June 22, 1989
Thursday

ACT UP was held in the public theater Monday and it felt like High School. Of course the people who were popular in high school (or wished they were) shown like stars on the stage. Most of the night was taken up by zap proposals, too many of them. The most important was directed at President Bush, who is in town this week, but it was the last and nobody wanted to do it. After considering how contained we would be near the president I didn't see it as very plausible either but I've had second thoughts since.

Tuesday there was a zap at Forbes Magazine to protest an article on "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS." It was a nice day, we all got tanned and Malcom Forbes issued a memo denouncing the article, promising to publish our leaflet in the next issue as a rebuttle.

Later that night ART+ met and we talked about what to say at our meeting with Robert Abrams of Abbeville Press Friday. Bill Dobbs, Neil Broome, Harm Bouckart and I are going. We sent a letter of solidarity to the Washington Project for the Arts for taking on the Mapplethorpe exhibition after the Corcoran pulled out. Jim Fouratt and I walked downtown after and he suggested we go to his place, then said he was only kidding -- to my relief. Aldo Hernandez was on Jim's WBAI radio show but lines got mixed up and sounded like the "Where's Aldo" show. They talked about ART+, Mapplethorpe and the Creative Time opening (where Aldo works) at the Anchorage tonight.

Gary Indiana called Simon's place the new Mudd Club in his Voice column. Does that mean I should start calling him "Doc" Watson? Simon wants slides of new paintings because a friend of Arthur Cohen wants to buy a painting, any painting and Simon suggested he might want to look at slides first. He told me to send an invoice with the slides as this is a done deal. It looks like people are getting behind Simon by buying my work. I don't mind but it is strange after never selling anything to all of a sudden selling anything.

Simon called Ronald Feldman about a meeting to discuss Kostabi. Feldman freaked but Simon calmed him down. They set up an appointment for next Tuesday. I bet he'll cancel at the last minute but we'll worry about that when the time comes.

I worked on paintings last night and read more of Greil Marcus' "Lipstick Traces." Tim called and we talked for more than an our. He's worried because John hasn't been very smart about his insurance or his AZT. But then Tim always worries about something.

A woman from the ACLU wants to meet with me because she's writing a report on the Tompkins Park riot for them. I'm going to the Anchorage tonight to hand out leaflets then meeting with Abrams tomorrow.

There's a Gay Pride march up to Central Park on Saturday, then a march back down on Sunday but I don't think I'll take part in the second. ACT UP puts too much effort into Gay Pride, particularly about demanding it be called a "march" instead of a "parade." Semantics. It's just showboating what we do and should probably put the effort into doing something in Brooklyn instead.

We need outreach to the art community. So many in the group are either video or performance artists and consider anybody else as elitist. That's why outreach is needed. People are in trouble but because of the particular homophobia of the art world and many artists contracted HIV from drug use nothing is being done. I'll work on that, using Kostabi as a door.