TI's secret hideout this week

Even stars are suspect. The word on the streets I've been roaming is that in the middle of the Murakami/Vuitton dinner last week at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, the dinner plate chargers done in the theme of the artist' s "Flower Ball" paintings started disappearing. Into oversize Birkins. Between folders and catalogues. This from a crowd ranging from Ryan Seacrest to Ellen Degeneres to Courtney Love. Not that any of the above are specifically gulity of the charges. I got (or I think bought) that piece of information last night at a staggeringly expensive dinner with a local member of The Hiss Squad who was instructing me into the by-ways and by-laws of LA social climbing. The only restaraunts I can be seen at. The only nights I'm allowed to club. The only vehicles I can be spotted in. The only hotel acceptable to conduct the business of TI from (Beverly Hills Hotel.... At least that I could figure out myself). So many have-to's, too many must-haves. "But I don't know who any of the celebrities are," I sighed. And isn't The Imagist too ultra-fashion and arty-farty for bling bling LA? He reminded me that the grass was always greener on the other side. This is why Cate Blanchett ended up at the Performa 07 festival in NY suffering indignites she would never put up with elsewhere because it was all in the name of Pirandello, Vezzoli and A.R.T . Plus Miuccia Prada was throwing the after-party. This is why, he stated, Brad Pitt stood in his prison drawers for hours in artificial rain, shooting a Robert Wilson video, only to have it end up as a Vanity Fair cover instead of in the Ace Gallery as he intended. Art+Fashion+Celebrity would get me to the highest peak of Beverly Park he promised. That's why I love LA. All the riche is nouveau riche and it don't get more American than that.

The Incredible Disappearing Murakami Charger/placemat

My LA hisser had had dinner with Marc Jacobs and his boyfriend Jason at Chateau Marmont the previous week , where Mr Jacobs and Mr Preston had been ensconsed in the penthouse. Marc's hair was in its lighter shade of blue then, and his ears had been pinned with massive diamonds that would have made P. Diddy go home and change. Marc had also been wearing a ring that once belonged to The Duchess of Windsor. At that bit of news I said with total envy "Well her jewelry certainly does get around." . I then traded the information I had just read regarding the exchange between Marc and John Galliano in the lobby of The Mercer as reported by Eric Wilson at The Times. It goes like this:

Hi, John!” Mr. Jacobs exclaimed. “How are you doing?”

“Good, nice to see you,” Mr. Galliano said. “Oh, you’ve gone a little darker, I see.”

“Navy!” Mr. Jacobs said. “Na-vy.”

“Oh, that would be a little chicer,” Mr. Galliano said. “Indigo!”

“Well, if you ever feel like having tea or coffee, I’m sort of bedridden for a few days, so I can’t move far,” Mr. Jacobs said. “I had an operation.”

“Oh really?”

“Sex change.”

I've been told Marc has one of the fastest tounges in all of fashion and now I believe it. I also gleaned that Marc and Jason were now best pals with Perez Hilton and maybe that explains the blue hair. The dining room at Chateau understandably was jammed with all the fashion kids from NY from Karl Templer on down. In fact I wonder if anything is being shot in NY anymore. The LV campaign with the superbods of the supermods was being lensed in London. Lanvin and Mulberry and the customary Vogue Italia just got wrapped in said LA. I don't even dare hint who was on the recent set of Italian Vogue (What would that be? The December issue?) because the casting alone makes you go...Wooowwww. I did get the extraordinary hiss that one of the biggest contracts in all of fashion photography is being renegotiated right this minute. Its not about money. Apparently all the parties are swimming in it. Its just the terms and conditions that count now. Positioning. Covers. Amount of working days. Money or Image? What matters most I wondered aloud. "Well I'm glad you've decided to come over to the dark side," my dinner companion said. "I'm loving that you're no longer embarrassed by money" . I looked at my $7 cup of green tea and then back up at the sea of surgically rebuilt faces for a while and sighed "That's the problem with money. Anybody can have it" But I shoudn't disclose all of our new correspondent's tasty fashion bits. Information is a currency and I think it is only fair to meet his market rate.