Hearst asa revolutionary bank robber was funny. JimmyCarter fighting off a rabbit was funny. EvenRichard Nixon, once he had been purged, becamea laughable character, Oscar the Grouch withunderlings. Thanks to Steve Martin and BillMurray and SCTV, schlock comedians and schlocksingers were funny unintentionally so, ironicallyso. The entire malformed, third-rate pop cultureuniverse was, in fact, suddenly a wellspring ofunwitting mirh, of 'found burnor.' To get thejoke, all you had to do was what you had alwaysdone best watch a lot ojTV: game shows werefunny, cheap late-night commercials were funny,cable (especially public-access cable) was funny,J ack Lord was funny, Marie Osmond was funny,Tom Snyder was funny, Jerry Lewis and histelethon werc funny and none ofthern knew it,which made them all the funnier. Even chunks ofnontelevised life - trailer parks, theme parks, theNational Enquirer, the New York Post. morticians'trade magazineswere funny. The Irony Epidemicwas just gathering steam when Bob and Betty firststarted going to certain movies (Plan 9frorn OuterSpace, for instance) because they were so bad, and ithad achieved its full range when there was a wholesubculture devoted to bad movies bad-filmbooks, bad-film festivals, bad-film scholars (seeCamp Lite Goes to College,' page 96).Camp Lite consists especially of a fetishism for the
good-old-days artifacts that the Irony Epidemic hasturned upRay-Bans and skinny ties, SergeantBilko and Bermuda shorts. The rise ofCamp Litecan be traced to the Hollywood nostalgiaproductions of the 1970s: American Graffiti andAnimal House, Grease and Happy Days. These werethe works that portrayed the fifties and early sixtiesas something to be pined for, something cute and
MARCH 1989 SPY 9
/967 7J
CMP
pastel-colored and fun rather than racist andoppressive and un-air-conditioned.
Whereas camp during the fifties and sixtiesemerged from the more passionate. fabled artforms of ballet, opera and Joan Crawford vehicles,Camp Lite is almost purely the spawn of fifties andsixties television, with its bland sitcom chucklesand tiny, comfy dilemmas. Camp Lite is limked tothe nonintellectual, to lunch boxes and memoriesof summer Scout outings. True camp, homo- orheterosexual, lampoons and adores, while CampLite reflexively eulogizes and coddles.Camp can curdle in the benign clutches of 10
million Bobs and Bettys, and in nostalgiajunkyards such as Nick at Nue. When a minorityform is coopted, there is always a loss of dynamic,of nuance. Imagine a Debbie Gibson rendition ofRespect. Consider Bruce Willis's Camp Lite
pseudo-Bogie shtick. Camp Lite at its mass-marketed worst - Spuds Mackenzie, Hard RockCafes, Willishas no edge, no gilded layers. Itsallusions can become entirely arbitrary. The newFox science-and-technology TV show, BeyondTomorrow, features human Camp Lite artifactsAlan HaleJr., Jo Anne Worley, Mickey Dolenz,Charo in its commercials for no particular reaion,a Fox spokesperson says, just because . . . well. we
thought the)' were cool. Even in its more wholesomeforms, Camp Lite is mere Trivial Pursuit, a matterof lists, of congratulating oneself on remembering,
LITE GOES TO COLLEGE
I. "What? Mc Study?: A SelectiveSurvey of the Mildly Antiau-thoritorian Thesis Topics of Lote-Twentieth-Century UniversityStudents"
You're a college student. Its rime tochoose a topic for your senior paper.You don't 'ant to wrire aboutKeats or feudalism like everyoneelse. You're not about to buy intothe whole academically corre« es-tablishment thing. Plus, the onlyprimary sources you know really.really well, the only texts in whichyou have a deep fluency, are old TVsitcoms, game shows, pop music,comic books, Like other ironicallyinclined contemporaries. you'llwrite a thesis on pop culture: TheOutsider as Hero of Urban Mythol-ogy in Supefl; and Sha/i, for in-stance. or Elysian Fielders: TheChrono-Spatial Existentialism ofProfessional Baseball. lt's strident
96$PYMAR(H 1989
Jprezzatura. risk-t'ree scholarship:the text, the footnotes and the titlepage will lock perfectly legitimateto professors and parents, while thetopic (camouflaged in academicjargon, as in Strategies for Hetero-sexual Interaction in Singles Bars)is a wink to classmates and yourown ironic self that youre not reallya grade-grubbing weenie.
None of the titles cited in thepreceding paragraph is, as far as weknow, an actual thesis. Those cata-loged below. howeverattention.Alla,, B/oom!arc real titles fromAmherst, Harvard. Stanford andYale.
. 'The Glory Shall Be a Defense:The L969 Mets and New YorkCity (1984). Elvis as Hero of Global VillageCulture (1984). 'Rebuilding the Dream: Artificeand Authenticity in the American
for instance, all the first names oi the Brady Bunch.The only thing more unnerving than the
proliferation of air (lU0tC (Between my significaztother' and ,ny 'career. I .co,neli,ne.c wonder whether
goingfor the good life znake sense) is when theyimperceptibly fade away. Camp Lite, after all,began with a genuine ironic impulsethe first fewdozen l980s buildings with columns, the first fewhundred times They laugh alike, they walk alike.at times they even talk alike' was sung by youngadults late at night, the first few thousand menho buttoned their top shirt buttons. But after a
million and then 10 million repetitions, the onceironic gesture begins to lose the perversity thatmade it interesting in the first place.
In the middle of an Irony Epidemic, nothing staysironic for very long: in record time, the vogue forsixties fashion (peace symbols, miniskirts, Day-Gb) evolved from a jokey cognoscenti revival to astraight-faced mass-market merchandisingphenomenon has already drifted, for the secondtime in two decades, toward the dustheap of thepassé. From Avenue C to K Mart in five years flat,via Elle and MTV - such is the force of Camp Lite.A knowing Bohemian flicker becomes a mindlessnational bonfire, mock nostalgia turns into the realthing. What starts out as a perverse, essentiallyironic appreciation of the detritus of the last severaldecades of porkpie hats, Mr. Ed, Twister, LedZeppelin, poodle skirtsvery quickly becomes an
Shopping Mall (1985). 'All My Children: A LiteraryStudy ofSoap Operas' (1985). 'Organized Summer Camping:Ari Institution of Stability forAmerican Youth in Times of Transi-
tWO (1986). . 'I Heard lt Through the Grape-%'me': An Exploration of theMotown Sound ( 1986). 'Why Spock Isnt Captain: Con-trol and Self-Determination inflAR TREK (1987). Nostalgia for the 1960s in pu-
lar Culture: The Mythification ofthe Age of Aquarius' (1988). 'Rhymin' and Stealin ': TheBeastie Boys Phenomenon 1987'(1988)
Gets you thinking, doesn't it After
all, s'ou have always thoughtScrooge McDuck was an overlookedmanifestation of the Jay Gatsbyechos. You can champion the causeof the common man, proving therelevance and value of TV showsand T-shirt slogans by means ofpseudo-Derridean deconstructionand favorable comparison with suchaccepted academic benchmarks as
the Eliot canon and tribal courtshiçrituals. You can (lUOte both RolandBarthes and Larry the dorm janitot(a typical McDuck fan). ks all aslightly more intellectual version ofthe Bu: Dad. Jeui had long hair.
dinner-table argument. And ncmatter how hard you work on it.you are still, after all, getting creditfor reading cornici: indeed, you rcliving the undergraduate dream -obeying authority while giving thtimpression that you're not the sortof person who obeys authority.
Il. "The 'Real' World: Toward arUnderstanding of the Problem ofP o s t g r a d u a t e - C a r e e r- D e c is io r
Deferral Processes"
You've graduated. Your thesisgrader conceded that Huey. Dewe)and Louic did resemble, to somtextent, a zoomorphic tripartite NickC.arraway. Now what Get a job'That would be as embarrassinglystraightforward as .... cIl . . . hay'
ing written a serious thesis. The al'ternative Lu.e ¡be joke-graduate
school.
/.'#_f
automatic, essentialls earnest appreciation. As thisdede began , posrniodern archi eccs and paintersvcre playing around, fun-lovingly quoting the
taboo past with their cartoony colonnades andcorny ar(hes. their human hgures and rea!is:1tabicaux; beÍoc the decade was half over. thepostnodernists wert proffering their columns andportraits with deadly eriousncss. As this dec4tkbegan Bob and Betty thought kidney-shapedcotee tables were amusing inonstros:ries: as thc:decade ends. Bob and Betty consider them nierelystylish. Does anyone think Neu Yorker editorRobert Gottlieb doesnt ,?a'//i like PIastR pttses?The Irony Epidemic has been a way for all kinds oftaboo stvks to sneak past the tastefulnessauthorities Doit ,,,ind ii. ue.'e jI5I Aiddiiig andthen, Once inside. turn serious. By the end of theBush administration. Grand Funk R.ulroad will beon a smash comeback tour.
During the Irony lpidcmic. even interestingartists become arr dirernrs in anrhropologistsLioching, advaiu.e men for Camp l.ite: in his filmrriie Storie.. David Byrne .00cd over Dust Bowltrdiler aiks, teased hair and prefab shopping mallsas if rnurmnurmg. J mii:! get ihat po/e /a'ìipfoi pry
!oJL' Direiiors John Waters. Jonathar Demme andSusan Seideirnan, in films suh as liai rcp y-ay.laried io ¡he Ivlob and Alaking ìv1; Right. have also
indulged in kitsch glu. piling the screen wir hotpink T-Bird converiblcs aiid rustling proni
Dade around 1975, as papers onidside diners began appearing inlemic journals and spaghetti-
stern experts became full proles-s, American Studies departmentsned their attention from the his-ically significant (e.g., Herman4vilk) to the quaint and the corn-
opiace (e.g. . Herman Munster).w graduare school can be a per-
t mark-time paradise. scholarship
a smirk, the ultimate noncom-tta1 ironic life-style.
HGoing Pro: The Ethnosocio-
cal Implications of the Pre-Postdoctoral SeIf-Justifica-Process"
komc to the faculty. Youve set-
in at your Qrrel, d«orating it
Trans Formers and Caesars Pal-postcaids. Your oflice hours arcred on the door, between unir-ionally hilarious National En-
rtr clippings and Xcroxed pagesn the I 953 Boy Scoui Handbook.
I go to all che grad-studentce air quotes here mixcrs in
ESSO gas pumper's jumpsuit
and an Rl:K memorial bolo rie. Youfancy yourselfa human hodgepodgeof amusing American trash.
But somewhere along the way,the savvy smirk has become an al-fecrionate grin. The implicit irony ofstudying the Godzilla/Mothraschism or K Mart iconography hasbeen replaced by reverence. You ac-rually start believiirg that ScroogeMcDuck can tell us quite a hitabotit ourselves as Americans.
Eventually you trade in yourhand-painted hula-girl tie andBrooklyn Dodgers cap for a tweeda&et and Bean boots both worn.
of course, ironically; once you wereMaynard G. Krebs, now youreProfessor Lawrence from Gidge:. Inpursuit of tenure, you publish anarticle in the Journal of Arnerwan
Culture, put out by Bowling GreenState University and the IpularCulture Association. You flesh outyour McDuck thesis (expanding theMeyer Wolisheim/Gyro Gearlooseparallel) and submit it. hs as rele-vant now as it ever was, and ifs sure
to measure up alongside these actualexcerpts from recent issues of theJol:
petticoats to be applauded on their knack 1or retrochk. The trend toward re-created fifties chromiumdiners. like Ed Debevic's :n Chicago and L.A. , orManhatrans Dine-o-Mats. are pure exercises inovereager Camp Lite merchandising. Dine-o Matoil Third Avenue and 5 7th Street teems withwhere-irs-at youngsters at all hours; the genuineI bm & Hardart Automat (owned bs' the samecorporation as the ersatz Dine-o-MaO. at 42nd andThird. is patronized by a few bums amid cops andhousehold workers. Camp Lite produced theMonkees reviva I the brand-name-studded pages ofStephen King and Ann Beattic. the return of ugarsmoking, white cotton anklets worn with highheels and the concept of Deb of the Year.
