High life
The Wrights and wrongs
Taki
AnAthens s.o.b. by the name of Mike Wright from Colorado hit John-Taki Theodora- copulos, aged 11, rather hard, and my son and heir ended up being taken down the mountain on a stretcher. It seems that While skiing near Aspen last week, the big bully went past John-Taki and inadvertent- ly hit my boy with his pole. 'Watch your stick, you dick!' yelled Master J-T, rather rudely but appropriately, and the bully Went after him, punching him and knocking him down.
Wright was then stopped by the ski Patrol, and the mother of my children has pressed charges against him. As my boy was more scared than hurt, I advised against it, but it might give Wright an anx- ious minute or two. The thing to do, of course, is to go out to Colorado and settle the matter the old-fashioned way, but what If there are other Mike Wrights? I've had something like this happen once before.
It was back in 1968, and I was dining With the 18-year-old Alexandra Schoen- burg, the future mother of my children, in a Paris bistro. A friend came in and said hello from across the room. This was heard by a man on the next table who came over and introduced himself as Takis, the sculp- tor. As it happened, I had heard of him. He had received some publicity in the French Press for being anti-Greek Colonels and for Producing the kind of 'art' that makes statements. You know the genre — the type of thing untalented self-promoters know how to sell to left-wing art critics.
always carry carry mugging money in case I bump into someone from an insurance company.'
say.
The problem was that not only was I pro- Colonels, I had also served them as assis- tant to the under-secretary for information for . . . three days only. I had been fired when, as a joke, I threatened some journal- ists with hanging in Syntagma Square if they continued to knock Papadoc. So, when the so-called sculptor asked me if I, too, was a dissident exile, I put him in his place. In fact, I did more: I threatened to lock him up in a room with only his 'works of art' as companions.
Now they say one should never insult an artist's work but, as far as I was concerned, Takis was no artist. Four years later, while passing through Paris on my way to Gstaad, I stopped by New Jimmy's, the popular nightclub on the Boulevard Montparnasse run by Regine. I asked a French beauty by the name of Nicole for a dance, and when she tried to get up, a young man next to her pulled her down and ordered her to stay put. I asked her again, and the same thing happened. Although I'm rather embarrassed to admit it, I suddenly let him have it and landed a lucky punch, which cooled him for a while.
That is when Regine told me that the young man had just lost his sister in a car crash, that he had not stopped drinking since, and that he was a boy to pity, not to hit. Well, you can imagine what went through my mind. I tried very hard to apol- ogise, but he wouldn't hear of it. He stormed out into the night and I've never seen him since.
Two years after that, however, while my Colonels were collapsing and I had gone back to volunteer to fight the Turks, Takis, the sculptor, was sitting in a bar in Lille celebrating the fall of the Fascists. And, as his name was being bandied about, a young man stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder and, when Takis turned, broke his jaw with one terrific blow. It was my young man, but the wrong Taki. See what I mean about the wrong Wright?
'You'll never never get me up on one of those.'
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