A Week in Culture: Kim Hastreiter, Editor, Part 2

This is the second installment of Hastreiter’s culture diary. Click here to read part 1.

DAY FOUR

11:05 A.M. Hop over with Drew and Jacob to Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills to catch the Gus Van Sant show as well as the Ed Ruscha garbage paintings. The guys were drooling over the Van Sant homoerotic boy paintings. They were just okay in my book and forty thousand dollars each. And the exhibition was sponsored by Gucci. (So LA). I liked the Ruscha garbage paintings, although I wouldn’t have bought any of this art even if I were a zillionaire.

Gus Van Sant at Gagosian.

12:15 P.M. I dropped off the boys at the hotel and headed up to Laurel Canyon to visit my friend, the artist Adele Lutz. Within five minutes of Hollywood Boulevard, I was completely in nature. We hung out drinking diet cokes in Adele’s lush backyard looking for mountain lions (one walked through her yard just the week before!).

2:45 P.M. Starving. Adele and I head down to a wonderful new spot I heard about called Tinga, on La Brea and Second Street, where they make the most yummy Oaxacan street food. Boy, did we have an outrageous lunch. The food is ridiculous and the folks who run it are sweethearts. They kept giving us stuff to try. Crazy good. They gave us a salsa made from toasted grasshoppers. Yikes.

Norwegian chefs.

6:30 P.M. Head downstairs to the Standard pool to check out the setup for our “Beautiful People” party we’re throwing with Guess. It starts at seven. Everyone is running around. Madness. Meet Josh Madden who is deejaying for us and bond with him immediately. He is cute, smart, and a true-blue Paper fanatic. His brothers are famous: Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte. Josh is more into being a regular guy. The party is full blast by eight. My posse arrives: the Brunettis, Press and Gefter, Cameron Silver and Jeff Snyder, and my old friend Debi Mazar decked head to toe in Isabel Toledo with her cute husband, Gabriele, in tow. Their Cooking Channel show Extra Virgin is a hit, so bulbs are flashing. It’s fun. Cobrasnake comes with his mom, who I adore with the hilarious Johnny Makeup! Paper fans are everywhere. Four identically dressed chefs from Norway introduce themselves, as does Jesse Williams, the gorgeous guy who plays one of the Grey’s Anatomy doctors. Turns out he’s a big Paper fan! Beautiful person Keri Hilson sings fiercely. It’s a success so I breathe a sigh of relief, run upstairs, and pack, as we have to be at the airport at five A.M. the next morning to catch the first flight back to New York to be back in time to throw our East Coast “Beautiful People” party that night! Oy vey.

DAY FIVE

4:45 A.M. Head to LAX. We are outta here.

Aziz Ansari.

3:10 P.M. Touchdown JFK. Head directly to Paper offices to sign checks and put out fires until heading to Good Units at the Hudson Hotel, where our “Beautiful People” New York party (hosted by funny cover boy Aziz Ansari) is warming up.

7:30 P.M. At Good Units red carpet, the photogs are lined up, as are people waiting to get in. The excitement is palpable, as Duran Duran’s performing for us tonight and the kids are gagging with excitement. My partner, David Hershkovits, and I head to the green room to greet the band and say hi to our old friend Nick Rhodes. The guys are sweethearts and every one of them looks handsome and cute. They are our kind of peeps, and their impending new album, produced by Mark Ronson, has a huge buzz. Yup, Duran Duran is having a moment. And we are, of course, capturing it. The party rocks. The band plays for an hour to screaming, thumping, jumping crowd of young kids and oldsters like me. It was one of those legendary moments in Paper history to be talked about and remembered for years to come.

12:00 A.M. Home. Boy, am I tired.

DAY SIX

Japanese dairy farmer.

9:00 A.M. Latte and The New York Times. Totally sad and depressing news about Japan’s nuke meltdown and the people of Japan’s scary surreal limbo they are living in and trying to make sense of. A farmer who is a seventeenth-generation farmer who does not know what to do now that his land is filled with radiation; imagine a dairy farmer who milks his hundreds of cows every day but must throw away the milk. People who are becoming more desperate (and destitute) by the day but because of their culture and nature are methodically trudging forward although not knowing where forward is taking them. It’s so horrible. No one can get their head around this slow-motion holocaust.

Mr. Mickey.

11:00 A.M. Deadline for our upcoming May “Social Network” issue is impending. I work with Mr. Mickey who has his shit together and has organized the cover shoot of Duran Duran for the following day and the fashion shoot about blogger stylists for the weekend. I work on my guru interview transcription of Andy Cohen for the issue.

6:00 P.M. Quick twelve-dollar manicure at my favorite Vogue nail salon on Sixth Avenue at 12th Street.

Isabel and Ruben Toledo.

8:00 P.M. Taxi down to Louis Vuitton shop in Soho to a party and to hear an art conversation between two of my favorite people: T’s Sally Singer and artist Ruben Toledo. To hear Ruben talk about arriving in Miami at age six and being given a leopard shirt and white cowboy boots and a ride to New Jersey was amazing. And of course talk about his other half, his wife, Isabel Toledo, who he has collaborated with creatively since he was thirteen, when the two of them met. He is a hilarious interview and a totally eccentric, imaginative, outsider who will be in the history books for sure.

9:00 P.M. Catch up on my DVR’d reality shows: The Real Housewives of Miami, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Million Dollar Listing, Top Chef, Selling New York, Jersey Shore, Oprah’s season twenty-five. Trash like this really helps me relax.

DAY SEVEN

Margaret Kilgallen

9:00 A.M. RAIN. COLD. I’m sick of winter. Poached eggs and skim latte at a breakfast meeting at the Standard Grill. Grabbed a copy of the new “Art on the Streets” Juxtapoz at the Standard store. Love the article on the late artist Margaret Kilgallen. She was a brilliant artist.

11:30 A.M. Just plain work.

4:00 P.M. Head to photographer Jake Chessum’s photo studio to do the Paper cover shoot and to hang with Duran Duran boys, check out their looks, and make sure everyone’s having fun. What a great vibe. The boys look fabulous. They’re styled by our very own Luigi Tadini. I’m in love. And Jake C. is killing it. They are all sweethearts–regular nice guys and by now they are, of course, in love with our whole Paper family. I bond with Yasmine, Simon’s beautiful wife, who is lovely and super nice.

7:00 P.M. T.G.M.W.S. (Thank God My Weekend Starts.)

THE END. THANK YOU, LORDY. This is exhausting.

Kim Hastreiter is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Paper Magazine.