When Keith Richards stepped up onto the stage at the Norman Mailer Gala at the Mandarin Oriental in New York last Tuesday, to collect the Autobiography Award from a bumptious Bill Clinton, he appeared to be almost speechless. Words eventually came, though, if a little tentatively: ‘I’m not usually fazed by stuff,’ said Keith, almost humbly, glancing at the ex-president, ‘but I’m fazed by this.’ It was difficult to tell who had the most star-power; the great and the good took out their mobiles to take snaps of Clinton, while Keef charmed everyone with his unintentional impression of Bill Deedes. Two months ago, when we honoured Keith at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards at the Opera House in London, the room was equally dumbstruck, and as he was given his award by Johnny Depp and Tom Stoppard, 500 people stood up as one. However, one thing I know for sure, having spent a year organising for Keith to attend the Mailer Gala, I can honestly say that it’s a lot easier to host a party in London than it is one happening 3,500 miles away.
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Watching Jay-Z and Kanye West walk out onto the stage at Madison Square Gardens the night before was like seeing two prizefighters enter the ring. Even though both had deliberately dressed down for the occasion (I like it better when they succumb to fluorescent jodhpurs and Tom Ford suits), they looked ridiculously starry, and received the kind of welcome that Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor may have done in the same venue 50 years ago. It was an extraordinary evening, as they performed at opposite ends of the auditorium, spurring each other on, almost like Ali and Frazier. Jay-Z (or Jay-Zed, as a colleague’s mother insists on calling him) is the most charismatic of the two, while watching him perform ‘Empire State of Mind’ is the modern-day equivalent of seeing Sinatra sing ‘New York New York’.
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The best thing on Broadway right now is The Book of Mormon, which is probably the best religious satirical musical you’ll ever see. Watching the other evening I felt like I did when I first saw The Simpsons, 20-odd years ago: it wasn’t the subject matter that surprised me, but the fact that it had been embraced by the sort of people who usually pay hard-earned money to see the likes of Mamma Mia! or Rock of Ages (everyone around me in the theatre appeared to own a pair of chinos, a baseball cap and several children). I urge any American thinking of voting Republican to go and see it immediately.
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I can only think of two or three visits to the city that didn’t involve a trip downtown to the Strand bookstore on 12th Street, which in my view is the second-best secondhand bookshop in the US (the best being Powell’s in Portland). I get protective about it in the way that New York cab drivers get protective about skyscrapers and public buildings; I notice every nuance of change, and while I hate change, have learned to accept it if not exactly embrace it. I spend stupid amounts of money on Amazon, but nothing beats the thrill of finding something I’ve been looking for for years, squeezed into a dusty shelf on 12th Street. My great find this time was a decent second edition of The Kingdom and the Power by Gay Talese.
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A lot of New York cab drivers change shifts around 4 p.m., so getting a cab in the middle of the afternoon can be difficult. As I was failing to get a cab outside the Soho Grand on Wednesday, on my way uptown, an empty bus stopped, I haggled with the driver, and he took me all the way to the Guggenheim for $20. When I told him what type of business I was in, he seemed nonplussed: ‘Joursalism? No, I don’t know… You sure you got the fare?’
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By the way, have you noticed how many people now refer to Steve Hilton in print as Gollum, after the creepy changeling creature from Lord Of The Rings? Odd, isn’t it? Well, not really. A few years ago I wrote in GQ that whereas he was once known as Yoda, after the oracle-like character in Star Wars, the lobby had started to refer to D.C.’s shaven-headed in-house guru as Gollum. I had made this up (if Hilton can lift horizons, I can initiate nicknames), but it became so popular that even taxi drivers now call him by his adoptive name. So Steve, I suppose I owe you an apology, although I’m fairly sure I heard you whisper ‘Fat hobbit hates us master…’ as Eric Pickles walked through the canteen at Norman Shaw North once.
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Talking of apologies, I got one out of George Osborne the other day. When he received his own award at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards in September, he had made an inappropriate joke about every politician that had ever appeared in the magazine (including his boss). A few weeks later I accosted him at a Downing Street reception and forced an apology out of him. ‘But surely all publicity is good publicity,’ he said, with a smile. ‘What,’ I replied, ‘like the economy?’
Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ.