BRING ME THE HANDS OF JUAN PERRONE

In the wake of the recent discovery of the cardboard cut-out Obama having white hands, I recall one of my very first supermodel interactions. It was at the beginning of that turbulent decade- the Funkies. I was working for PAPER MAGAZINE as their religion editor. And one day, while in the office, above Blimpies on Spring and Broadway, I spied a rather fetching young woman, typing away on her IBM Selectric. PAPER always had pretty young girls coming and going, interns and such. So I wasn't that surprised. "Nice new intern." I commented to Charles in Charge McC. "She's a fucking supermodel." he said, in distain of my ignorance. "That's Veronica Webb." I had no idea who Veronica Webb was, but I made it my mission to write my column with a view of her desk from then on.
Turned out she was smart, and cool and basically just another one of the oddball columnists. So happened she was incredibly beautiful, and had a high paying job to boot. I had recently written a piece on "FASHION", so I felt qualified to chat her up. I knew who the players were- Isabel and Rueben Toledo, Izac Mizrahi, Todd Oldham, (household names now, but then just PAPER darlings). It wasn't my scene, but that came with the territory, writing on religion for a scenester mag like PAPER. When I started concentrating on the hunting in my columns, we parted company. But back to Veronica.
How ever long she wrote for PAPER, it was during this period that she blew up big in the modeling world. She was in PAGE SIX and then she got a Revlon contract and if I'm not mistaken, she was the first Black girl to do this. Of course PAPER had to have a big party to celebrate this historic event. So Charles in Charge McC and I go to this party to congratulate Veronica on this supermodeling coup. On the way to the party I pick up a NY POST in the back seat of the cab we're riding in. And on PAGE SIX is the news, complete with photo. VERONICA WEBB SCORES REVLON CONTRACT! The only problem was they had printed a shot of some white model. Charles looked at it and assured me it was Veronica. "They make 'em up. You can't tell who they are, let alone Black or White."
When we got to the party the first thing out of Chuck's mouth was " Wow! Congratulations. etc. etc., ect, .....oh was that you in the POST?" I thought the girl would shit. And in lieu of the situation, she was gracious of the POST'S utter fuck up. "Yeah, they put a White girl in there. Nice." was all she said. And now Obama's hands are white. Dangling from all those life size cut-outs, people are having their pictures taken along side, could be the hands of Juan Perrone. Or even George Bush. When will it ever end?