(;alrlp Lite does not celebrate orsavage: it doesnor gc-c its hands dirty. Camp Lite is aboutavoidance. Today's irony-stricken yuppie lives interror of becoming . . . anything. Staking a claimcan inspire ridicule: )oure a Iauve'Y Admitting tomarriage. parenthood to iri,tcurity lii iplies
aging. stolidity. 1f everything is a pose, a sitcomriff. then soute still a kid. just goofing around.
Lhe punk movement, exported to the U.S.during the earl years o1 the Irony Lpidemic,became a pretext for a cerrin kind ofCamp Liteartifactsafety-pin jewelry. Astor Place Mohawks,Debbie Harry. And punk was a way for nerds to becool; a ccrta;n lev artlessness and arch eggheadlyrics (ly 6R1/ding ha.r every conz'enzence/lt s going
REINTERPRETING THE FiniEs: CHANG.
iN(i Vjtw or A Duu. DECADE (Sum-
mer 1985) Put in the context ofthe Happy Days format, was it astable. simple era of Richie Cun-ninghams or a fantasy-land popu-
kited with Fonzie-like rebels?
THF WHIMSEY AND ITS Cocrr.xis: A
MULTI-CULTURAL MODEL 0E MATERiAL
CULTURE STUDY (Spring 1986)The model is illustrated by an ex-amination of a distinct type ofbeaded novelty object made by Tus-carora Iroquois women and mar-keted as a souvenir in the touristarea of Niagara Falls.
- TImE LOVE BOAT ; HiuH ART ON THE
HIGH SEAS (Fall 1983) Thestudy includes a surprising list ofsome ocher behaviors that were ob-served to be accompanying or inter-rupting viewing: looking out ofwindows, picking Ofl&S nose,scratching . . . smoking, rocking ...dressing and undressing, posing .
reciting . . . fighting . . . throwingthings . . . mimicking or answeringthe TV . . . picking up objects . .
pacing. asking questions about the
.1-v, teasing and hair combing wereamong some of these behaviors.This extensive list is cited because it
reveals the complexity of televisionviewing behavior.
THE MCDONALDIZATION or SOC1ETY
(Spring 1983)
THE VENEREAL CoNFRoNTs THE
'FNERAßLE: P-LAYOOY ON CHRISTMAs
(Winter 1984) The costumeswhite beard has fallen round herneck to cover the front of her ho-som; her buttocks stick out from thecostum&s waistband.
CALIFORNIA GIRLSANDTHE AMERICAN
EDEN (Winter 1984)
COMIC BOOK LUDDITE: THE SAGA OF
MAGNUS. ROBOT FIGHTER (Spring/Summer l984)Asacomic book,Magnni, Robo: Fighter falls into thatamorphous category known as pop-ular culture,' part ofrhe literature ofthe masses, the vernacular readingof the common folk. Because ofrhis, comic books have only recentlybecome the subject of serious schol-arly inquixy. Paul Simzni
MAR( II )X) 5PY
Çk4to make life easyfor îiie) became, in the case ofTalking Heads, ironic rock, Sondheim for kids.Dylan had made alienation stylish, but now irchuckled instead ofwhined. As the Irony Epidemickicked into high gear Sid Vicious, a bona fideangry young punk, recorded, sniggeringly, MyWay. And today even rap music, the(]uintesscntial underclass form , incorporatessnatches of thc I Dream ofJeannie theme; who saysCamp Lite is lily-white?
Victims of the Irony Epidemic do not dreadcommitment they fear uncoolness. When Bobvears his garish shirts or his black-rimmed nerdglasses. he implicitly announces, I am aware enoughto apprenait the .cquarcnc.us of this shirt und these
glasses; I don't like the,e i get them. When Bettydons her thrift shop Ilolly Gulightly strapless, shewears ir as a costume, so she cant be accused ofbecoming her mother. Bob and Betty idolizeLetterman; because he keeps things goofy andlight, there's no danger of embarrassment.Letterman is enormously talented, of course, hut hecan become the hipsters Perry Como. Letterman,as the avatar of Camp Lite, as Mr. Ambivalence, isusually thrown b' anything truly, weirdly campy.Pee-wee Herman makes him uncomfortable, asdoes Sandra Bernhard. Pee-wee and Bernhardpossess the heedless risk of true camp. They toywith gender, with anguish and dementia.
CAMP LITE
. Watching a videocassette of One Mi//ton
Years B.C. , starring Raquel Welch as a
cavewuman
. Having a cookout. wearing madras Bermu-das and playing Beach Boys talxs
. Giving someone a copy of Jackie CollinssHollywood Wives as a joke gift
s Ritual group viewings of Lifestyles of ¡heRkh and Famous
s Attending the Warhol auction
(
¿.%T'!/
98 SPY MARCH 1989
TRUE CAMP
s Working OUt tO Raquels exercise video and
wondering if Tahnec, Raquel's daughter, isa happy girl
s Attending the trial of a particularly ba-roque serial killer
. Buying a gown from The Dynasty Collec-Lion and wearing 1oecr Krystle toilet
water
. Watching only those L:fes:y/cs segments
that feature Donna Mills behind the IronCurtain
. Attending the Warhol funeral
Letterman is far happier around people like LarryBud Melman, his proprietary piece of flesh-and-
blood found humortargets, curious oafs,threatless.
Camp Lite tends to focus on the mild, the rural orsuburban, and the male. Witness Letterman'sfixation on small-town news items, on animal actsand the lad who nurtured the largest okra in luwa.Camp Lite yearns for childhood in a wheat field,adolescence ori the beach at Rinón; Dad at thebarbecue is God. Camp Lite, at worst, is a cocktailparry that descends into group renditions of thetheme from The Flinistones and critical debatesabout whether Gill:gan ever got oW the island.
The Reagan years have been Camp Lite incarnate,the great winking downside of the Irony Epidemic.
By seeing Reagan as a joke, as Mr. Magoo or DonDeFore's dim Mr. B froto Hazel, young Americadenatured him. No one had to dwell on theugliness of his policies if he was treated as acartoon, sleepily wed to Cruella De Vil. VotingRepublican l'ias become a pose rather than a sin.
Air quotes abound nowadays. Air quoteseliminate responsibility for one's actions, one'schoices. Bob tells co-workers wich a grin that heSsgot to get home toraise hands, insert air quoteshere the little woman, or to ¡he wife and kids, as ti
his family didn't really exist, as if he's still a wildand uazy guy. Betty tells friends she's ultra-TypeA and, with air quotes, a yuppie madwornan, sothey won't imagine she actually enjoys her 12-hourdays at the firm.
Aïr quotes undermine any real art. The paintingsof David Salle, endlessly and almost purelyreferential, Moonlighting, even Who Framed Roger
Rabbitall of them are Xeroxed clip jobs, CliffsNotes on fondly remembered original works of thepast. Real art and regular hobbies you can happilyexperience in solitude. But given the choice, whowould play miniature golf or go to a Cindy
Sherman show alone Art in the age of air quotesrequires a fellow smirker, someone else smartenough to get it. Irony is a group sport. A certainSOft of postgraduate hoy can go with otherpostgraduate boys to'a'atch strippers and enjoy the sho's ironically;alone, he would consider himself pathetic.
Camp Lite uses irony as an anesthetic, an escaperoute. It is a breed of timidity, a reluctance to rockthe yacht. Camp Lite can redeem itself, bycultivating some danger, some bracing recklessness.some of the alienating weirdness that spawned it.Otherwise, Camp Lite will remain a smug reflex, apainless roost for guys 'n' gals without imaginationor real spunk, a mask for easy condescension-I /oveJoe Franklin.'The place ofJoe Franklin may be a benchmark
for the remarkable sweep of the Irony Epidemic,circa l99. Franklin now knov.'s he has become anobject of jokes, a piece of found humor. He evenclaims to be complicit in the process. Look, myfriend,' Franklin told the Timei, Billy Crystal, he'sdoing a satire on a satire. list putting on the wholeworld I'm tongue-in-checking every moment ofmy life.' Nor is he the only one: Thh Hunterappeared in a John Waters movie, Frankie Avalonand Annette Funicello made the Camp Lite Back tothe Beach in 1987, Robert Goulet was in bothBeetlejiiice and Scrooged, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Charoflounced around on Pee-wee's CBS special lastChristmas, Vanna White suggests she understandsshe's just a Pet Rock with blond hair and breasts.When the kitsch starts talking back Look, I know
I, schlock, I knau; i'm ajoke it's almost enough tomake a person turn earnest.
ATINO MEAT LOAF NEAR THE UNIS
LET US NO PRAISE THE UNITTINGY
In big, interesting cities today (and nowhere more than New York) it seems that almost everything
and everybody is hip willfully, relentlessly hip. There is slick-as-glass modern sophistication the
women's store at Barneys, Broadway Video and the World Financial Center, Gregory Mosher
and Richard Meier. And, more to the present point, there is quasi-Bohemian hip, the hip of those
people and places with carefully calibrated ironic posesTrixie's, the East Village and Broadcast
Arts, Paul ShatTer, Tama Janowitz, Buster Poindexter. Practically everyone is hipand everyone
knows it. -i Except, that is, for the unwittingly hip. 1f the world today deaves into two groups,
they are those who aîimse themselves with kitsch (people like Paul Shaffer and Tamajanowitz) and
those who just plain likeor arekitsch. The unwittingly hip are a subset of the latter group, thoseprecious few artifacts and entities and people and places that are accidentally, naively avant-garde
that look really, really cool but don't know it. The unwittingly hip is a niche occupied by just barely
old-fashioned packaging and decorations of a certain no-longer-swanky era, by old Las Vegas and
post-deco Miami Beach, by objects that have decayed in a way that happens to appeal to aesthetes at
the end of the century. The unwittingly hip are those people and styles that are, in 1989, precisely
the right number of years behind the times. ' There is unwitting hipness all over America and the
world the rural South is chockablock with it, and beauty parlors are good bers. And New York,
despite its aggressive stylishness, has a rich supply of the unwittingly hip. That's partly because the
city still takes in tens of thousands of immigrants every year, earnest naïfs who have neither the
indination nor the training to be hip deliberately, people who wear wide Day-Gb flowered ties and
clunky black Buddy Holly glasses because that's all they own, people who decorate their storefronts
with tin and Caribbean aquas because that's what they know. It's also because in New York, the
shopkeepers selling tinsel on 22nd Street orladies' hats on lower Broadway for the last 30 or
40 years are still in business, looking just as they
did when Eisenhower was elected president and
atomic energy sounded neat. Thus, with a
mandate to document the innocently with-itand naively stylish wherever we found it, pho-
tographer JENNY LYNN roamed the city fordays. The results of our search are on thefollowing pages along with some of the corre-
sponding wittingly hip places and things that
have proliferated during the Irony Epidemic.
F-
MARLU98') SPY )
:::f;
--.-!UNWTTINGLY HIP: leftover 1940s shoes at Encslow Shoes. 924 Broadway. WITNGLY
HIP: Tootsi Plohound, i 10 Prince Street.
UwIrrINLYHIP:
r1.
UTTINGLYH:thel9Mó5k.
UHWITTINGLY HIP: Highlights Worlds Fair unisphere, Fluch-I
for Children. WITTIHGIY HIP: Ifl9 Meadow Pork, Queen%.' Metropolis. -" WITTIÑGY HIP: Globey, from Pee-wee's Playhousc.
i - , :
-.
.l1 ,' ;
b UNWITTINGLY HIP: Genroku Sushi's
I
conveyor-belt service, Fifth
.
Avenue. WITTINGLY HIP: Dine-o-Mats conveyor-belt
scrce, circo 1985, 175 Madison Avenue.
UNWITTINGLY HIP: OTB
habitue, Chinatown. WITTINGLY HP: Elvit Costello.
(UNWITTINGLY HIP: coke dipIoy with
lova lamp, Lo Deuce Pastry Shop,
372 Third Avenue. WITTINGLY HIP:
sculpture by Thomas Lanigon Schmidt, Holly Solo-
mon Gallery (price: around $30,000).
ii
r .........
- w SPotJ!f
UIWITTINGLY HIP: sign in coffec shop,
Second Avenue and 55th Street. Wir.
TINGLY HIP: SPY mo%thead artwork.
