Changing of the Guard Via MOCA

HOT TICKET--Get ready for a reshuffling of social standings when the new Museum of Contemporary Art opens officially in Bunker Hill late next year. The debut madness will feature eight nights of black-tie events, starting Nov. 30, 1986.

In this town, as almost everyone knows, social significance is courted via one’s cultural and philanthropic contributions. Adding MOCA to the social competition is like adding a franchise to the National League--you won’t be able to tell the players without a program.

A more current MOCA note--Marcia Weisman and Wendy Stark are chairing a MOCA benefit Oct. 28 at the James Corcoran gallery. Singer Joni Mitchell will be featured with “New Paintings, New Songs,” presented by the gallery and by Geffen Records.

SOCIAL SWING--Wilma and Fred Flintstone were joined by best friends Barney and Betty Rubble at their gala 25th anniversary party at the George Page Museum on Monday night. Known for their philanthropic endeavors, the Flintstones and good friends Scooby Doo and Yogi Bear volunteered three years ago for public service announcements for the Shriners Hospitals for Crippled Children. Their party was a chance for reminiscences. Hanna-Barbera President Joseph Barbera (in a Flintstone U sweat shirt--”School of Hard Rocks”) recalled that in 1960, as he tried sell the Flintstones to TV, “Everyone loved it. But they were afraid of it.” He said that when the Flintstones’ offspring was born, it was scheduled to be a boy--”A Chip off the old rock”--but was switched to a girl, Pebbles, because dolls then only came as girls. (One sad note--Scooby and others wore black armbands, because services had been held earlier that day for their good friend, Hanna-Barbera Vice President Paul DeKorte.) Altogether a fab gathering, with even that movieland cliche shouted from the crowd as the stars arrived in their Flintmobile--”Oh, Betty looks so short in person.”

DEMOCRATIC DOINGS--If you’re going to support the Democratic Senatorial Committee (with Northern California’s Nancy Pelosi, the national finance chair), you’d obviously better be part of a couple--and it’s cheaper if you live in Northern California. The fund-raiser here--with Walter Gerken chairing, and Russell Pace, Lew Wasserman, Roz Wyman and Lisa Specht on the committee--is $5,000 a couple. In San Francisco the next night, at the Bank of America Center, Walter Shorenstein is chairing an event that’s $1,000 a person. Lots of U.S. senators will be at both events--including Maine’s George J. Mitchell, our own Alan Cranston, Colorado’s Gary Hart, Hawaii’s Daniel K. Inouye, Arkansas’ David Pryor and West Virginia’s John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV.

RADIO IN BLOOM--Ruth Hirschman, general manager of KCRW--FM, the public radio station operating at Santa Monica College, wanted the 30-hour radio play of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Only trouble was Irish Radio, which produced the show, insisted that it be broadcast in one continuous stretch. So, here’s the schedule, with breaks for newscasts--6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 4 a.m. the following morning; 6 a.m. New Year’s Day, until 4 p.m., picking up at 6 p.m. until 4 a.m. Jan. 2. Yes, yes, yes.

ENTERTAINMENT--At the “Tap Dance Kid” on Saturday night were Leonard and Dorothy Straus, soon to be seeing London theater as they visit their daughter there. Also in the audience, new TV star Stoney Jackson of “The Insiders” and “227’s” Marla Gibbs, who was probably not the only one who left the show promising, “I’m going to start tap-dance lessons tomorrow”. . . . Dudley Moore will play the piano at the Medical Aid for El Salvador benefit Nov. 3 at Tony Bill’s 72 Market Street. . . . Willie Brown’s mammoth fund-raiser at the Century Plaza on Dec. 1 will feature Miss Patti La Belle (remember when political dinners were dull?)

FAR AWAY--OK. We’re used to out-of-state politicos coming here to fund-raise. But Sen. John Kerry has yet another angle. He’s inviting Democratic Angelenos to Massachusetts for a $500-a-shot fund-raiser to pay off his Senate debt. . . . Chatting it up at the Public Affairs Council dinner in D.C. earlier this week were Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and Democratic activist Hope Warschaw, there with Carter Hawley Hale’s Don Livingston. . . . At Denver’s Carousel Ball this past week, look at what some of the auction items went for. A walk-on part on “Dynasty” sold for $8,100, while a walk-on for “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” went for $4,100. Lunch with columnist Art Buchwald was $1,000, but lunch with Cary and Barbara Grant went for $5,000. Tom Selleck’s autographed T-shirt sold for $750, while Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s old bathrobes brought in $500.