Late-night antics
Taki
Washington, DC
Byall accounts the American Conservative's first anniversary party went off without a hitch. My friend Prince Radziwill came over for it, as did Charlie Glass, a very nice thing for both men to do, not to mention Major Chris Meyers, a tough Marine officer who flew from Los Angeles. Well, not to nit-pick, but perhaps there was a slight hitch, something to do with my speech. I don't know why it is, but whenever a situation demands gravitas, a little voice inside me always tells me to do the opposite.
For example, after welcoming everyone to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Washington Monument and the Mall, for some strange reason I brought up the 'gay small-penis support group', and even produced a New York magazine article which had brought the gay small-penis support group to my attention. (I don't believe any of our loyal readers are interested, but perhaps some of their foreign friends might be, so here is the group's address: Room 312 in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on 13th Street, New York.) The reason I brought up the tiny organs was that so many neocons (or nouveau cons, as the French call them) were missing from my own tiny organ's birthday. I announced that they had sent their regrets but were busy speaking to the gay small-penis support group in the Bagel and had RsvP'd their regrets. Oh well, people cannot be in two places at once, and the nouveau cons made it obvious whom they preferred.
Mind you, size does matter, and I'm very happy to report that we had a full house. Although Washington is not known as a party town, some friends and I did our best to upgrade the town's reputation by some late-night roistering. Actually, it was rather pathetic. I ended up with a buddy in the bar of the Willard Hotel, where presidents Grant and Harding used to get up to no good. I ran into a congressman from Indiana sitting with three sweet young things.
The mother of my children was asleep upstairs, which inspired my friend to tell the youngest of the ladies that I was married to an 87-year-old whose father had put a curse on me which said that, until a very young woman decided to marry me, I would have to stay hitched to his 87-yearold daughter. It wasn't the best of pick-up lines — rather pathetic, in fact — but it worked. The 22-year-old assistant to the Indiana congressman felt very sorry for me, and said that she would help me lift the curse from my wicked father-in-law. We agreed to meet sometime in the future. My friend who thought up this rubbish has been dining out on it ever since. All I can say is that either we were too drunk and imagined the whole thing, or there are some awfully dumb people in the American system of government.
Not as dumb as the Dutch government, however. For some of you who may have missed it. Prince Johan Friso, Queen Beatrix's middle son and second in line to the throne of the Netherlands, had to give up his right of succession for the woman he loves. Mabel Wisse Smit, the prince's fiancée, is, it seems, the one-time moll of big-time gangster Klaas Bruinsma. The Dutch premier, Jan Peter Balkenende, is furious with the lovebirds because they gave his government and the queen 'incomplete and inaccurate' information regarding the floozie's past. Now I ask you. Do you know many women who would tell a boring queen and a far more boring politician about her screwing around with a thug like Klaas? Of course not, except if they were very, very stupid, on a par with the girl at the Willard Hotel. Mabelgate has cost Prince Johan his chance at the throne but, like the little boy who stuck his little finger in the dyke, the prince has decided to stick with his little girl and to hell with the throne. The Dutch are fools as well as boring. Mabel's past makes for excitement at a very boring court.
Otherwise everything's hunky-dory. I hope to return to London for Tom Stacey's new book, Tribe, on 10 November, and for yet another debate about the war at the Oxford Union. This is the good news. The bad is the death of a wonderful man, Max Rayne, whom I knew from when I was first allowed into a casino back in the Fifties. Lord Rayne was as graceful a gambler as he was successful as a businessman. What a pleasure it was to gamble against a gentleman, rather than the slobs we have to put up with nowadays. I'm sure his business competitors felt the same.
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