Mr. Torres, whose professional heyday was between 1958 and 1969 (YouTube has a couple of clips: Torres v. Carl 'Bobo' Olson in 1964; Torres v. Willie Pastrano from 1965) and went on to become the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission from 1984 to 1988. According to Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Torres was "the first former professional boxer and the first Latino to head the agency, which oversees boxing in the state."

Outside of the ring, Mr. Torres was an author. In 1971 he wrote Sting Like a Bee: The Muhammad Ali Story and Fire & Fear: The Inside Story of Mike Tyson from 1990, which formed the basis for the 1995 TV movie Tyson, which we mentioned yesterday in a post about David Carr's interview with Mike Tyson.

Mr. Torres was also close friends with Norman Mailer. The boxer was among several "friends"—including Norman Podhoretz—to whom Mr. Mailer dedicated Why Are We in Vietnam? in 1967 and appeared in Mr. Mailer's 1970 experimental movie Maidstone.

According to Green -- who placed third, after Barron, in a primary against incumbent Congressman Ed Towns -- he was prepared to drop out of the race before he saw Barron make comments about him on The Politicker.

"Had he not made that statement, Charles would probably have been elected a Congressman," said Green.

"There had been a resolution and it blew up," he continued. "It was done as done could be done. All I had to do was communicate with people that made commitments to my campaign. I told him that."

Green travelled out to Chicago the weekend before Labor Day to attend a convention for the Nation of Islam and met Muhammad Ali.

"I went out to Chicago and spoke to Muhammad Ali to secure an endorsement in addition to other things I'm working on and one of Ali's associates asked me if I would really drop out. I said I probably hadn't raised enough money to stay in the race. He asked if the councilman was a hot-head and I said yes, but maybe we need some
heat in Congress to stir the pot. And he said, 'Well, is it stirring the pot or will he blow the pot over?' And I thought about that."

Green said that the conversation did not dissuade him from endorsing Barron, but after he returned and saw what the councilman said, it confirmed his fears.

"To hold public office, you have to diplomatic, you have to be willing to talk, you have hold your fire, you can't shoot at everything. You can't shoot at everything! Folks said to me it was a sign.

"Charles stomped on his own foot."

-- John Koblin

In politics, the average campaign operative clings to that ethos as tightly as a woozy prizefighter in a clinch.

The candidates in this year's Mayoral election are looking for an edge-any edge-over their opponents. This is most obvious in the fight for endorsements.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has gloried in the backing of everyone from the controversial Independence Party to the League of Conservation Voters.

Among the Democrats, Fernando Ferrer's and Gifford Miller's Web sites each feature long lists of the officeholders who have endorsed the candidate.

Virginia Fields and Anthony Weiner trumpet the people they have enlisted to their respective causes just as loudly.

But do these endorsements matter? New York's political world has only a handful of truly major figures. Do the others-the soporific State Assembly members, the colorless City Councilors, the dreary district leaders-actually have the power to affect an election's outcome?

Many people doubt it.

"Endorsements may give a sense of momentum to a candidate, but whether or not they generally result in an actual transfer of votes is debatable," said George Arzt, a veteran Democratic consultant who isn't involved in this year's Mayoral race.

"In general, endorsements are not all that important," said John Mollenkopf, director of City University's Center for Urban Research. "There are a few people who have a resonance with a certain community. But most people don't care very much about which City Council members are going to back Gifford Miller or whoever."

Why, then, does the process of soliciting and receiving endorsements attract such attention? Perhaps because it provides something for everyone.

Every candidate, even the feeblest, can draw a few endorsements, thus bolstering his or her credibility. Every local political figure, even the most obscure, can look forward to having his or her ego stroked by a succession of suitors.

And every media outlet can be grateful-especially on a slow news day-for the opportunity to present an endorsement as a fresh and important development, though it is usually neither.

The second of these three factors is the most underacknowledged. The whole endorsement shebang often offers greater dividends to the potential endorser than the endorsee.

The people who are being asked to bestow their blessings can, for a start, strike deals as part of the standard political horse-trading. The candidate's beseeching advances also carry a powerful subtext: They suggest that the would-be backer has it within his or her gift to deliver a bloc of votes, or significant organizational support, or both. The reality may be rather different, but the perception of influence alone can burnish a reputation.

The most skilled political operators stretch out the endorsement process in a way that delivers maximum publicity for their purposes. Take the Reverend Al Sharpton, for example. Back in April, Mr. Sharpton attracted expansive media coverage by announcing-well, not very much, actually. The reverend said in an interview with The New York Times that he wouldn't endorse any of the Democratic Mayoral candidates. He then added the hardly insignificant caveat that he might endorse one of them. Sometime. Maybe in August. Just not now.

Mr. Sharpton's non-declaration was enough to kick off a second round of stories.

Was the activist exacting payback for a lack of support from the candidates during his 2004 Presidential bid? Was he trying to nudge them toward courting him more assiduously?

Whatever the answers to those questions, the most notable aspect of the whole episode was this: Stories that had been provoked by Al Sharpton served, by their mere existence, to reinforce a precious message about Al Sharpton. That message was: "I am important."

Mr. Sharpton may indeed be important. Or, as some suggest, his political magnetism may be exaggerated. Either way, it's a tribute to his tactical wiles that he was able to manipulate the endorsement issue so adeptly, in a way that produced zero benefit for anyone but him.

Some endorsements cannot be dismissed out of hand. There is a select number of people, including ex-Mayors like Rudy Giuliani and, at a stretch, Ed Koch, who still hold sway with sections of the electorate.

More broadly, the endorsement of labor unions, especially behemoths like Local 1199 of the health-care workers' union, can be crucial because of the logistical firepower they lend to a campaign.

Ultimately, though, every endorsement-and every claim made about its value-should be regarded with skepticism. Most of them are worth little in the end. Endorsements are like opinion polls. In isolation, they tend to be meaningless. Collectively, they make a small impact.

There is only one that really matters. The voters deliver it on Election Day.

For example, I share something in common with Orson Welles and Muhammad Ali. I'm a sucker for magic tricks (though "trick" is too lowly a word for the truly astonishing). Quite recently, a magician asked me to sign a playing card, which subsequently reappeared in an orange . Well, that was no trick.

I know a few myself, actually. I can make a red scarf turn into a white scarf if I want. And I can make a white scarf turn into a red scarf. (Polka dots are harder.) I can also tear a newspaper into squares and have it appear whole again. And I can make certain things disappear-though not, alas, certain people.

On balance, I tend to believe in irrational things, like going to the theater. I'm superstitious: I once visited a renowned shaman in Nigeria who threw down cowrie shells in a show of divination and silenced my unspoken cynicism by pointing fiercely to his eyes. "My eyes do not see tomorrow," he announced with shaming force. "But what they see will happen …. "

He prophesied that I would be extremely wealthy and held above all others in my work. But, unfortunately, only one came true. Still, I believe in the existence of gypsy instinct, extraordinary acts of clairvoyancy, synchronicity (or staggering coincidence) and thought transference. I was once lucky enough to meet Graham Greene, and the great novelist-who had such a mighty struggle all his life in believing in God-told me he had no difficulty whatsoever in accepting the paranormal.

"It seems to me reasonable that great distress can travel," he said, staring at me earnestly with his depressed, ginny eyes. "If a voice can come through on the radio, why not a voice or emotion hundreds of miles away through the air?"

Why not? After all, animals are known to read the thoughts of human beings. And if they can do it, why not Marc Salem on Broadway? Mr. Salem hears voices, too, in his own matter-of-fact way. "Andrea," he asks a member of his audience. "Who's Celia?"

"My dog," the amazed Andrea replies.

"Did you and Douglas take a wedding trip to Stockholm?"

"Oh, my God!" they cry.

The bearded Mr. Salem, short and stocky in a formal business suit, looks unimpressed at his own gifts, however. He's a deliberately unshowy mind reader. For myself, if you're going to produce, say, lots of pigeons from thin air, you need a little atmosphere, you need white tie and tails and a touch of mystery. But Mr. Salem in his business suit consciously banishes the mysterious from his act-as if telling us that what he does is actually real and reasonable, if you know how.

When he first appeared onstage, he stopped the welcoming applause with, "It's only me!" In other untheatrical words, he wants us to believe he's a normal human being-not a showbiz shaman or trickster. When he announces where we took a vacation, for example, he's just telling us what he knows.

"Alison, you went to Maui. George-was it Peru? Helen-you went up a mountain recently."

"Yes!" Helen exclaims, as the others did.

"You jumped off the mountain, didn't you?" Mr. Salem adds confidently.

The audience laughs. But Helen doesn't.

"Were you in a hand-glider?" he asks.

"I was!" Helen cries.

"She's not stupid," he says to us.

The first mind reader I saw in childhood blindfolded himself and called out the serial number on a bank note that a member of the audience had in his wallet. The blindfold wasn't essential. Either he knew the serial number or he didn't. (And either the member of the audience was a plant or he wasn't.) Obviously, the mind reader was blindfolding himself for extra dramatic effect.

Mr. Salem does something similar at the Lyceum Theatre, where he appears every Monday when I Am My Own Wife is dark. In fact, Mr. Salem-a no frills mind reader-is appearing on the set of I Am My Own Wife , and its flimsy, ghostly presence reminds us that all theater is a fantastic illusion. (Or a nice lie in an artistic cause.) But are Mr. Salem's gifts the real thing, as he would have us believe?

At one high point in his show, he places half-dollar coins over each eye. Then he wraps a lot of surgical tape round his head. And for extra dramatic effect, he blindfolds himself. He then names various objects-a key ring, a campaign button, a baseball cap, a safety pin-collected at random from members of the audience and handed to another audience member onstage. That's not all: He tells us the slogan on the campaign button and the number 129 on the back of the safety pin. How does he do it?

My suspicion that all isn't quite as it seems goes back to the time, a few years ago, when I revisited Blackpool, mecca holiday resort in the North of England. I went there often in childhood and returned for a nostalgic visit. On the prom-or a boardwalk-was the booth of a mind reader named Gypsy Rose, and I was thinking of going in when Gypsy Rose herself appeared unexpectedly from within.

"What are you doing nosing around?" she asked accusingly.

I said I was just taking a look.

"Well, come in or fuck off out of it," said Gypsy Rose.

I didn't go in, but here's the thing: Since she was the mind reader, shouldn't she have known what I was doing there in the first place?

It seems to me that mind readers are limited to quite minor information. Mr. Salem can guess what number you've written down. He has a phenomenal mathematical memory (as the lugubrious Ricky Jay does). He can read body language. He can tell if you're lying. He can magically duplicate the drawing you've just made. He can tell you the serial number on your $20 bill. He can even stop your pulse and stop your watch.

But what he can't do is tell you something as simple as your name or job. When he invites volunteers onstage-"Join us onstage, please!"-he has to ask you to identify yourself. Mr. Salem is no different from irritable old Gypsy Rose of Blackpool in that respect. But he pulls of some pretty remarkable feats. How does he do it? That's the question.

I haven't a clue.

Unless, that is, the audience members eagerly volunteering to join him onstage are Mr. Salem's shills. Either that, or Mr. Salem has a listening device implanted in an ear lobe. It's only a guess, but the secret listening device could be connected to an assistant in the balcony. The assistant, for example, could whisper to him what all the objects are when he's blindfolded with the half-dollars in his eyes and the surgical tape.

Then how does he know that the number 129 is on the back of the safety pin? The audience member who had the safety pin is a shill.

Aha! But not so fast. Mr. Salem has posted a $100,000 reward if anyone can prove he uses a plant, or a mirror, or tricks of any kind.

I thought of going back a second time and even a third time to claim the reward-but to be honest, I couldn't face it. Mr. Salem is a direct link with the lost golden age of variety, but at an hour and a half in length, there's only so many times I can see him guessing someone's cell-phone number.

It's uncharitable, I know. But Mr. Salem, excellent in so many ways, never makes a mistake. Even the miraculous high-wire artist without a safety net reminds us of the extreme danger he's in by wobbling deliberately. But Mr. Salem never falters. Everything goes according to plan, it seems. But for me, the real magic of theater is always unpredictable.