UNWITTINGLY HIP: win-
dow display at Fash-
ion Hats, 579 Broad-
way. WIrTINGLY HIP: window display at New
Republic Clothier, 93 Spring Street.
Iir' '...Ç4 V
1L:¿ssTt11! 1f T(I'-?ssI,IIg f4q ,.
(Vffr.I1!uIwt !L!. I c'i. . - 'J .--.-
G:.) L
:UNWITTIN LY HIP De Witt Bros Tool ' UNWITTINGLYHIP plaeesei'hngatSil c
Company, 237 Lafayette Street. WITTINGLY HIP: verStarRestaurant, 1236 Second Avenue. WITTINGLY
Meriken restaurant, 162 West 21st Street. HIP:T-shirtfromDesignEast,7SecondAvenuc.
.'w
/
:
,
UNWITTINGLY HIP: as%orted current grocery-store-bought objects. WITTIPGLY HIP: menu and matches designed by M&Co. design firm for
Rc%taurant Florent.
MARCH I9t9SPY W
UNwITTINGLY HIP: rn
loaf, $4.50 with two v
tables, Blomsy Stone,
Esghth Avenue. Wry-nH
HIP: meat Ioaf $8.5
pound. Dean L Delu560 Broadway.
TT
UNWITTINGLY HIP: posters in Vanity Fair Cleaners, 376 Third Av.--4
nue. WITTINGLY HIP: ade for Reminiecence clothing store
UNWITTINGLY HIP: street person, tower Broadway.
WITT1HGIY peP: Alice FarJey. performance artist.
iq
.
IUNWITTINGLY HIP: Futurama Clean-. I
ers, 158 Avenue C. WITTINGLY HIP:-
:
BowI-O-Romc, published by Abbeville Press, 986
UNWITTINGLY HIP: Betty's Juice Stand, east side of Lofoyette Street at Bond.
;:-- Wnipiy HIP: the Big Kohuno, 622 Broadway.
102 SPY MARCH 19t') RESEARCH ASSISTANCE BY ELISSA SCHAPPELL.
UNWITTINGLY HIP: oxidized copper
floater in older toilet tanks. WIT.
TINGLY HIP: oxidized copper candie-
sticks from Rogers.Tropeo Inc
IF THERE WERE AHARVARD SCHOOL OF FITNESS,
THIS WOULD BE IT.Oall the fitness centers and health clubs 14 ft. windows that allow an abundance of
New York has to offer, one outranks them natural light.
all: Doral Saturnia Fitness Center. Everything for your comfort is included: AHere, men's and women's programs full-size personal locker for maximum privacy.
are tailored to personal goals, then we team you Toiletries and amenities for your groomingU)) with a top-rated trainer who works with you needs. Training attire and big thick towelsone-on-one. always clean and fresh the moment you arrive.
This assures you quality training time, sur- liì all, Doral Saturnia Fitness Center offersrounded by facilities as Luxurious and exclusive a kvel of training that is simply not availableas our Park Avenue address suggests. anywhere else.
Our exercise rooms are spacious Call us,we'llbehappyto arrangeaand plush, with vaulted ceilings and
) I' a I
tour for you and introduce our staff.
SATUR. A
FtTNESSCENT
DORAL SATURNIA FITNESS CENTER90 PARK AVENUE (39th Street), PEW YORK. NY
212.370-9692
VOTE: I)oral Saturn ui Fitneis Center i. part ofihe Doral Hotel and Resort gniup, including the lu.zurious DoralS(1111r721(z Ifl(t'flU2IiOflal Spa Resort in Miami, Florida. Ask about our Florida bonu.cfnr new menther in New York.
11OBSING, I tJ l%J I
A long haul with
afew ofthe pack mules
ofthe rag trade
BY IGN*TZ RAZTWIZKIWZKI
A merkin is awell. isnt a merkin a sor ofsmall kind ofwig Aminiature type of basically triangle-shaped hairpiece? But smallA sort of wiglet? Worn (Juite privately?
GQ's arbiter of style, Richard Merkin, is one of
R E V I EW those people who seem to he simply bursting witho E personal styleso much SO that he defies ordinary
R E V J W E R S labels. GQ identifies him as an artist and writerwho lives in New York. But you get the feeling
from reading his monthly column, calledMerkin on Style, that mere nouns comenowhere close to capturing the man. Letme see if I can't do a little better:
Richard Merkin. one-third of those ThreeAmigos of Bespoke (the other two being TornWe/ft and lawyer Eddie Whaddaya, Whad-daya' Haye.r) has jilci One outrageous opinionafter another. He thinkr Meryl Streep is over-rated and that the New York Post is on-
iernptib/e." He is quite comfortable hobnobbingwith classy. rich aristocrats.
Or this:Richard Merkin is a right-wing An-
glophiliac old fart, but young people respecthim because he has the guts to tell it like it is.?Jáfl (Show me a guy who refers to women as'ladies' or to his companion as 'my lady, andIll shou' you a macho chauvinist, whether hebe in gold chains or striped braces").
Or maybe this:Richard Merkin is a master ofibe nieniora-
6/e phrase. as in his description of eccentrics:'Likepandas, they are proofofthe Lord's senseofhunor, and, like pandas, they preftr not tocopulate upon request."
Richard Merkin is a sort of GQ-ish Os-car Wilde, in other words. Eccentrics and
copulating pandasyes, that's it exactly.Merkin is something of an eccentric
himself, as no doubt he would be the firstto admit (while grabbing you by the lapelsand wheezing, Yeti knau I'm something ofan eccentric myself). Many of his columnsinclude his pet articulation, rnidtb, agrating, pseudo-Chaucerian neologismthat apparently means the same thing asamid: When I was growing up inGotham, midrh a plethora of shops . .
(Merkin on ordering clothes from cata-logs); Midth a plethora of olduniforms . . . (Merkin on retirement);Here, midth the 'bop cardigan& and the
pegged pants with contrasting saddlestitching and 'pistol pockets' . . . (Merkinon himself as a young dog); Midth theconformity of this Kevin Costner Look-alike Contest that runs from coast wcoast . . . (Merkin on eccentrics).
Merkin also makes misuse of a phrasefrom Shakespeare. Hamlet at one pointdescribes a certain play as having beencaviare to the general, meaning that it
was too fine ro be appreciatc(l by ts vulgaraudience, the general populace. Merkinhabitually Zarhl(s the phrase and gives trexactly the posite meaning. When hesays that three songs sung by Bobby Shortwould be caviar for the general, he means
1-j
that they are so wonderful that they are fitfor a commanding ofhcer. He commits thesame error in another column, a journeyback w his adolescence: These apocalypticvisions bring to mind a flashback to thosecheery halcyon days when shopping was aglorious activity, and New York a Casbahof che serendipitous for a young man seek-ing, and often finding, the caviar reservedfor the general.
This last sentence also provides a taste ofMerki&s usual prose style: the deflating,superfluous checrj the awkwardness of aflashback being brought to mind (and byviiions?); the whiff of the thesaurus.
Like Esquire Cthat compromisedmummy R. Merkin), GQ vaguely imi-tates the Esquire of the (lays when Esquiremeant something. Both magazines reek ofperfume. Fashion spreads in both are outof the Vogue mold: scowling. low-IQ typesin striped pants, checked shirts, plaid jack-ets and polka-dot tics, and, often, awoman with her hoobs hanging out.(What better accessory for a well-dressedguy than a half-dressed gaP)
The trouble with fashion reviewing inany magazine is that so much of ir is sonakedly calculated to suck up co advercis-ers. Of course, magazines themselves arenakedly calculated to suck up to advertis-ers. But the fashion writers really burrowdown there and slurp.
Off. and on over the last decade, Esquirehas run winter features on the tuxedo. Theonly theme connecting these pieces is aneagerness to please those who pay the bills.One year dinner jackets with shawl lapelsare dismissed as a staple of bandleadersand headwaiters [that) rarely looks any-thing hut dated and lackluswr ( I 980);
the very next year the same jacket is hailedby the same reviewer as a subdued, time-honored choice. In I 987 Esquire coun-seled no loopy prints or noisy colors forevening wear; in 1988 the lead phow-graph in the ux spread featured a loopyprint in a noisy colora swirling printedvelvet ves( in gold and, in an ad for LordWest four pages later, a vest and tie in aneven loopier print and decidedly noisiercolors. In GQs tuxedo feature that samemonth, the scowling, low-IQ type model-ing the dinner jacket was accompanied bythree naked women lolling around in pud-dies of blue paint.
For the grumpy magazine reader, there'sa certain amount of fun in watching clothesreviewers jump through hoops in order to
say what they think the advertisers wantthem to say. Its nothing about nothing,season after season: 1t has everything to dowith attitude. Toward quality. Towardstyle. Toward detail' (Esquire on the NewYork Look). 'At every moment, a consis-tency in attitude . . . and in the way a lookcomes together - with striking accessoriesand with the kind of unexcessive makeupand hair that maintain the 'purity (Vogue
on fall fashions and, I guess, the newunexcessiveness). 1t is a season for fillingin gaps in a wardrobe and replacing oldfavorites. Now is the time to buy a blackswearer, a couple of good pairs of pants,skirts in several lengths and styles, a newjacket, and even a dress or two' (NewYork's Michael Gross on fall fashions andthe new understaredness). Designers havegone mad for plaid this season. But then,plaid has never really been out of fashion(Neu' )rk'5 Wendy Goodman on, uh, thenew plaidness).
7 Days (a magazine eerily referred toorally by several of its editors as us, as inHave you seen us?) recently made a he-
roic efFort to scare up a little cologne adver-rising. At the end of a lame essay on theimportance of after-shave, Allen Framesuddenly breaks out of Earth orbit: 1
would like ro imagine a cologne for myself.There would be fresh top noces of a sunnysouthern childhood, lemon and orange,with a body of herbaceous rural isolation(and floral notes of magnolia and honey-suckle) blending unexpectedly with a spicyurban frenzy, drying down to a base note ofamber woody retreat.'
Yuck!
In closing, a few odds and ends concern-ing the nation's two greatest newspapers:
Mervyn Once Upon a Time' Roth-stein, the Times theater reporter with a flairfor arresting first sentences (see January/February Review of Reviewers). has out-done himself recently. Here's how he begana piece about Richard Greenberg, therubby author of Eastern Standard, a playabou some young people who take abag lady to their house in the Hamptons:'U.K. , Richard Greenberg, let's get to thepoint right away.'
Take a closer look at that lead. Seem-ingly without effort, Rothstein has grabbedthe reader's attention and fixed it on themessage, or point, of his story. He con-tinues, 'You. a self-acknowledged yuppie,have been termed a defender of yourbreed. So what do you have to say for
yourself, Mr. Greenberg From there tothe end of the story it's very easy sailing forRothstein: he merely strings together foot-age from his tape recorder.
I wish someone would explain to mewhy the Times employs most of its musicreviewers. The lamest recent offering (in avery crowded field) is Jon Pareles's Sundaythink piece, 'Art and Rock: An 80's LoveAffair.' Pareles's contention is that art androck are inextricably linked in some brand-new way.
Music and art have never been strang-ers,' Pareles concedes. Musicologists studyilluminated manuscripts to determine theshape of a lute; the Cubists wore out theircharcoal sketching cafe guitarists. But overthe last decade rock has replaced classicalmusic as the primary musical inspirationfor art to the point where the two mayseem inseparable.
Fm only sorry that Pareles couldn'tthink of a third example of the historicallink between art and music. Didn't Mi-chelangelo whistle while be worked?
Runner-up in the competition for theLaziest Reviewer of 1988 Award is BrockYates, The Washington Post Magazine's au-tomotive reviewer. Yates devoted an entirecolumn to a 'long drive' he said he hadtaken 'last night. Nothing happened dur-ing this drive. The brand of automobilewas not specified. Yates's column was filledwith the sort of facts that don't have to belooked up: meandering deer cause 'count-less' collisions; alcohol probably leads to'an inordinate number' of late-night acci-dents; nighttime travel is preferred bymany' people; on journeys after dark,drowsiness can impede progress.'
The Laziest Reviewer of 1988 Awardgoes to the Times's chief film critic, Vin-cent Canby. who seems to find even theundemanding task of rewatching old mov-ies too demanding. Reviewing Dirty Rot-len Scoundrels, the remake of BedtimeStory, he writes: 'Except for its title, theearlier film has receded from memory, butI canOt imagine that it could have beenanywhere near as entertaining as (DirtyRotten Scoundrels). A week later the in-dustrious Mr. Canby was in the rigorousthroes of critiquing Dangerous Liaisons.Though I have fond, fuzzy memories of[a1959 Roger Vadim version of the story),'he writes, "I can't imagine that it couldcome anywhere near the [current) versionin terms of witty, entertaining, if occasion-ally overripe decadence. )
MARCH 1989 SPY los
a street
which ¡s
u n rn i s t a k a b Iv
New York
is a bistro
which is
unmistakably
Paris.
ÖUATÖRZ
240 West 14th Street
NewYork City
Tel 206-7006
Accepting
only OflC
card.
;t
Á:;43112 8
C us$1
MembershipHas Its Privileges
AmCtk Epft, Tr,c) Rth,ed Scn ompirn. In
IO6SPYMARCH 198.9
F I1%III
KIDS¡1oI/yz ood's liti/est sIarr
and biggest egos
in their middle ages
B Y C L L I A B R A D Y
A short story: This is a shortcolumn about a short subject with a shorttemper and a big cgo. Yes, I know e:'ey-
1T1[11Hollywood fits this
,!TIW-1general description. But to
IP4OUSTY he more specific, let'schoose just one person.Let's choose . . . oh . . . how
about Dustin Hotfman' He's certainlyshort (five foot six). And he is certainlyknown for his incendiary (offscrecn) per-formances with producers. writers and di-rectors. And he has a hit movie out now,Rain Man, costarring Tom Cruise.
Hoffman was apparently so upset by thefailure of his Elaine MayWarren Beattydesert epic, ¡chiar, that his agent, CreativeArtists Agency's Mike the ManipulatorOvitz, told him to stop fretting and makesome movies - most notably Rain Man,which had been in development for years.(Virtually all of Hoffman's pictures havelong. tortured development histories asmovies that rise high above the pedestrianoften do. Director Robert Benton and pro-ducer Stanley Jaffe anguished for years try-ing to ge Kra,,ier vs. Kranier made. Toolsiewent through no fewer than eight writersand two directors before Sydney Pollackcame aboardonly to endure continuoussuabbling with Hoffman.) On Rain Man,director Martin (Ber'erly Hills Cop, Mid-night Rim) Brest, another Ovita client, wasoriginally going to direct; hut following theusual creative differences, Hoffmanbrought in Pollack, who did his own treat-
ment. Pollack was replaced by StevenSpielberg (an Ovitz nonclient!), who also(luit the proju. Enter Barry Levinson. adirector with the proper credentials for aMike Ovitz package: ( i ) he has had astring of welt-regarded hits Diner, TheNatural, Tin Men, Good Morning, Vietnam:(2) he is a client of Ovins; (3) he is one ofOvitz's closest friends; and (4) he has de-veloped a reputation for solving difiktiltscript problems and working congeniallywith big-name actors.
According to people who worked onRain Man, Hoffman's greatest concern wasthat after the enormous failure of lihtar hemight have lost his audience. The primemoviegoing audience ( i 8-to-24-year-olds)turns over every few years. And since actorslike Hoffman and Warren Beatty onlyrarely actually make films, they may still bestars but only to people who don't go comovies anymore. And no marrer who youare or what you've made, the cold, hardbottom line remains: If you can't drawthem in, you're no longer a star. And ifyou're no longer a star, your previous priceof $5 million per picture plummets to afifth of that, and people are no longer will-Ing to submit to your tantrums on che set.
¡'('fr' e-lI Disney, Spark;'
Katzenberg 's eleal-niaking
(and -breaking) is
uzargiiah/y up Io snuff
(For a more complete demonstration of ca-reer ascension, see Burt Reynolds on thehoary Burr Reynoldsproduced TV gameshow Win, Lose or Draw.)
In an especiatly shrewd instance of ca-reer salvation, Hoflman's solution to theproblem of declining bankability was rooverrule the director, studio heads andcasting people and insist that the role ofthe younger brother in Rain Mana partoriginally conceived as a 38-year-old - bewritten for a 26-year-old. A 26-year-oldnamed Tom Cruise. In short, Hoffmanwanted Cruise's audiencethe Top Gankids who sort-of-bu (-not-quite remember
Hoffman as "the guy who dressed up inwomen's clothing in Toouie.
Hoffman took out similar audience in-surance on Sidney Lumet's Family Bujiness:
he signed only when he was certain thatMatthew Broderick and Sean Connerywere on board. The thinking here was,evidently. Why ?WI cover all the deniographù-
bases?
(Note: in an eerily parallel moVe, theother perpetrator of Ishtar, Warren Beatty,has also recently taken OUt a would-be ca-reer insurance policy by casting Madonnaas his love interest in Dick Tra'y. Beactyobviously felt he needed to be reintroducedto the underage lace glovesandbus:ierset. Do I see a trend here?)
All of which brings us ro Disney chair-man Jeffrey Sparky Katzenberg, who hasbeen credited with reviving the careers of ascreening-roomful of worthy but neverthe-less fading starsBete Midler, RichardDreyfuss, Lily Tomlin, Nick Nolte. Holly-wood being Hollywood, though,Katzenberg did not perform this sort ofname-above-the-title resuscitation entirelyas a product of from-the-heart altruism.Disney has a reputation as the financiallytightest studio; no matter what you werepaid on your last film. Disney will try topay you less. (More often than not this is asbeneficial to the career-in-decline acwrs asit is to the studio itself.)
Katzenbcrg's deal-making (and -break-ing) is unarguably up to snuff. Last yearDisney was scheduled to begin productionof The Dead Poets Society. The film was tobe made by Jeff Kanew. When the picturewas scheduled to begin shootingwithhundreds of thousands of dollars alreadyspent in preproduction costs - Kanew re-ceived an urgent call from Sparky tellinghim to stop.
J eff Kanew had been fired.New writers had been hired.In what some read as a career panic,
Dustin Hoffman had suddenly expressedinterest in directing and starring in thepicture.
There's a postscript. Reverting to his oldways (after being reasonably assured thatRain tt4an would be a hir). Hoffmanbacked out of The Dead Poe/s Society. Andthen, stuck without a (hector or a star,Disney hired Peter Weir and Robin Wil-hamsas it happens. a IflOfC promising-sounding package by far.
Grca tu have seen you at Don andJerry's in Aspen.)
V
s.
s II
I
I''W4&O*O I
'S% &-,%'1*OL VdIIO7 I's.1I VOI I
b'& iaAd
I
MARCH 19$9SPY
TIlE \X'IUTEI4'S Voict:
oft1u I3(st .Sid. ) Cnfrrfor Ilu' I ¡t
¡rse,i Is
THE END OF
THE CENTURY
An Evening of R'zdiugs
by SPY li titei
f ('(1 t 11 1lt4
BRUCE F1ADY
ANN HODGMAN
JOHN LEO
PAUL RuDNIcK
& Ei4tis WE1NEI
'I'I)tl Li . \Iarch I ô at 8 p. ni.
Ethial (tiluire At1(IitOri I I Ill
2 West 64th Street
.
.4 rPceJ)tion I,osu'dby.4rnar,qio di SuroisnutEiIIfOIIOlV tilE' rvitdh,gs.
.7îckeis $7 vii the door or in ada'a:aet' u,
Ilu? Ce,uf'rfor the .4rs ofjicv.. SPC(Ifl(ifloor.
Ire,, j(k )M(:1. ; u,o:r(Is,rer:Iond,yto 1/rubsy. ¡2ii.,it. to 7p.m.
(2121 787-6357111(H)
108$PYMAI(CH 1989
LJ 'V %J
wLI-I
Chapter One: Spend. spend, spend.
Chapter Five: Bilis, bills, bills.
Chapter EIez'en: Chapter 1 i
8 Y J A M L S G R A N T
As winrcr turns to spring America ¡s cvi-dently richer than ever. yet Americans inrecord numbers are going broke. Perhaps
there is a wholesome expia-- nation for this paradox, but.- THE
t: ST*ILT all of 1946 fewer than. -- 9,000 Americans declared
bankruptcy. whereas in1987 bankruptcy petitions were filed atthe rate of about 9,00() a u'eek.
It is easier to borrow money today thanit was in 1946. and it is casier to shuck offOfleS debts today too. The easier we makethe possibility of debt, rht preemincntphilosopher of debt. Freeman Tilden, pro-nounced in the 1930s, rhc more failuresthere will naturally be.
Tilden could not have imagined themass mailing of credit cards, the magnumleveraged huyout or the eve-year loan Oflche $29.95 Yugo (or, for that matter. the$650 million fines paid by insatiable unk-
I bond-peddling brokerage houses). Never-rhcless, he put his finger on somethingwhen he recast the fable of the grasshopperand the ant in modern terms: Behind allthe complexities of modern political econ-omy lies the simple fact that human beingsare, speaking generally, of two persuasions:the first would spend tomorrow what theyearn today; the second would spend todaywhat they hope to earn tomorrow'
The l980s have been the grasshopperdecade. Interestingly, persnal-l)ankru tcystatistics took a turn for the worse in chevery shank of the Reagan boom. In i 982.
the last recession year on record, 3 1 5,000bankruptcy cases were filed up from200,000 just three years earlier. Filings dc-dined ifl 1983 and 1984, as is customaryin prosperous years. Custom thereuponceased ro apply, as the FedraI Reserve Bui-
kim, an esteemed hut unread journal ofthe Federal Reserve Board, recently noted:Historical patterns went awry in 1985
and I 986 when bankrupcies shot up morethan 20 percent in each year despite thestrength of the economy. . . . On thewhole, the 1985-87 surge in bankrupr lesis a puzzling development. . . . Sort of likethe arrival of the Goths in Rome was apuzzling development and the Great De-pression was baffling.
On a faintly hopeful note, bankruptcyfilings through the first half of last yearwere up by a mere i 2.8 percent, less thanthe galloping rates in 1985 and 1986. Ona frankly worrisome note, however. chosesix months of i 988 were an ideal time notto go 1)roke - nobody had any excuse torun out of money. The economy was grow-ing and employment was rising, and thestock market crash was receding frommemory. lt is unnerving co realize thatthose were the good old days.
A truism of bankruptcy is that thedebtor has too many debts, but the recentstartling rise in credit card, charge accountand automobile loan debt (UI) tO 19 centsper dollar of disposable income from 14cents in 1984) is singled out by the ideraiReserve Bulietin as the root cause of thetrouble. 'A lessening of the stigma ofbankruptcy' was given as a subsidiarycause, but I wonder if the Federal Reserveauthors didnt underestimate the change in
social attitudes. No longer at all embar-rassed ro borrow, people are no longerafraid to welsh. The fraud that is prac-used under cover of insolvency. ¡s doubtlessche most extensive of all species of privaterobbery, said an official document of theSociety of Friends in the early nineteenthcentury. That was before S I 0,000 credi,lines and Optima cards and powerboatspurchased for no money down.
A recent Times story told of a New Yorksalesman who was swamped by credit cardapplications after he finished paying off acar loan. Soon he had seven credit cardsfrom five different banks, plus two credit
lines1
even though his annual income wasonly about $24,000 and came solely fromcommissions. When business slowed hebegan using the credit cards for living ex-penses. Several banks responded to his in-creased use of their cards by raising hiscredit limit. . . . Even after [he received]two dunning Ieters from a bank, a differ-cot group in the bank sent him a letteroffering to raise his credit line by an addi-donai S 1,000.
Note how the trouble started: the so-called victim gratuitously repaid his car
loan, thereby inciting virtually entrap-pingthe banks. If similarly tempted, adebtor should consult one of the recog-nized debt-counseling services, if he canget in the door. The National Foundationfor Consumer Credit has some 400 of-fices-twice as many as in 1986yet itstill cannot accommodate the overflow ofborrowers in search of help. Banks are flOtbeing diligent in invesdgating debt levels,"says David Caplovitz, a New York bank-ruptcy lawyer. One division of the bankdoesnt know what the other is doing."Doesnt know, and is probably afraid toask.
