Yes, it’s a red-letter Duff-Perelman day in New York, especially the $30,000-a-month-for-domestic-help item in her proposed budget. This is a statistic that has affected me in the following way: I was appalled, and then, shortly thereafter—very very shortly thereafter—I began to think about how nice it would be to have that much domestic help.
But to get back to your question yesterday about Ron Perelman (and the Ron Perelmans of the world), why is it that men (sorry, Kurt) are so obtuse about this? I can’t tell you how many men ask this question. I mean, don’t you know a) that Ron Perelman is kind of cute and b) that everyone sleeps with everyone for all sorts of reasons and c) if only conventionally handsome men got laid, this would be a seriously underpopulated world. As they say, there’s a cover for every pot, or something like that. Of course they also say it’s as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man, and that is definitely not true.
By the way, one of my sister Delia’s most brilliant observations on life, and one that someone should have told Patricia Duff (not that she would have listened) is this: Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.
The article in the Wall Street Journal reminds me, once again, how much I wish Tom Brokaw would run for president. It would be one of the few times I could genuinely be thrilled about the seamless blah-blah between politics and entertainment. Why can’t we get a groundswell going? And don’t you think Warren Beatty expected to be nominated by popular acclaim by now? That story was truly a three-day wonder.
I am struggling hard with the Hillary thing. Of course I will vote for her, etc., but I’ve been stunned at how many of my friends, my women friends, my women-who-are-Democrats-and-successful friends, have no enthusiasm for her candidacy at all. The Talk interview, by the way, was devastating for her with that constituency, I think, because there was a hope that she would win the race and shed the bastard, and she blew that away with all that exculpatory dialogue. (Incidentally, I have become obsessed with how they never pay for anything. It’s amazing. How do they do it? Now there’s a book he could write when he’s no longer president, and everyone would buy it. All summer I kept reading idiotic articles in the newspapers about things like where they are going to spend their summer vacation, and no one mentioned that the only factor that truly operates in that decision is who they can get to give them a free house.)
Of course, there are 14 months to go. Can you believe it? Fourteen more months of this?
Are we being paid for this exchange? If so, I am giving all the money to Oxfam.
Your devoted friend, etc.
