THE CLINTON FOUNDATION ROCKS LAST NIGHT IN NEW YORK! at http://www.clintonfoundation.org/

My dear internet puppies,

last night in New York was one of those unexpected nights for me that seems to happen only in New York!

Okay where do I start? Well I had made plans to attend a Christmas party that a longtime friend of mine, Sally Randall Brunger from KolDesign, throws every year at the BoConcept Boutique on Madison Avenue. Well I never like to go anywhere by myself, I mean it's just not done as "The Image Guru" because one must always be seen in the company of interesting, talented, beautiful and stylish people, so I called a "new" friend of mine, Marco Santini, ( who's HUGELY HANDSOME and VERY TALENTED ) who happens to be the drummer in the band, SWEET FIX...my newest SWEETest FIX!.....I always like to post that on my FACEBOOK page.

Anyway, Marco was available to come with me to Sally's party at BoConcept and it was like a blast from my past. Many of my once close friends from my madcap 80's and 90's days as one of New York's "downtown darlings" were there! Hmmm, let me recount who was there....the legendary Anita Sarko was DJ-ing, The Village Voice's inimitably witty and very ascerbic Michael Musto who was a co-host, the fabulous photographer/Image and Idea Producer and as she puts it "the original gangsta" Maripol who put Madonna on the style radar with her "BOY TOY" look was there too, along with fashion's Lauren Ezersky and her hubby Warren Schultz, ex-Mario Testino model/muse Dovanna, ex Antonio Lopez model/muse Jane Thorvaldson, downtown PR powerhouse from MAO PR Mauricio Padilla, and on and on and on! The only person seemingly missing from this illustrious downtowners "cool factor" list was Patricia Fields, but then she could have shown up after our departure....but then I do tend to overstate sometimes, but nonetheless, there were some downtown legends there!

After introducing my new, talented "find" Marco to all the people whom I thought he should meet and who were important and also suggesting that he give out his SWEET FIX cds to those same people ( it's called image networking) and being snapped up by Andrew Toth. the PMC photographer du jour many times with many of my ole' friends, refer to PMC website for photos from the event:

http://www.patrickmcmullan.com/site/event_detail.aspx?eid=39632&home=1

Marco informs me that his friend James Cecil, from CADENCE COMMUNICATIONS was doing the public relations for the CLINTON FOUNDATION's fundraiser for The Millenium Network at Terminal 5 (wheew, that was alot to remember). "I'm on the list and we should go to this", he said to me! "Will Bill be there?" I asked flippantly. " I think this is Chelsea's event, so I think she'll be there", Marco replied. "Okay" I obligingly agreed " I love me some Clinton!" So I retrieved my orange corduroy Etro coat and orange Ankar scarf, which I had slung over a fab BoConcept matching colored sectional. "I'm sorry but we're running late for Chelsea Clinton's event, thanks for a wonderful party Sally, I loved seeing you and all my longtime friends. It was like a wonderful, cool 80's revival!" kiss, kiss! And just as we were almost out the door, I saw another lovely face from my past, Adriana Kaegi, who used to be with Kid Creole & The Coconuts, she was one of the "Coconuts" so I took a few minutes to say hello to her and see what she was up to, which is about her new music cd too.

So we're finally out the door and can you believe, it took us almost 20 minutes to catch a cab on Madison and 28th Steet. We got to the Terminal 5 Event Space at 57th & 11th VERY LATE. As we walked in, I heard a very familiar, deep gruffed, Southern drawled voice speaking over a microphone. We entered a large, 2 story performance space, where we were literally BLOCKED by throngs of cell phone recording attendees recording a luminescent figure speaking up onstage....Yes puppies.....it was BILL-the rock star, ex-President of The United States and husband of our current Secretary of State, Hillary... CLINTON. LIVE and IN PERSON! Now I've been in the company of greatness before, but even I WAS EXCITED! There, front and center onstage was BILL CLINTON...DAMN, how cool is that and it was a PACKED HOUSE to boot. I felt like I was at a rock concert because anybody with a smart-phone was recording him, except for me, because I aint' that smart!

Granted, I've been in the company of Mr. Clinton before, ( at a private dinner party at the now defunct, once private club Brunos, which is now Crown ) but I am still a huge fan and massive supporter of all his philanthropic endeavors. But it never ceases to amaze me at how people still react to his mere presence! I swear, if he could legally run for the Presidency today, I think he would win hands down! TRULY! That's how popular and powerful this man still is! He has the ability to raise BILLIONS of dollars to aid many different charities and causes thru The Clinton Foundation and he always brings the light of awareness to whatever he chooses to champion...like his Haiti initiative. This is where Mr. Clinton and I have something in common, me being a Global Advisor for The Luce Foundation's OIWW, (Orphans International Worldwide) a charitable organization for orphans in Haiti. But last night's cause de celebre, The Millemium Network, is apparently his daughter's pet initiative which was what former President Clinton was speaking about. BTW I'm so glad to hear that we all can now see Chelsea on NBC too. Most Americans still LOVE THE CLINTONS, I'm not sorry to say..... and Hillary's kickass speech about equal rights for the LGBT communities at The United Nations General Assembly in Geneva was HISTORICAL! Personally, I can't get enough of The Clintons!

So on with the night, Marco found his contact James Cecil, who invited us to the event. He's the partner in Cadence Communications and handles the public relations for many of The Clinton Foundations's events. Mr. Cecil is an attractive and elegantly looking Macaulay Culkin-esque kinda' guy with a very calming disposition, I mean for a PR person, (which is almost a contradition in terms, lol) who graciously ushered us to one of the VIP areas as we watched Mr. Clinton speak. Unfortunately, we were too late to see Paul Rudd's opening, damn... cuz' I think he's so cool. BTW He was the evening's emcee. But we did get to enjoy The Fray's perfomances of 'You Found Me', 'Heartbeat', 'You Saved A Life' and several of their other Top 40 hits! After The Fray's performance came to a close, Chelsea and Paul Rudd did come back onstage and thanked everyone for coming and supporting The Millenium Network.

At this point, I had squeezed my way up to the front of the stage and recognized an old friend of mine who was standing up on the side of the stage behind the ropes, guarded by HUGE bouncers and secret service men. It was a familiar face that I hadn't seen in almost 15 years, my old friend Billy Evers, who happened to be the event producer of the evening. Wow, is that weird or what? I mean I had no idea I was even going to be at this event and there is my old friend producing the event.. Small world isn't it?

So we all went out afterwards to one of my old haunts, The Standard Grill, where Nils, the restaurant's General Manager, gave us a table, FRONT & CENTER without a reservation! Puppies, I don't mess around! I enjoyed talking with my new acquaintances, James Cecil and his very handsome protogee, Andrew, a very well spoken and elegant former model, who landed himself in the PR side of high finance and world politics with James's PR firm. Interesting converation, philosophizing and rehashing of old memories and experiences, but it was especially nice to reconnect with a dear old friend, Billy Evers, whom I met through another longtime friend and artist, Steven Miller. Both guys I've known since we were young bucks in our twenties being the "fabulous little monsters" that we were in New York in the 80's and 90's. Billy now resides in Boston but travels extensively and is hugely successful in his position as Creative Director for his events planning company, Rafanelli Events. He recanted a story about an event he produced for Marc Jacobs in Provincetown with Debbie Harry.... I did not attend that event....I don't like Provincetown much... but anyway that's another story.

But thanks gentlemen for making this image guru's night, it's great to meet new friends and see some old ones too. And thanks to my protogee, new friend Marco Santini, from the SEXY, NEW, 80's style pop group, SWEET FIX, for allowing me to tag along!

But the reason why I wrote this particular posting was because of The Clinton Foundation's wide reach of philanthropy. I am always happy to support the people who give back to humanity....and THE CLINTON FOUNDATION certainly DOES ROCK, they rock my world and they help to rock many other people in this world. If we could all learn by example.

For information on The Clinton Foundation's Millenium Network, or to make donations, log onto:
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/how-you-can-help/millennium-network

Remember internet puppies, if you do something great for humanity, humanity will do something great for you!

Montgomery Frazier "The Image Guru"