There is a moral side to bankruptcy thatsophisticated financial people are inclinedto dismiss as corny or irrelevant. Now thatAmerica is a debtor nation, however, thepersonal honor of the average americanomust begin co inform the national finances.The story of the surge in personal bank-ruptcies among individual Americans, I
should think, will play badly among theforeign holders of United States govern-ment debt. 1f Americans, in growing num-bers, are not paying their credit card debts,will these same Americans scruple to honortheir governments national debts I thinkI have the answer: yes, they will pay, and ingood money too, if that is convenient. D
\\
¡LA
/ACADILLACk/ BAR(
, &lI&14RI , pE!II1L
%?a4e s E N D
ME THES PT-SHIRT.
MADE OF WASHABLE.
WEARABLE 100% COTTON.
AVAILABLE ONLY IN
BLACK WITH YELLOW
\,\,\,\ \\/\/\,\/\,\/\/\/\/\,\/\/
MAMI
AbO*
aTT
STATI z. cool
QUANTTTY S ___ M...................L XL 1OTAlIòCI.QjID $_______
OFFII UMflID TO US ANO CAWADA. CANADIAN ltStMTT PUASI PAY U S SIS
00000WLY ws.i SuPII.Y LASTS PtSASI ALLOW 4 4 WIEKS FOI DIUVISY
LOGO
ENCLOSE CHICKOR MONEY ORDII(NO CASI! OR
CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED)
FOR $12 (iNCLUDES
POS TAGE AND HANDliNG,
NYSTATE RES ¡DENTh
ADD$25%SALES TANtSPECIFY QUANTITYDETACH COUPONAND MAIL TO:
SPY
295 LAFAYETTE ST.NY, NY 10012
MAR(} ( Os') SPY (('t
Ut. I 'I1 III
I1O$PYMARCH 1989
_ F F l%I
Why are they u'recking the
Yale hu.rineis school? And bote
will it look on mj CV'
sy M. SLOBOOKIN
Up in New Haven. former TV host andcurrent Yak president Benno Schmidt gota jump on rhc oncL-tradirional spring riots
ThLb appointing MichadLevine to he the new dean
----I;_ . . .
s of Yale s onceidealisttcSchool of Organization
.and Management. therebygranting Levine a mandate ti) preside overthe gutting of the graduate schools curric-ulum and OStCOSiL)Ie raison d'&re. Levine,a former professor at the school. is surelythe right man for the ¡ob. having gainedthe requisite experience by leginniig thedismantling of the Civil Aeronautics Boardduring the 1970s and presiding overun ion-huster Frati k Lorenzos nonunn)nNew York Air during the I9HOs.
The school. known as S()M, waslounded in I 97 3 to eøiiipete for t healtiinni donations of Yale College grado-ates 'ho too frequently went on to busi-ness school at Harvard or Stanford. andalso to train the public-sector executives ofcorni>rri )W. YaIes then Presi(Ienc , KingmanBrewster, eased the school on campus bydressing LIj) the capitalist Molí in woollyliberal clothing. But SOM was more suc-cessful in its high-minded endeavors thanfliOSt expected, and graduates now helprun such institutions as the GuggenheimMuseum and the Metropolitan Museum ofArr. This being the 1980s. however, muchtt(eUti()fl has OflC tO gradLiates who wenton ti) investment banks. SOM people al-ternately complain that sci many of theirgraduates have gone on to high-payingJObS on Street and brag that their
graduates are getting the same high-pay-ing jobs as other M.B.A. s. Among SOMfaculty and administrators there have beenfairly continual disputes over what thesclmol was or wasn't and whom it shouldor shi>ultlnt be training.
When the last dean resigned more thana year ago, Yale lormed a committee tosearch for someone who might resolve thesijuabbling over SOMs mission - but be-fore the committee could finish its work,Schmidt conducted his own search (Mike?
Hi. iii Benno . . . ), resulting in the selec-tion of Lvinc. who had been, oincidcn-tally. one of his best pals at Yak LawSchool in the precountercultural 1960s.SOI.Fs advisory hoard which includesCooper Union president John Jay Iselin,Alice Riviin of the Brookings Institutionand 1)ollar BilI Donaldson, a founder ofboth SOM and the investment bank Don-aldson, Lufkin & Jenretcereceived oth-dal word of Sclunidts new appointmentoiilv when it convened at the school for itsrtiziilar meeting the same day the appoint-Ifleill was made public. Iven thoughSchmidt didn't seek the advice of the advi-
e U'((S inJ/ìiencec/ "f;(j,,/
many. ìiany SOliPCéJ, ¡m/iu/in,
u ice, .ceuiolar/y Jrmer aii,we
general Edwin ,%1 cese
sorv hoard. he did let the members knowthroui.h The Neu' York Times that he wasinfluenced lrom many, many sources, in-eluding. as it happened, wise. scholarlyformer attorney general Edwin Meese.
Not long after, Dean I.evine began toenrage students and alumni. The unionpariah turned management sage explainedthat he wanted to transfrrn the professionalschool into a scholarly iflStitUtiOfl compara-hIe to \'ale Law School an analogy thatespecially intrigues those colleagues whoknow a1out Levine's own problems win-fling tenure at SOM (he barely got it) and aprofessorial apoifltfl1ef1t at the law school(according to a former law school colleague,he was judged LIfllUalified).
Levine has SO lar Shown a ñncly honedmanagcrs ability o rnal.w tough choices.hosvever. ¡tn(I never more so than when heannounced he 'Would JU1(. a/I nont.nured(acuity Íroni the organizational bthaviorJepdrtIneI,r because it was just to darnhard co deCick whom to keep. Then. Show-¡ng where he oines out in thc debate overwhv(Ikr A,ncrica ought to tucus its ener-gics on actually making things rather thanperpetuating the cirrint round of paper-pushing bust-ups and rtstructurings. zhenew dcan announced that the operationsresearch faculty the professors who teachthe unglamorous particulars of productionand quality control - woUld he moved (PUC
ut the school ro the íacu1t of arts andsciences. i1e finance kpartrnent. :nean-while. Which teaches the partku1ari of bust-ups and resrructurins, will almost surelyhave its standingand budget enhanced.
levines various chates (lic dedaredthat students !.°OUId lose all real functionon the SOM admissions coinmitlee. wherethe have served since l977) and his high-handed announcement ot them have an-ereJ alumni, wl)() spent their two years at
SOM being (Irifled 00 the importance ()tcooperative decision-making to assure th rLVC1)'()fle feels a jart of the process. Theorganizers 01 a letter-writing campaign tothe Yale (:or)ratti(, which rules over theniversitv, doubt that meir cuiorts Will dis-
lodkc Levine. But flOW he has managed towhip up their antipathy further by revisingand irnxunding a kter that the SOMAlumni Asso.iauon had written tu allpduaces. on the grounds that it was animplicit (ledaranon of ware tinti! he coukie( bis OWn. sernicoherent letter ou w
alumni.
The SOM drama has exacerbated theque-asy feeling in New Haven and beyondthat the tiresome wunderkind Schmidt.only three years into his presidency. was animl)erfcct choice for Yak. Schmidt stilllives on Eist )5rh Street in New York City,and he has been so invisible around Yalethat students have posted WHERE THE HII.L
Is BENNO' si1ns 011 caflÌpLIS. Even iii thecontinuity-worsh iping precincts of Sku Iland Bofles, the crucible that formedGeorge Rush, there .ire whispers thatSchmidt may not be long for New Haven.Which mijht suit him fine. it', as reasona-bic speculation has it, got his sights se-ron appointment by Bush to the Supreme(ourt. And unlike tlose nasty administra-tive jobs at Yale, that Svats (or life. )
,- -. . _: jVíSt
1mg
u/x' i;I,J- -
Finally Mexican Food That
Satisfies Even
TheToughest Food Critics.Years ago, you could lose more than your license br
serving tasteless tacos or inferior enchiladas. At Cinco De Mayoweadhere to the saine authentic recipes found in old Mexico.
Afterall, our critics wouldn't settle for anything less.
CINCODiMAYOCoil 2t lt 4lt W.i..t RflUldW,l 'r' ;ijI.Ii7(, i 45 Ttidr itv t1a:.
MARCh 19$9SPY Ill
I
EVERYBODY'SIH E S T A U R A N T
31 SECOND AVENUE NYC 212-473-1884
:D A N I S H
S O U P E R B A GThe u1imae in relaied panache
Ow pacbcal Danish mpot le4Iures Si niftypockets. expandable sides. sturdy SDaPS: wears like coidrofledsteeI hauts everyttuflO SeflSby will Organize your 1e. Perfectcatry.on fight bag. xacticaI fl. In squashy grey. bfacfi. bro*n.red. bflue. turquo.se waterproof canvas. $7S plus $350 sfupg.ng.Send for brochwe
THE CHOcOLATE sOUP946 Madison Avenue. New Yorkcfty 10021 (212) 861-2210
Joining Us Late
/
-.-..--.
For back issues oISPY,
write to us at
The Puck Building, Ç-
-I295 LafayetteStreet,
NewYork,NY. 10012.Enclose $4.o() per copy, please.
N.w
Oty
Tossi i.d.,.&
112$PTMARCH 1989
LJE U_II
PEÏHHi! You do,ft know anything
about me or my writing
partner or our book, but . .
By PATRICIA MARX
AND DOUGLAS MCGRATH
The official publication date of our book,Blockbuster (219 pages, Bantam, S7.95),fell at the end of last summer. But by then
it was already flying offbookstore shelves from
P U I L I S H I N G Philadelphia, where Benja-
Hmin Franklin wrote his cel-
.. : ebrated autobiography, toMidland, Texas, where little Jessica Mc-Clure was trapped in an abandoned wellfor 58 hours. In Wilmington, Delaware,two visitors recently found Blockbuster inthe best-seller section, nor far from TomClancy 's Patriot Games.
To be truthful, our mothers live in Phil-adelphia and Midland. They have workedtirelessly to promote the book, putting inlong hours with no pay As for Wilming-ton, Doug's aunt works for a local book-store. She says she has sold 25 copies ofBlockbuster so far and those were a mailorder for Mrs. McGrath, who had alreadybought all the copies in Midland.
Apart from these three cities, our hookcame out to whatever is the opposite ofgreat fanfare. Though we demonstrated adegrading willingness to do whatever wasnecessary to promote the book, Barb Burg,our publicist at Bantam, had planned onlyone promotional event. But its a reallybig event, she promised.
The event was a reading, but not theSusan-Sontag-salmon-and-sherry-.upstairs-at-Books-&-Co. kind of reading. We wereto read one Sunday afternoon at the
Hampton Beach Club in Hampton Bays.Barb told us 20,000 people were expected,including 2,000 Jewish singles. Blockbusterwas the only book the Hampton BeachClub gift shop was selling, an omen weconfused with a compliment.
Our confidence in the Hampton BeachClub was shaken when we were carded atthe entrance to the parking lot. We believewe arc the only authors ever to be carded attheir reading.
We met the man who was to introduceus. He was wearing a baseball cap, on thetop ofwhich was a plastic woman swingingin a hammock between two palm trees.This was the funmeisrer of the HamptonBeach Club, Dan the Man. We believe weare the only people ever to be introduced attheir reading by Dan the Man.
Websters would not count the Hamp-ton Beach Club as a beach club: it had notennis courts, no pool, no cabanas, no boysto set up your chairs, no chairs. lt was justa deck overlooking the beach, and a dancefloor. We were to read on the dance floor.
Dont worry about the pcople, Danthe Man said. Ill get them up here.' Overthe loudspeaker, he appealed to the crowdson the beach. Free hats/or anyone who canguess the TV theme song! Plus two writers
r-.
a 4
z_who want to read their book.'
Everyone came. And no sooner was thefinal free hat awarded, to a woman whoidentified the theme from Hazel in onenote, than everyone left. We read to theempty dance floor, like idiots, clinging tothe hope that someone was listening.
Then, miraculously, we heard a burst oflaughter and applause. We looked up.Dan the Man had changed into a hat with
a basketball hoop on k, and someone hadjust made a baske.
It was dîne to autograph hooks. Ofcourse, no one came near us. Our heartsrose when a woman walked right up to usholding the book. I don't read books, shesaid, but this does look easy.