Real theatrical magic happens when you see the wires. The redeeming angel crashes through the roof, but we see its wires. It's better that way, and more fun. With theater, we willingly suspend our disbelief. With mind readers, we're always wary, always on our guard-suspiciously wanting to know the secret.

It took four men to write the screenplay, and each of them seems to have contributed scenes that separate like egg yolks from their shells. None of the events connect to each other, and the time frame goes haywire. In the script, by Stephen Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Eric Roth and director Michael Mann himself, Ali disgraces his family's name and respect and sacrifices the love of his first wife for Islam. We never know why. Ali gets fined and sentenced for refusing to serve in the U.S. Army because of his religious beliefs. Again, we don't know why, and even though the conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court, he still comes off like a coward. Ali loses his title for making unpatriotic remarks about the Vietnam War, struggles against bigotry to make a comeback, and ends up a hero at 32. Meanwhile, we never know what he's thinking or feeling or why he's so special. Most of the time he just seems passive and simple-minded. The facts don't gel, and the fragmented results tell more about Michael Mann's passion for his subject than they do about Ali. This is not Mr. Mann's best film; I liked The Insider much better.

Ali is a punishing ordeal, but there are some rewards for patience. The fight sequences are aggressively and powerfully shot, and there are two memorable performances. An unrecognizable but terrific Jon Voight is the spitting image of acerbic sportscaster and loyal Ali supporter Howard Cosell (the portrayal is so realistic you expect Cosell's famously phony wig to fly off his head every time he bends over). And a beefed-up Will Smith lights up the screen with both fists to show the conflicting sides of the controversial boxer in and out of the ring. Arrogant, pushy, loudmouthed, obnoxious, honest, sweet, funny, dumb as a potato, a womanizer who cheated on his wives and neglected his children, but demonstrated unshakable devotion to the cronies and sycophants who deserted him when the chips were down but crawled over him like ants when he was in the money, Ali emerges as a second-rate husband and father, but a first-rate athlete. Mr. Smith is smoother-featured and better-looking than the champ, but he's not afraid to take chances. He does all of his own work in the ring without a stunt double, takes a lot of kidney crunches and left hooks, and generally does what the rest of Ali fails to do: He commands and holds attention for two and a half hours in a knockout performance that leaves you hanging on the ropes.

Penn's Patriarch

Another spectacular workout by the versatile and indefatigable Sean Penn saves the sudsy I Am Sam from the rinse cycle. Playing a retarded man in his 30's with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old who is trying his level best to raise a 7-year-old daughter, Mr. Penn takes impossible risks and lands on his feet every time in a teary film that otherwise seems strung together with wet Kleenex.

Sam is a loving man, deserted by his wife and forced to provide a normal home for his child, Lucy (played with the kind of clear-eyed gumdrop adorableness guaranteed to reduce audiences of every age to sobs by a moppet named Dakota Fanning, who is 7 going on 70), with the aid of a support group of eccentric neighbors and a circle of autistic friends who share his handicaps. Sam works as a barista at Starbucks, making $8 an hour and spilling more latte than he serves. This arrangement works quite well until Lucy starts hanging back in school, terrified that she will lose her beloved father if she surpasses his I.Q.

The authorities intercede, Sam loses his job, and the state is about to take Lucy away when a smart lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer) takes his case pro bono . If ever there was a case for lawyers, it's Michelle Pfeiffer. Gorgeous, spiky, brittle, career-driven and determined to teach bureaucracy a lesson, she whirls through the movie knocking over jelly beans, dropping cell phones and firing everyone in sight. Clearly she needs a shrink and some parenting lessons of her own, yet she tackles a case load of social issues to prove how little a person's intellectual capacity has to do with their capacity to love. In the long haul of custody hearings, court battles and wrenching personal revelations, she becomes so emotionally involved with the helpless, childlike Sam that she ruins her own practice to help him beat the system. Now there's an attorney we need more than a tax rebate. Unfortunately, she's such a tidal wave you never worry much about how it all turns out. She's on the case, even after the movie ends.

