June 24, 1989
Saturday, 11:05 pm

Bill Dobbs, Neil Broome, Harm Boukhart and I went to see Robert Abrams of Abbeville Press about Mark Kostabi this afternoon. We met in the lobby of the building at 2:00 then went to a coffee shop to talk about what we were going to say. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. We agreed on a simple outline with four points so we wouldn't contradict each other.

Abbeville is in the penthouse of an old prewar building (bill though it was the LOOK Magazine building). We walked up a staircase covered with Warhol Mao prints into a room with a granite-topped conference table. Mr. Abrams, who looks a bit like Donald Trump, was joined by Sharon Gallagher, the rights director.

We sat facing each other and Ms. Gallagher started off with a rabid (her mouth foamed) explanation of what was happening. We told her we weren't there as enemies but as concerned people and they relaxed. The cat when on for almost two hours and at the end we didn't really achieve much but we learned a lot.

They do not want to publish Kostabi's book but have a contract and have been trying for three weeks to get out of it without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. We talked about their lack of an anti-discrimination policy and other things but basically reinforced the idea that if they publish the book they might be in for more problems than just paying Kostabi off.

Bill, a lawyer, hit them hard but didn't get any firm commitment. They seemed to honestly not want anything to do with Kostabi and very willing to dump his book.

Our next stop is Ronald Feldman, who is acting as a go-between for Kostabi and Abbeville. He sent us a fax of a letter Kostabi wrote explaining how he was misrepresented by Anthony Haden-Guest in Vanity Fair and that the whole thing was actually a performance piece. Even Abrams had to laugh at that. Kostabi is using the reason we are angry at him as his defense!

There is a video program at Simon's curated by Bob Beck with work by Tom Kalin, Catherine Saalfeld, Madonna and others. Bob finally got his porn booth working for Erotophobia.

I marched up to the Gay Pride Rally in Central Park with ACT UP but felt let down when I got there. It was the same old Heritage of Pride crap and I left after the second disco singer started. Whatever history they are writing it doesn't include me.

Simon and Gary Indiana marched part of the way. Gary was upset about a review in the Times of his book "Horse Crazy" he said was homophobic. I read it and think the reviewer just didn't like his book, him, the subject or people in general. I told him he should try to be more like Kathy Acker.