At the end of the day, we had sold onebook, to a boy who sold ice cream on thebeach and felt sorry for us.
If we do thu for the next million days, wefigured , we '/1 have a best-se//er.
Bantam had no other events planned, sowe decided to hire our own publicist. Wemet a scrawny southern man with a mus-tache like Hitler's. He told us that an ap-pearance on The Donahue Show would sell50,000 copies of the book, bUt that wecouldnt get on The Donahue Show. Notthe way you are, he said. You need anangle. Let's ask ourselves: who are Phil's
guests,? Teachers who push crack, womenmarried to snipers. He looked at us. Doyou see what your problem ìs
We had an idea. How about what it'slike when a tall author collaborates with ashort author?'
No,' the publicist said. Let's thinkwhat those shows I told you about have incommon. He waited patiently.
We had a brainstorm. What about au-thors who abuse each other?
He did not think we could get on TheDonahue Show.
We decided to shop for another publicist.One publicist told us that our hook
could become known only if we becameknown. This publicist :old us the story ofAeschylus, who was killed by a tortoisedropped by an eagle flying overhead thatmistook Aesehyluss bald head for a rock.Just one day after Aeschylus died, the pub-Ikist said, his play The Suppliant Women,which had been sparsely attended andabout to close, was sold out. That couldhappen to you,' the publicist said.
The last publicist we questioned was adepressed young woman who insisted wemeet at her apartment because Sasha, herparakeet, couldn't be left alone. Sasha wasin precarious health. The publicist held thel)ird in her lap and brushed her with atoothbrush as we talked. Even if I couldget you PublicitY for the book,' she said,which is highly, highly doubtful, what's
the difference? Fifty years from now, twoweeks, you wont be here, I won't be here,your hook won't he here. Nothing lasts.'
We gave up looking for a publicist.
C L A SjF)Ç
C/aiisJiedi appear rnonthl in SPY. It/i orden mio: bc
:;pd and prepaid. Th pIafl' orden b) phon. ca/I(212) 925-5509. To ca/culaic the' COSt. (6fl1 (ach
¡(fier. Jpa( and puncluat:on mark in th ad you want
Io rom. and divid by 50. TIx result i tix nurnbtr ofIínej in a ¡)eJd ad. Figi.ire pna accordingi) (itt
lincei, right). On requis!, we will jet1/je frit /in' in all capital leiten.Mininrnrn ad JiZ( ii tUO unti. Pleaie
inc/jede yotin daytime phone nnmkr
andaddreis on a/I conre,pondno, and
tend io spy, 295 l.afayei: Sirett,
New York, N.Y. 10012. AttentionLany Heitlenian. Ads arc acceptedat the ptib/ither'i diíentt,on.
P o L I T I C S I S AT I R C
LI..
Hilarious Pohtical Satire C&swotc: Regan Cacotrsi Hiis. Thepfc,3 conuetenee you nesi beasd. featuring Reogns atual yoke.s99s to: Daily Feed. I 57' K 5c. NW, Ste. 662-S. Waih&ngcoo.D.C. 20005. Or durg by phone (S 10.95) 800-33(,-(,546 (MC/Visa).
PHOTOGRAPHY
UNCOMMONLY GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY FOR WED.DINGS ANt) PARTIES. Colo« h,k and white; hand coeIng oCaII Trey Lord at ihn Photograph) Buteau: (212)255-3333.
GIFTS
FREE GIFT WORLDS ZANIF.ST WHOLE SALE CATALOG. Vdcos. ekttonic 0e HATS Mind Candy Einpsxium.Box 931457S, Hollywood, CA 91X195.
Stand Sm1I. Ameoica! WEENIES FOR RUSH button, $2.8ox42044.Ph,u.. PA 19101.
UNIQUE POSTER (23' X 35') dcpscto maje iíutaIia 01 12animals (man co while). $10: POster M, Box 1348, NY, NY101)25
L N T E R TA I N M L N T
IIIZROCK - Annual Repon Vt's. IO great song paro(hes md. Jap Rap. Insider Trathn. Ekicazroika. Madison AveMart. 011ko Gül, Suxkbrok« on ihr Line, nc. Send $9 99 ih«kII) AAnbaI Rayon Prodi. 67 W. 69th SI . #IC. NYC 10023.
Album oc CaSS(IIr We also do punies.
HIP. UVE MUSIC by BLUE MOO. Duo or Band. All o«sssons.Aisywhete. (2011462.5555.
M&i Salem Mentalisi Exira,,rdinaurc, musd games thai kasc
t'su birahkss. Sprllbinshng CflIC(IOIflmCiiI AB(TV. Allcasions, Call 1212)974.5500.
Esprrrn(rsl book: wiitrt/lyîxísi seeks Ikoadway.styk umposcr'arranRet wiih satirical hCIlI IO .ollaboealr On high-spoiled musoal(Omedy seo in courisoiniested Mrxko. Sinne scandasd (otk tunes II)
arrange. tunes io wiitr. oiheiwisc show is compkir. No payyet. but work will hr peodsxvd with ¿n rye II' ßroadwny or W.Send IrSUm. sample cAaseIIr lo: Mexko. 99 Chrysiir St. #3.New Yo4.. NY 10002.
AT TO R N C Y
Your Mid-Wcsi Aornev loe Rusinesy A ftnonal manera. Gra'ham Catkon (3121 328-0400.
CLASSIFIED ADS: $30 per line; $25 per line frtwo or more consecwis' months.
PERSONALS: $25 per line; limited abbreviationsaccepted. Add S 15 for box number. Mail willbe forwarded for eight weeks following publication.
CLASSIFIED DISPLAY: $2W) prcolumn inch; S I 80 for two or moreConsecutive months.
W"hen replying to Perionalt, addn'js
your response to SPY Cai.u/ie'do. fol'
louvd by th box nun,bír to which yoa
arc niponthng.)
PERSONALS
CONFIDANTE WANTED. SWM 29. seeks SWF loe S.F. areanrr,gur. (hara«ro skeich IO SPY lIno 96.
Happy hìnhday N&rey Jo Putsylips Love. D Sqçke
1IEEZERWERE VERY PROUD OF YOU. JAILBAIT 8eWHITEY & TABRY
'l'isu rr*d SPY k) YOUIC smart wills a sense o4 humor. Yourr a 31)-ish gu Jeiish AND sex. Leto o hase lisa. SPY Box 98.
Bon1our Teir rk la Dsnd! Hope ta ai muds uso as badarlur #1told mc t would br Wanna niakr breaJ' Chunkey monkeymisses 5W.
NEXT MONTH IN SPY
EVERYBODY'S A WINNER!Mark Laiswell goes inside the
proliferating, promiscuous worldof prizes and awards
IT'S MORNING IN AMERIKAGuy Martin on this country's
ever-increasing similarity to herpotato-shaped sister to the east
THE RISE AND FALL OF ANAMERICAN SUPERSTAR!
OVER A TWO-WEEK PERIOD.IN BRAZIL.
MR. PERELMAN BUILDS HISDREAM HOUSE
ALSO
How to handle an Usi; JosephHeller's long-lost sitcom oeuvre;and o chat with some advance
men for Jesus
MARCH 1989 SPY I I S
1_Iri - _ i -I- U I-1
--
George ßtith is now president of the UnitedStales; I did not prevent it. At the end of thecampaign i did submit a partisan statement tothe Times Op-Ed page, bui they rejected it.Here it is, many days late and dollars short(which could be the story o/the Bush era):
Could I make a quaint. belated. entirely atoo!statement about the 1988 presidential (ha!)campaign?
i voted/or t/)e liberal Democrat because lin one.AIo becau.re I dread getting stuck in a cab with
someone u'ho argues like George Bush. Why would Iwant him to represent me?
You don t bave io tell me liberal Democrati doembarraising things. Criticize Ameria, pandershameIei/y to the dispossessed and ro on. But I try to:nake sense of politici in ternit of words. And l'venever heard a liberal Democrat cubveri the languageby (for example) (ailing his opponent as Bush hascalled Dukakis tite jo-railed Stealth candidate.
Dukakis. though he rook a higher road thanBush, i shorter and darker. He has heavier eye-6rou's. To attach the word stcalth ¡o him was to stircubrational perepiions of shiftiness. That was onejustification for referring to him as the Stealth can-didate. A trashy just:/i cation.
Another justification would be that Dukaku fa-tored development of the Stealth bomber. As. Igather. he does. But so does Bush and Bush a-cused Dukakis ofopposing the Stealth technologies.
To call Dukakis the Stealth candidate, then, n'asa way ofreinforcing aJilse accusation while imput-ing lo Dukakis the pejorative connotations of thename of a weapons system Bath also favors. Tras/ii-nest compounded.
But Bus/i went further. He called Dukakis theso-caUcd Stealth candidate u/len the only personuho called Dukakis that u.as Bush. With greatrestrain! I would liken this ploy to blowing yournose. showily. yet stealthily, on someone else 's sleeve.
You can say to mc that Russians would ratherdeal with a conservative Republican . If this is so, ilis because Russians do Plot have a high enough opiel-ion of the American character. Also because con-servative Republicans make it easierfor Gorbachevto look like a liberal Democrat.
I grew up in the Sooth in the 1950s and '60s.and therefore you may say that i have a peculiarbias against conservatic'es (Lester Maddox) and es-penally against conservative Repu/ilkans (StromThurmond. i.e. , Lester Maddox for the n'e/I of).
So sue me. When I was grou'ing up, liberal Demo-(rats were people of spiri!, and ¡o are they now.sometimes. Ai the height of011iemania my Washing-ton lawyerfriend RufFant happened ¡o drive past afederal building as Oliver North emerged from it tothe sound of spontaneous street-4rouid buzzabs. Rufdid what anyone with pride in America should havedone: stuck his head out of his car window andhollered, 'Sbame! Shame!
How in the world did liberal Democrats get to beso out offasbion? The answer is obvious io Bush, no
1L4SPTMARCH 1989
doubt, but by that :'eoy token it is not clear to me. Ofcoarse, as Dan Quayle would put it, my type ofthinking is out oftouch and out oforder. R. B.
ACROSS1. Lapdog ¡s a term George Will used forGeorge Bush in a column, back beforeBush became a pit bull. Will has also ex-pressed disdain for Dan Quaylc, prediccingthat Quayle will flOt be trusted to handleeven the more serious foreign funerals.Will has also come out in favor of highertaxes. Will Will, who used to lunch withNancy, be lunching with Barbara, or evenMarilyn? Will Will be dismissed as a lib-eral? \X'ell, wc'll see. (To follow closely isto dog; a lap is a runaround.)9. Yale gush'll rearranged (in a way).11. 1 tifa r.g. backward,18. To "ankle in a huff is one meaning ofstamp etti, to dcscroy is another.21. P.e. breaking into beer.23. Charges and S. A new term for credit-card prosperiry, or what Lloyd Bentsen, inhis debate wich Dan Quayle, referred to ashot checks. There's a great old gospel songcalled Jesus Dropped the Charges." Per-haps all Americans, of whatever faith, hadbeter start singing that song. Or perhapsReaganes.jue luck will prevail in the Bushadministration and the economy will stillbe able to flout the bottom line. An indica-tion that economy-linked fortune mightshine upon Bush came during the cam-paign when rumors arose that The Wash-
lag/on Post was about to publish a storyconfirming rumors that Bush had commit-ted adultery, which stirred urgent sellingthat caused the stock market to plunge.The Post denied that it had such a story,and stock prices recovered. Talk about safesex! Many spouses, if they felt no one couldreveal that they were running around ex-cept at the risk of setting off a marketcrash, would feel golden. That's probablywhy I am not at home in the I 980s: I havetrouble feeling golden. If I've got, say,$500 of expense-account money in myPocket, I fecI gilded, but only until l've
['A
T C I C
sis HIO'LESE S T
spent it. Then I start worrying about whatI am going to spend on whatever it is I ammeant ro spend the expense-accountmoney on. What the eighties keeps doingis drawing another advance. I blame it onthe Japanese - when they introduced sushiover here and Americans developed a tastefor those little raw dabs of marine life, itbroke down the age-old taboo against eat-ing your bait. After a while, what have yougot left to fish with?26. Hit at crime rearranged Cgoofily). ltworked for the Bush campaign. Inciden-tally, have you noticed that critics oftenapply the adjective goofy to Bush? Anotherbreak for Bush Americans like Disneycharacters.28. The heads' of teeny, tiny and elephantare t, i and e. Inside Ron.