Directed by Jessie Nelson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kristine Johnson, I Am Sam has impeccable credentials and heartwarming intentions, but it almost drowns in bathos. There isn't a moment of subtlety in it, and the cards are so neatly stacked in Sam's favor that you spend too much time asking angry questions like "Why are all these awful people doing such mean things to this nice man?" instead of feeling challenged by the social issues that gnaw at the film's inner core in silence. Still, the acting is so efficient that the film wins you over, whether you like it or not.

Dianne Wiest as an agoraphobic neighbor who must test her own sanity to venture off to court to save Sam and Lucy; Laura Dern as the court-assigned foster mother who is too good to be true; and Mary Steenburgen as a star witness are all wonderful. But it's Sean Penn who really steals the picture from start to finish. With short arms, unfocused, dull eyes and halting speech, trying to balance a baby in one arm and a shopping basket full of Pampers in the other, or timing the baby's bottle by the hours different sitcoms come on Nickelodeon, he makes you laugh and breaks your heart at the same time. Despite its flaws, I Am Sam is a little film with a big capacity to heal a hurting heart.

Off-the-Wall Werewolves

The first shocker of 2002 is Brotherhood of the Wolf , a French bouillabaisse of frenetic head-bangers that defies interpretation or analysis but keeps your eyes popping and your adrenaline flowing. This wild thriller is the 18th-century French version of a Japanese samurai-flick- cum -horror-movie about werewolves, with black magic, devil worshippers, epic Napoleonic battles and just enough camp to make you giggle. The cinematography is opulent, the special effects are awesome, and the director has obviously seen entirely too many cheesy installments of Beastmaster on French television.

In 1764, on the eve of the French Revolution, a monster called the Beast of Gevaudan terrorizes the peasants in a rural province in France, where a spooky old priory has been turned into a makeshift hospital to treat the howling victims of the beast's savage attacks, some of them ravaged beyond recognition. The monster is a female. "She" is described by eyewitnesses as a demon with a spike in her back and knives five feet wide for incisors. It's not safe to be a goatherd.

When Louis XV offers a reward, swordsmen, adventurers, soldiers and fortune hunters gather to hunt the beast, but it's the dashing scientist Grégoire de Fronsac (played by French hunk Samuel Le Bihan) and his sidekick, Mani (Mark Dacascos), an Iroquois Indian who befriends the wolves for directions to the beast's lair, who have the inside track. The heroine (Emilie Dequenne) is a virginal countess who gets raped by her insane, one-armed brother; the villainess (played by glamorous Monica Bellucci of Malèna and the upcoming Matrix Reloaded ) is a whore who works in the most decadent brothel in France and doubles as an undercover agent for the king. From here on, the script gets tangled in so much craziness that the plot makes a rope of Boy Scout knots look like a string of dental floss. But the film is dressed up with enough lavish dinner parties, martial-arts demonstrations, sorcery, witchcraft, magic and gore to hide the fact that behind all the action, it's nothing more than a sumptuous banquet with nothing under the silver serving platters but meatballs.

When you finally discover the identity of the lady werewolf (a secret that reaches all the way to the Pope!), you may want to scratch your head, slap somebody, or both. Still, I was able to suspend disbelief enough to have a whale of a good time. Christophe Gans is one off-the-wall director, with a helluva bizarre and freaky imagination, and Brotherhood of the Wolf fills the bill for anyone who needs their pulse pumped up a notch. Flaky, menacing and mesmerizing, it's a true original.

The envelope, please … ladies and gentlemen, my GLAM (Grooviest Living Artist in Manhattan) Award goes to … not Tom Sachs, he of the Prada box toilet and Chanel-logoed guillotine. (F.Y.I., Mr. Sachs is currently sequestered in his studio while completing his grooviest and most monumentally top-secret kunstwerk to date–clue: It involves race cars–for a May 2002 unveiling.) No, not him.

The 2001 GLAM goes to … LeRoy Neiman.

