It was a measured performance, so haphazard and slovenly that I knew it had been rehearsed. I liked Fink immediately and invited him over for dinner with my girlfriend. That was planned too.
After a dinner of lemon chicken with Italian breading sauteed in olive oil, pasta in cream sauce, radicchio salad and garlic bread mixed with conversation about the Midwest, NYC and life on the road, Fink commented the meal was better than his earlier dinner at the Hamburger Inn.
Knowing that I was about to start an photography internship in the fashion industry in NYC, Fink spoke of the fraud called fashion, the humourless pomposity of New York's elite and what life really was, as seen from Hell's Kitchen.
Two
years later, I knew I couldn't continue starting my 5:30 AM days as an apprentice assisting in photographing the Rolling Stones, Catherine Deneuve, Cristina Ferrare, Vogue covers and ethereal lanterns floating in a sea of color while bouncing from Peter Beard's studio and Richard Avedon shoots. The imagery of a world in which the Ramones' unloaded their equipment from a cab in front of CBGB, whores on Latrobe, bums in Washington Square and young socialites discussing the impotence of life as they consumed their father's credit at 4 o'clock in the morning at Plato's was my undoing.I was trapped in Fink's world and my money had run out. I went straight to LaGuardia from a late night performance by Deborah Harry and a debauched party in a loft off Houston Street to a 6:30 AM flight back to Ohio.
In searching for a story about Hillary Clinton's disastrous campaign I found Larry Fink again.
He is still dissecting facades.