DOWN
2. L)onald Regan rearranged.3. D.A., yo andf(the musical symbol forloud") plus mood backward.
8. Jim Harrison, the Michigan poet-novel-ist whose mustache has often been likenedto Pancho Villa's, reveals in The Paris Re-vieu', .1 usually dance a half-hour a day toMexican reggae music with fifteen-pounddumbbells. I guess it's aerobic, and theweights keep your chest and arms inshape. I can't tell you how envious I am ofthis exercise. I know Harrison, and al-though I don't recall any such behavior onhis part in those places (barrooms) where Ihave run ¡rito him, L do not doubt that hewould do improvised Latin dances whilepumping, or waving, iron at home. And itsuits his work. lt doesn't suit mine. Butwhat workout would? The last aerobic ex-ercise I can remember that came from myheart was running up and down flights ofBrooklyn brownstone stairs with two chil-dren in my arms, and that was years ago.(My son can now dunk.) No wonder TheParis Review has never interviewed me.When we got into the arca of exercise, Iwould have to mumble, Oh . . . stationarybicycle . . . tennis . . . The Paris Reviewdoesn't want o embarrass me. So. Severallarge dogs to toss into the air? Hogsheadsto bang together? Buckets of sand to drivemy typing fingers into? But it's not justelements of heft and grit we're after here,but also of eurythmy. Backflips to whalesong? Synchronized swimming to gut-bucket blues? Something. Liberals havegot to get z.'igorousagain. I'll tell you this: Ivoted for Dukakis, but I'm not going to goout walking with Heavy i-lands. A heavyheart, yes.24. P in site. We are talking healthy,wholesome malice here, a kinder and gen-tler malice, a malice of compassion andhope.)
TROUBLEHow does a car uork?
Why does it break/
How can youJix it? Why me?
BY ELLIS WIUNFI
Previously in How to Be a Grown-up:
.1 have recently descended into the hellof major car repairs (che trans broke. wasfixed, and broke again. taking other viral
car organs with it). . .
o Naturally Iexpect1
in theend, to obtain complete
P satisfaction, as regards boththe ruadworthiness of the
vehicle and the disbursements I have bcnobliged to outlay for rental cars, etc. . . .
Courageous. if stupid, words. I think I
knew even then that my quest would be invain. And yet I learned something fromthis experience, something that has mademe a better man, a better human being, abetter grown-up. I learned about life. I
learned about human fallibility. I learnedabout automatic transmissions.
Rather than bore you with the details,let me bore you with the general pl()t:Drive iflto Manhattan one Sun. a.rn. Carhemorrhages transmission fluid, smokesand roars its way through Holland Tunnel,comes to dead halt. Have it towed conearby, open-all-the-time garage ( ShopA). Israelis. Big color photo of Lubavitcherrebbe on wall of cramixd office, like wife'sgrandmothers framed Sun.-supplementpix of JFK and pope. Yikes, Jewishmechanics, contr. in terms? Or whew, car offstreet, in hands ofpious men of G-d'
Return two days later, hand over cash-¡ers check for low four ñgures, drive off.Downshift feels like coronary arrest, makesgrinding noise. Ninety mnutes lacer. transcaves in. Hobble home in second gear.
Make enraged phone call. Eddie, themechanic, says car not road-rested at highspeeds. Take it to nearby trans shop CShopB), agree on phone with Sam, boss atShop A, to have X done, for which self willpay, to be reimbursed by A. Begin rentingcar for pers. use. Days later, pick up realcar, drive 100 feet, hang. zoom. wholething caves in, comes ro dead halt. Havetowed back to B. On phone with A. agreeto have trans taken clown (low threefigs.) but have fl() work done. Done. Prob-lem with rear. Shop A: We'll tow it backhere and fix it. Tell them to put the trans-mission in a l)OX. (Self. to self: 'I'/'ii is whatit 'J ome to? A box?)
Days pass, tow truck arrives, driver tellsme he hasn't slept in 36 hours. Ha ha, nextchapter in comedy Or yikes, not funn) caritself in grave peril? Hoist car, load box,watch truck tow car away. Like seeing rda-rive being carted off to prison, sort of.
Sclfand wife if) N.Y. for two-day child-free holiday. Call Shop A. Need new rearunit, &t cost approaching four figures. Incash. Betre work commences. Tomorrow.
Silk: Less what I paid Shop B, right? As
Ihe groti '?i-iip thinks,
You mean it's possible to resolve
(IiSl)UtCS vithout hiring either
lawyers or Luca Brasil
per agreement with Sam the Boss'MAN AT SHOP A: No. Sam on vacation.Sitting on the edge of the hotel bed in
my underwear. freezing, I do what justabout anyone would do. Granted, to DanQ uaylc that means one thing: phoneMother and Father. But the plain fact is,most of us don't know the Quayles homenumber. So I call the Department of MotorVehicles and am given a number for theLemon Law ofiice. According to a secre-
tar)', They should be able to affiliate youwith someone who can help you.
lt turns OUt tO b the Atwrney General'sOflice. Wow, now to flex some consumermuscle? Or uh-oh, pip-squeak car corn-plaint too puny, get outra here you
knuckleheadIncredibly, a gentleman answers the
phone, listens patiently to my story, askspertinent juestions, expresses crediblesympathy and, over the course of th nextfi'e hours, does the following: calls ShopA, mediates in a conference call betweenthem and self, hunts down vacationingSam, mediates in conference call betweenSam and self, brings disputing parties to-gether in mutually acceptable compromise.
-I used to be a saksman. the attorneygenerals man says while Sams wife, atShop A, summons Eddie the Mechanic.
Now yourc on the other side of thefence, I say. How do you like this job?
l love this job. I would do this for free.Mole touching than this, in the realm of
civil service, it doesn't get. The grown-up,determined not to l)C pushed around andmade a sap of while he is being pushedaround and made a sap of, thinks. Gee. Youineaz it 5 poisibl. i?! New York, io redoIve
disputes uithoui hiring either lawyers or Luca
Brasi? lt's enough to make one thinkaboii r rexon ing one s cynicism.
Not that ones cynicism should be gerry-mandered out ofexisrcnce entirely. No, notwhen there is this Amusing Development:tWo brackets that mount the crans to thecar are missing. Low three figures. (Mislaidby Shop A' By Shop B? Bounced off truck,unseen by sleep-deprived row-trucker?Speculation rife as 1)0th sides disclaim re-sponsibility. ) No. one's native paranoiaabout car repairs remains, not only Lindi-minished but somehow enhanced.
But to meet one perfectly reasonable,intelligent person, working for the state ofNew York, who will hclp solve this sort ofProblem without seeking money eitherover the counter or under the tal)le, with-out exercising influence for a future quid}ro juo, without even asking you to proveyour bona fides - this, if not actually in-spiring, is at least very nice. And let not thegrown-up sneer at nice. Nicene.rs counts. Ina city in which the difference between cyni-CiSfl) and realism is increasingly academic,one OUOCC of niceness from an interactionwith actual people can neutralize this muchexcess theoretical l)ile about he world.
What does it all mean? It means that forevery two had garages there is one goodcivil servant. Of) a deeper level, it meansdon't have a car. It means if you do have acar, don't drive it. And finally, it means ifyou do have a car and you do drive ir,don't use the transmission.
MARCH 19895PY 115
-I-I-I tjri-i-v--i
Crossword Puzzle
Bush Era Speia/
1I6SPYMARCH 1989
ACROSS DOWN
1. Will term lot Bush 2. Former White House
follow closely after chief of scaffdisrortcd by
runaround? (6)rage. (5)
5. Put Ed through the mill.3. Prosecutor. yo! Loud
nor up in thc air. (8)
9. In a way, Yale gush'll bemood coming up for the
infernally ill-lavored. (4.2.4) Last Roundup. (3.2.4)
lo. Sharp wail. (4) 4. Go pisa up a column. (6)
1 1. Handwriting on wall: What we whipped the
1 fight a right guardBritish with -chest-
back. (8)pounding and roaring. we
12. Negative bones deal is
ofr. (2.4)hear. (8.7)
13. Parry. party for dead (Alternate spelling.)
bird. (4) 6. Line is so muddled by
15. Stags lap collapses. slippery quality. (8)
and the rest is silence. (4.4)7. Knead distraughdy,
18. Destroy ankle in anude. (5)
hLt. (5.3)
19. Open ruin. (4) 8. Worked our in high
21. Interruption oídrink dudgeon. (9)
by gym class alerts doctor 14. Oh, nuts, toe broken:
or drug dealer. (6) not getting along. (2,3,4)23. Accusations satisfactory
16. Least sanitary can makeas Reaganomic bounty.
(8) (Newly coined word.)guest grin. (9)
2.5. Trash headless bear. (4) 17. A drOOlin' weird dead
26. Hit at crime gooMy it thing. (8)
Ldds up. (10) 20. Big nerworker?
27. Nothing in drunkenSomewhat! (6)
hassles with jerks. (8)
28. Decayed teeny tiny22. Strike Timej head. (5)
elephant heads inside the 24. Malice of sPY's heart in
Gipper. (6) place. (5)
Th anjwers to ¡he Un-Briiii/, Crossword appear on page 1 14.
LOO
--SK.fl. 4 il..
C...dly L....?
S! Ti D
D.- Dtt,i. ...d ,h.t
P. Pr.,dh,..'-.
nr'.,,,dIk. k,6,.
t,I
M '.3 0
AT BIRTH?
Includes:
Over 450 different faces-300 never-before published!Chapter introductions only SPY could have producedAn 41Essentially Useless Index"
ALL FOR JUSTs69; At bookstores now
Published by DOLPHIN/DOUBLEDAY
CC)
PHOTO CREDITSPage 4 Scn Am.. W.nk (krgeePog.*i I 1-1 2. to Arg.h iim. Photo (81ecdmon). AP/Wid.WcW IDR. Nozs. Ro Golilla (A1,iujPoq. 30 Ron W&ntO.dO F.oiw, }fl$efnOhOnaI (5anhj; tl/8.Pmor. Nwphoo. (Ekkch; Ro. Golilla (Ouirw).Pogs 31 L?/1q.tnonn N..sphoc. (3nK .ogon Ouayhj; AP/Wd. WoId (DiAo&.sPo9. 32: P*ciohii (Pio
po9. 34 M.ch. D.ho (Kopor". FPG pod)Page 36 Randy DunbwP.9. 40 C G4l. P.,.si/Mo9nwo P$oo, kc )Bv);NY Do Ne.s (Whan.y); VOIQIn Kohano/Stocing Siot (Fo*I.., NY Pois )Son d Sam). Roo Goi.Io (Tturçpo9. 42: H ÑmsIrong Robi (De. Nich).
Pog. 46. P,vìk.d Finn )co$.00).
p.9. 31: UPt/k$Worw N.o,pko*os WCil.ndO,. APÍWd. WoMIopc,
Pog. 52 H AtmUon9 Rob.m ¿coni4Pog 34. Moitho Soop. (t.gs Domond. Wuioovil.P.9. 56 Bu Ak/NV Tin Sudo (F'onl&). G&b andRo.-ibd cow*oy al 71i Nw Yod Tm.sPog.. 3$-59: Ro.orn. Rub.niun/Psopl. W..&y/C I 986 Lia.Ii' -): Siaca Aon.. W.Òi f8.gia)Page 6 1 on Aua.. WiiI )Bsigr).Poyp &4 ick .¼MdIOn (GiU.t)po9., ò nd.ck L.wm/NYC (hou)Pog. 66 AUTiIIVCO9 RObSdi (load); Frsdstic tians (wduogro-)I- '1h. Sioch Shop )&oanng blood). ( j.ø,., R..,d/The . p )pulh)
po9. 73 1 Aiiiotig Rob.ai (orni). c Hany J Piz.kop/1h. $ioc4 shop )pilI,); C Dcli Lig.oflh. S'odi Shop (mon).Ç Hmb Sm'z.n/Th. Sodi Shop (chiai).po9. 74 i; Damd AR*/Th. Stock Shop (òc Fr.d.IIC Liwi.NYC (ch.ch) H. Amiiiong Rob.ia (need.. nI.gnio).P.9. 76 london F.oajan iwnot.onoI )5ad.) Coniia 8ctbo,.n.MOVQUOIOS bLandi. I 902. Fo&nivng Mutian. Eu.n. Giamony(Goug'n), Aa Resouic. fGnowJ; Ron Godlo (lazai).Pog. 77 Gooudon/M Riacuqc. (P.coio). Mdoiiy 50VI9IIOIiO/RO
Goud(5u; Wohn MceI.dI/hInO Lid. (Diaii.k).Johonuø/Ou'in. Pisos (Oans); i.s Dmno.oia dAnJyon (1907). .
on cannas, 8 o 78. Cca.duon. th. Muiia,n d Madoni Ast. NmYou1 Acqoiad ifvah th. tRi. P. BLu kquiai.Pog. 7$. Ron Wo$icn/London F.oMia INsino%onaJ P4Onnd).Rocky Widr*/R.jna Ud. (Ruchoids); Fd..o Noci,u/Gl )Ocoi.&(. AilP.iai.c. (Schial.. lop); 5 Ponioi With Ann Tmiu.d Above Ksod.c 1910 PvivCoIh.on)Schs,.,boitom)Pa9s 79 Ron GoLda tSn&iWg(. UPI/B.itmaa. N.wnphob)Gob&(. Tho Miaropohion Aiwjffi cl Ail. Anonymous GA. 1983
C1983 2 I I (8oio); Ail R.,oi*c. (Bo;on;). Kohol Cohctcn
(5chwocz.negge); NY 0a4 Nwi (Hog.) Th. Melody Hounli MyR.viaia 4 I 98 I by VAGA. Nia. Yonk and 8&LDKUNST, Bairn(LicÑsnis..n); truco taninen/Pholoinpodmi )Pakmo PLcaso) AllR.ioiirc. )lágrn),pa9. SO; Coinssy V$oirn and Aibein Minium (B.OldI1Iy Womanand B.cycl.. 1952-53 (D. Koonir, Idi), Joi.ph Mottm/Sca4a/AttR.saitc. (D. Kooiang, aghi); Roi. Hodnazi )M&4$. Moruno Cornici)Rdlwnrnic.. Choazing); 8on GalillO (Sinifi. MOnoil). Th. lrwngu.1 890. Konmklijk Mun.um noci Scion. Kvnii,n. AM.erp lirmoi); (Maih R.uni*n/Phaion.ponmn (8eagon( Chai. os (Nci.1ion)Scolo/Agi Riawc, (Van Gogh. nhi); Mu*és â. Bol,, Liig,dot,onRudo8 Ssoech.hn (Von Gogh. hiti; Siirnal/Gøhl$o )Hun?. ChciLAnthony Si*.gnorm/Goh$o Vonowi); Coi. PaiL.. 1Homme ouDoig*. co. 1947 IGoia.cu. op I9hII. Soda/Ast R.ioi*c.(Giacot. IOwci hh and bouma righil: icily Wochiui/Iocu onSporn (Bol); Karen Hardy/London lsøiicuu Mcinaiond (DoSa.)peg. si Ron CalcIO (Gos... Munndl. Bid); Gin. Trinri/Glohi Phm01 (Hown), Bondnno Con Tr.cc. (Modigloni); Smso1/OahIia(Durai), Momo Cornici (Ro.Iwn); P.* C . Boisori )BriLulàn); Roznan.mod' (Zarca); Chuch Pulir/Sin' Fil. )Kun4 Nain Cuilsi/Glob.Pizoloi Baigna.); Ponro.t oSo ?#on, 1622 Oiainwozih. TheChaluwodi Houi Toni 4øIu. ligid). Poiino.i ai w.rion Czoia. ApsePiloholhih. Munich Hob. m.ds). Ai' Riaource (Moie. b. Moai..(19511 Old op Wi). Scalo/M Riaounce Moor.. bco.n hfr, Doccia.Gloso); Anihony Salnß0000/ROn CaSe4o (Smith. Sh.. Jci*iHoinihoc fGiuhon4
Pog.. 82-13 Frederic Icon/NYC (woman); Fron Colin (Tubock).Po9e 8$ Kobol Cølhchon (Domney Jr.. lobock)Po9ei 90-9t . sop. Tb. Siock Shop: bøitoin Pesci AvachiPage 99 Dugin Piinniai (Suigai Rani); Jenny Lynn (Hanau Kai).Pag. i 00 cialeui ICoulsilo), c I 987 Fusi L. Gould/Images(Main), . .\fl 5ljI/ Pc,w.s (Dun.oMcs), Soto Barril(Plolsound SIcoi).
pa9. loi Gerald Zugasorsi/The Mui.um oS Modern An t'icw YouICoop HinamBilas). Soto Barril (Miau Repubhe. Luisis. Msijicn.
Pog. 102 Soro Barree (mau loaf. cancMiuichil; Nick, Couva )iiic.s
Pog. I IO H Aimseong Roberts (unoa on phoani.Pagss i i I-I 19 Jalas Simon. )*zdonGu.st dancing). PoirickMcMulon (dl ndssu iiodon.G,mui), Ron Gohia WIk).Tomnu Arroyo/Ron Golilla (Sialoac). Ros. HautmorLionoacuL Kouiabi. Bynn.( al oihouu. Manzo Gambi
)I8SPYMARCH 1989
STILL THE CHAMP AnthonyIladen-Guest, spy's 1988Ironnian Nightlife 1)ccath-Ion winner, COI3CIflUCS hisI- gruding nonstop all-night-every-night training regi-men in anticipation of thei 989 Ironman semifinals.
His arrn around two unidentified well-wishers and his eveson a third (ah',ze), Haden-Guest SCCII1S to long k)r anotherset (.)f limbs that wouldOCtO1)USSiShl,' increase hisgrope-an(l-snugg!e radius - acriti(a! eømpønent in any win-rung lronman performance. Atformer Iiøt Sj)Ot M.K.(righi).
important novelist Jay Mcm-
erney. past master of the Sul-len, Dopey Literary Stare, takes a few pointers in DonKnotts-ian facial expressiveness from Haden-(ì uest . Stand-
Et'ing uncomfortably close toCt another unidentified
.well-wisher (left) . Haden-Guest inexplical)ly hears
j . down hard perhaps to re-lease some of the hcr-ornonish unidentified-well-'isher-attractirig man-
musk he is falfl()L1S for.
YPRANCING At the c;reat American (;liibhouse, Haden-Guest performs nw Jittle-known. I m-J ust-a-'cX'orking-Man-from-Bristol. leg-over-leg version of the twist with astonyfaced (lance-floor persuaclee, whose subsequent sniirkSCCfl1S tO Say, Im t/tiiìg this oi i (hire. Strutting and pL1tinghis way through a ery personal. very cathartic. Mick Jag-ger-esque bougie reverie. Haden-Guest takes first place inhis own one-maci conga line. even though his enthusiasmexceeds his l)OdVS tuherlike pliability
ADEMOISELLES DE THE
SPANISH BALL. Megawon-
derfu I jewelry andtchotchke designerPaloma Picasso mes-merizes designer Aga-tua Ruiz with herdemonstration of thatage-old party trick inwhich you try co touch,OUr lips simulta-
iieouslv ti.) your OOSC
and your chin. Andshes done it I)rinksall around!
HOWDY! Apparently the hot uewugly garment is the plaid x)Iyest(rsports coat. of (he SOf( pOpLIIariZCd
by Jack-in-the-Box francIiisi.s.Overage Jaix-nauf David Byriumodels a whit-rrash a(lua-aI1d-srt-o(-PL1rplc tartan (with
VAftcr being under the sun-laffli) ; too long. dwarf bi!-lionaire I.arrv Tish puts on afitise mustache and goes look-¡ng for thrilling high jinks.
Jill-of-all-trades TarnaJaiowitz. modclirìtzclothes at a BerseyJohnson show duringfashion veek. contin-0eS (O validate thtjU(lglflt'fl( of her men-cor. former .\ U 'l'i'4t ' editor \Villiam Shawn. (lis horiziipital
.Ir1Pe.0 t/)11 iakt (j// look thinpier.
rnaching vest) beneath the strucwrally unsound. bronto-SdUtLIS-lik(.' combInation of jumbo head aiI we litrk neck.Meanwhile. Terry Sweeney impersonator Mark Kostahi(right). ¡n a licorice-and- kmon-flavored [)acrongctup,seems to make a cer- _________ Cain kind of!ove to the cam-era with his reptilian u)mc-hither look.
-rrim?n no-
longer-Luite-so-ban k -ahle actor-artist-ho-mLlnculus SylvesterStallone growls as hesits astride a life-sizen)u)rcvcle (with kick-stand down for sakrdriving) and modelsan inexplicable jacketut I)l)S(tIfV origin and.we can only ¡resut1e.ridiculous price.
'iR/'P) I.ater. shows off theknees that made her the I11O(leI sheis - in L piece from johnsons- Lowrider Ladv collection (notethe fh)ral-seat-cover-print straplessskirt and the sombrero with flufFc-dashboard-trim piping).
a\X'illtully boyish I)is-Iwy "'p lichtcl his-ncr. who had neverbefore been plu)(o-grapheil eith anotherhtintn being. makes
1 i1. kt jCLk)US E)y pos-
ini. wb an adniiriniztiiil )VeU.
BUT
YOUR HONOR . . . D()OfllCd junkbond suzerain t ike M ilken.making the fl)St of his kw re-maining pretrial outings. hasL)eefl (kv()nug himself to beimigphotograhcd . Zelig-like. tc
c1urit (VCflt'..
AQUALITY TIME Just outside hislimo. Bruce Willis surrepti-tiously hands off his baby.Ruiner. ti) a hired baby-h.n J i er.
L RUB-A-DUB-DUB Gossip colum-ntstpotcnual Antichristmatchmaker R . Coon I-lay(right) does his level best U)
ignite a companionable sparkbetween reclusive shy-guywriters Bret Easton Ellis andQuentin Crisp.
-..;'-
-
aíOLD PEOPLE, PARTY OF FIVE?
ThAT'U. BE TABU 22
MARCH 198') SPY I 19
.
IIIi .lIlSIlI
,'A'Afl
.. .,
t. i,
M
- -
A4
4r '. . ./Ji/
g,
I
I%U I ti I I I%I U l%1 I I1 I%I II 1%'in the old days meant squandering valuable linie packedfae-to-armpii with legions ofother grogpj siraphangers. 5ta in our Neu', Improved Neu'
York, the subu'ay train has gone the way ofihe jitney and the ricksha. Ride the Metropolitan Pneurnatk Tube Transport System andyou 'II arrive inManhattan before Ok can catch your breath. Faster than an interoffice memo, able to leap the East River in a single arc, the MPTTS operates on thesimple concept o/suc/ion. So step into your own u'ell-padded Pneuînato-Cylinder. lie back on the easily mopped vinyl lining and preparefor the 30seconds ofsheer terror that have replaced black coffee as every morning pnesininziiters stimulant ofchoice. )
ILLUSTRATIONJ BY HOWARC
L
-
).e
. 2
-U,LS
LNsuV,. IIDfiIS
o
L)ELIJXI 111.1RA LIGHTS
Regular and Menthol.
For people who
like to smoke...
-i
:,l
I
BENSON & HEDGES
SURGEON GENERALS WARNING: Smoking
By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal(j itujIr' O.6mgnicutiro Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight.
av. per cIq1lrItTe. Ily FTC IÌ'i!iI
I-i
'-h
,. .
'
\
Jdmaa
4u%dØorn qan qu
A494acÁ meA$a9
VWIaA&4en xi/uìì h n
¡7(9
ALC. 40%/ VOL.(80 PROOF)LEMON FLAVORED VODKA.
POOUCED AND BOTIIED IN SWEOEN I O LiTEI
IMPORTEDMRTER AND SOLE DISTRIBUTOR FOR TI4 liS
CARILLON lMPKRT(R5 LTD . TEANECK N J