Yes, I'm talking about the palette-knife-wielding bon viveur with the bright colors, buckskins and barrier-reef-sized mustache … the king and current sole proponent of wildly unfashionable Social Realist painting. Before you accuse me of excessive irony, do yourself a favor and run to the Hammer Galleries (33 West 57th Street), where a complete spectrum of his work permanently occupies the third floor: You can buy everything from a $300,000 oil of Mike Piazza to a $75 Sinatra poster. At the very least, pick up a copy of LeRoy Neiman: Art and Lifestyle (a bargain at $60), his 1974 stunner of a coffee-table book. Naysayers claim his palette-knife excesses resemble congealed Technicolor vomit, but–duh–that is precisely what's great about them! My faves: his beautiful impromptu sketches! Da Vinci and Lautrec, bonjour !

My adulation started in 1981, after viewing a visionary combo show at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art entitled LeRoy Neiman, Andy Warhol: An Exhibition of Sports Paintings . But it was only after a recent probing interview at his 67th Street studio, above Café Des Artistes, that I came to the full realization that Mr. Neiman was the only possible candidate for the soon-to-be-much-coveted GLAM award.

Here are 10 reasons why:

1. LeRoy started out as a tattooist: In the 1930's, this son of St. Paul, Minn., earned extra cash by tattooing the forearms of grade-school mates with cartoon characters. LeRoy filled me in: "Mickey Mouse and Popeye were big at the time–I got one penny or two cents per image. The nuns would slap me around if they caught me, so I learned to work fast." Subsequent early–and equally groovy–commissions: touching up the freak-show canvas for Ripley's Believe-It-or-Not ("I remember the bearded lady, the nude in the fish bowl"), designing V.D. posters and painting Army-kitchen murals.

2. LeRoy took sacrilegious shortcuts. In 1954, his pal Hugh Hefner recruited him for the 1954 launch of Playboy in Chicago. "The Archdiocese was on Hef's case from the beginning about morals and dignity–the whole bit," said Mr. Neiman. "Hef's office was in a brownstone on Superior Street, and my studio was on Wabash. If the weather was bad, I used to cut through the cathedral clutching my latest immoral contributions." What did they wear at the time? "This was before Hef's robe. He wore a white shirt, black slacks and black loafers with white socks. I wore coveralls and a straw hat."

3. LeRoy invented bedscapes. Bedscapes? "The Playboy mansion outside Chicago had a dormitory where the bunnies and Playmates could stay when they were in town. They would lay around naked on the white sheets and I would do charcoals. I called them bedscapes." These are rare: Gentlemanly LeRoy invariably gave these sketches to his sensual subjects. Groovy enough for ya?

4. LeRoy also invented the Femlin. She's the sexy, sexist, subservient happy-go-thumbelina icon that adorned the pages of Playboy . The devoted Femlin is invariably depicted tying a shoe or jamming tobacco into the giant pipe of her master. This prankish pocket-sized charmer was created by Mr. Neiman at Hef's request "to perk up the Party Jokes page."

5. LeRoy hung with Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, Reggie Jackson, Sonny Liston, Jack Nicklaus, etc., etc. He attended and recorded every sporting event of any significance in the second half of the last century, including the fabulous Ali-Frazier fight in 1971. He immortalized and glamorized boxing events in his inimitable way, but he also–and these are my absolute faves–sketched the fabulously attired African-American crowd. "These black dudes would come from all over, with their women, and strut," said Mr. Neiman. "Fedoras, velvets, sequins, feathers. Ali loved it, but he himself was conservative–he didn't want anything to detract from his beauty."

6. LeRoy celebrated all the activities that are now the fodder of 12-step programs, especially gambling. He hung with the Rat Pack and gambled in Vegas when "the hookers were really bawdy and there was sawdust on the floor." Though aware that it has lost its sizzle, Mr. Neiman's fascination and connection to Vegas continues. "I'm all over Vegas," he said. I interviewed LeRoy in front of a spanking new Muhammad Ali portrait that will be unveiled at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas on the weekend of Oct. 19. Artist and subject will be in attendance. This project, like so much of ultra-generous LeRoy's work, has a philanthropic angle: Proceeds from print sales benefit the Muhammad Ali Museum in Louisville, Ky. (For Paris rezzies, call 888-266-5687. High rollers can request the ultra-groovy LeRoy Neiman suite–I'm not kidding!)

