SirIvan

Wall Street Journal - Irene No Match for Crown Prince NY CULTURE By MIKE VILENSKY

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Sir Ivan Wilzig hosted India's Crown Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil at his Water Mill mansion this weekend, an event apparently so awesome that not even a tropical storm could dampen its spirit.

"My party was fantastic, just as I predicted," Mr. Wilzig said on Monday. "It's not every day I'm entertaining a gay prince from India." Food at the party included lamb meatballs, curry puffs and caviar. "Cows are holy in India," Mr. Wilzig said. "So I was told he'll eat any kind of meat except beef."

At the party, Mr. Wilzig—a quirky recording artist-slash-philanthropist—introduced "a rough cut" of his new music video. "The 100 guests who showed up at my castle enjoyed the video for 'Hare Krishna' on an extremely large screen," Mr. Wilzig said. "Just not the super-gigantic outdoor one that I had booked. The outdoor movie theater was canceled because the company that provides the equipment said the screen couldn't sustain more than 25 mile-per-hour winds, and they wouldn't put employees in danger."

"Hare Krishna'" is a dance remix based on "the oldest mantra in history," Mr. Wilzig said, which was most recently transformed into a pop hit by Joan Baez in the '60s. "Instead of actors and models and professional dancers, I had an entire Hare Krishna cult in Coconut Grove—from newborn babies to grandparents—get involved in the video."

According to Mr. Wilzig, his "Hare Krishna" dance remix entered the Top 10 on the dance billboard charts, at No. 10, on April 16, 2011. Mr. Wilzig said he and Prince Gohil, a gay-rights activist, became "kindred spirits" over the weekend. "He's very calm, and I'm very hyper," he said. "But we see eye-to-eye in terms of love and peace and gay rights." Prince Gohil didn't find a date at the party, Mr. Wilzig

explained, but "he enjoyed everyone I introduced him to, and the castle itself, which he said reminded him of one of his palaces in India."