I’m a peaceful drinker. My local on Fulham Street is only two blocks from my atelier. The regulars have accepted as one of them rather than ‘one of Them’. The core of the bar numbers about ten. We converse about racism, neighborhood change, Mississippi cops, the Celtics, Knicks, Prince versus Michael Jackson, food, and pretty much everything else that popped into our heads. I can say what I want. No one gets offended by my being whitey and I’m happy as the token peckerwood.

I know my place, which is to play the role of Harry Bentley, THE JEFFERSON’S well-mannered British neighbor.

I’m happy with my role. My lines are background noise. No one really cares what i say, but last week the fashion media scourged Dior’s star designer for a drunken rant at a Paris bar. His words were no taken out of context. They were meant to hurt the Italian girl at the next table.

Here is the transcript:

Girl: “Are you blonde?”

Galliano: “No, but I love Hitler. People like you would be dead today. You’re mothers, your forefathers would be f**king gassed, and f**king dead.”

Girl: “Do you have a problem?”

Galliano: “With you? You’re ugly.” *snarl*

Girl: “With all people. You don’t like peace. You don’t want peace in the world.?

Galliano: “Not with ugly people.”

Girl: “Where are you from?”

Galliano: “Your asshole.”

I worked the most popular nightclub in Paris.

1980s.

If I had heard this trendy enfant terrible du mode speak like this, I would have directed my bouncers to chuck him in the street. Nowadays I’d have to evict fools by my lonesome, but I’d also remind Mssr. Galliano that he is both a gypsy and homosexual. Hitler had special camps for those people too. Not nice either.

Remember these words of Francis Picabia, Spanish surrealist painter

Let us never forget that the greatest man is never more than an animal disguised as a god.