7. LeRoy is literate, eclectic and classy. He has sketched a staggering range of 20th-century celebs, from the Kennedys, T.S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell, Brigitte Bardot (Saint Tropez 1960!) and Martin Luther King Jr. to Leopold Stokowski and Fellini (with Mastroianni on the set of 8 1/2 –each with more Lautrec-ish panache than the last.

8. LeRoy is mod. "In the 1960's, I sketched the Beatles at a club called Dollies and bought my clothes at Hung-on-You in Carnaby Street," said LeRoy without braying or boasting. "When the twist first started, I sketched people doing it in London and in Paris at Regines–the French were more nifty and classy. I liked discos. By the time Studio 54 opened, it seemed over."

9. LeRoy is un homme du peuple . His obsession with The Good Life has not precluded him from noticing the blue-collar guy– au contraire . "I am as conscious of stable boys and dishwashers as I am of the wealthy horseman and the imperious maître d'," said Mr. Neiman. The working class "keep their elegance. Hat-checks, chauffeurs, sommeliers–in so many of my pictures the rich people are all drunk and messed up, but the impeccable croupier is at the center."

10. LeRoy is unshockable. Mr. Neiman is familiar with today's punky, post-skill Damien Hirst-ish artists, but is not overly impressed. "Artists have been doing nasty stuff for decades. When I ran with the bulls in Pamplona in the 1960's, I met a Swedish sculptor. He strangled cats with his bare hands and did weird things to them." Non-blasé Mr. Neiman eagerly attended the Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum. "It wasn't much of a shock. The big shock of my life was Abstract Expressionism–Pollock, de Kooning, those guys. It changed my work. I was an academically trained student, and suddenly you could pour paint, smear it on, broom it on!" And lo, just as the screech of John Coltrane electrified the arty world, LeRoy's palette knife turned into a ginsu and the dynamic signature Neiman style was born.

Join me this time next year for the 2002 GLAM's. Don't be surprised if Mr. Neiman wins again!

Simple white shirts are O.K. if you're as beautiful as Muhammad Ali or as charismatic as Hugh Hefner. But guess what? You're not. The solution: flamboyant shirts from Etro. The fall men's collection has arrived at the Etro Store (720 Madison Avenue, 317-9096) in a Technicolor blaze of Neimanesque swagger, specifically the fabulously overdesigned shirts. I'm talking gaga colors, two-and-a-half-inch double-button collars (the Pietro), diagonal stripes, contrast plackets, paisley-lined cuffs, etc., etc. These almost-ghetto-fabulous shirts range in price from $190 and up and are the brainchild of color-lovin' Kean Etro, son of founder Gimmo.

Wide-brimmed classy chapeaux are an intrinsic part of the Neiman look. Caution: You may not be distinguished enough to carry it off. Tall, elegant, beautifully groomed Mr. Neiman is never upstaged by his Stetsons, biltmores or fedoras. Why? Because he's vain–and proud of it. "When I sketched Martha Graham, she told me vanity is very important," said Mr. Neiman. "It makes you proud of what you do. I totally agree." If you feel you've got what it takes then, head over to Arnold Hatters (620 Eighth Avenue, 768-3781) and try on a wide-brimmed, soft Shantung lindy ($100).

Though Hugh Hefner is a self-acknowledged sandwich-munching philistine when it comes to food, LeRoy Neiman is not quite as plebeian. "I'm not a champion of unusual preparations, but I like good food," he said. "I go to the same places and order the same things: Elaine's, 21, Le Cirque, Rao's and the Patio at the Tavern on the Green." Mr. Neiman is definitely kicking it old-school, but how much groovier is that than rushing–with Grubmanesque ardor and velocity–to all the new monosyllabic trendy restaurants?

P.S.: I'm convinced that 1950's African-American names–LeRoy, Rufus, Elmore, Carson, Dwight, etc.–are poised for a comeback.