I want to go to the Bay Area, there is a chance to video some scenes for the JERK documentary, I will probably crash with friends.

Anyone know of anything going on in the Bay Area art-wise the weekend of August 9, 10, 11?

And i want to go to Vegas sometime soon… anyone?

Somone reads livejournal and took me up on the offer that if you live in L.A. and come get me, i will be happy to looka t your art and discuss it. Gosh, how trusting, what if you are trying to kidnap me or attempting to get me to convert to your religious cult. This artist’s main concern was whether or not i smoked (“I don’t allow smoking in my studio…”). The answer is no.

I was going to have dinner at the world famous Pantry restaurant in downtown L.A. tonight, but the L.A. Times had a special visitor and all of downtown was sealed by cops - it was kind of tense. So so so so many cops, I just had to get the fuck out of there.

I ended up at the IHOP in Lincoln Heights. Artist JERK and our cameraman Jeffrey and i had a working meal. Looks like we are going to shoot some footage in San Francisco in early August. Talk about your longterm projects, we have been “working” on this movie for a year, but most of the footage has been shot in the past month.

Went by RAID Projects Gallery this afternoon, people were picking up artworks. The Summer artist in residence there told me she was not really supposed to be there, that she was supposed to be at a party, that she was waiting for Max Presneill (the founder and director of Raid) to come back and take her to a party, but he was an hour or so late and she was stuck monitoring the show’s takedown instead of swimming at a Summer Pool Party like Max had promised.

Let’s review this:
1. Max Presneill wasn’t doing the work.
2. The artist in residence was doing the work.
3. The artist in residence had been told to be ready and waiting at an appointed time at the gallery by Max.
4. Max had arranged for the artists to pick up their artworks from his gallery at the same time.

What do you suppose then that we can ALL assume about getting involved with Max Presneill .. .. ..

Anyway, here is another trippy website.

I told my neighbor Lainie about yesterday’s trippy website. I said, “Laini, I just saw the trippiest website,” ans she asked “where?” and I replied, “On the internet…”

what do you expect, my father has a mullet.

First off, a very trippy website

Nobody knew where Cannibal Flower club was happening tonight, so I just stayed here at the Brewery. Artist Rufus Snoddy and his wife are moving to Chicago, so there was an impromptu bon voyage party for them here.

Artist JERK watched the gallery this afternoon while I attended a family function - and I wish I had taken a picture to post, as something awful has happened…

My father, 73, has grown a mullet.

On Amazon.com there is a feature that, based on your purchases (which would be voluminous in my case), a whole slew of suggestions come up. If you purchase, say, every Leonard Cohen studio album (uh, guilty as charged), it recommends Leonard’s live album, and then Nick cave or Bob Dylan, the sort of two splinters off of one artist.

Anyway, it sometimes has a pick from left field that is so stupid, you almost have to connect the dots to see how they could ever justify associating that product with you.

So, on my page today, there was the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. One, I am not an artist; two, those “be an artist through this higher learning method” books are all horseshit; three, how the hell did their computer come up with this one? I buy Velvet Underground, Miles Davis CDs and their computer puts me in new age Artsy Land…

The plot thickens…

So MOCA has the free jazz Thursday. The bands this year suck, very Kenny G., today was a shoop-adoo-bop-bap-AH vocalist and many people asking me to stand somewhere else that I was blocking their view. And god oh god the show at the Geffen is lame, both shows in fact, after repeated viewings and keeping an open mind.

And the MOCA guards are assholes. I was pointing out some of the flags that make up Alighiero Boetti’s Flag/Map of the world (Boetti is the only bankable artist to come out of the Italian Arte Povera school, and what a coincidence, he is the only good one!) and the B I T C H snapped at me to stand back (I iknow exactly what I ws doing here, there was plenty of space between me and the artwork, plenty, but she just had to exercise the first oiota of power she has ever been given).

I cussed under my breath in Spanish and glared at her and she freaked out and ran and got some other security guy. Funny thing was I kept seeing people i knew all around the museum so they were following me around like the bad guy and I was all “HI, hey howya doin’?” to numerous people and it was like “Is he running for mayor?” and I know all the nooks and crannies, so I am making sharp turns, okay it is obvious that at MOCA you have to construct your own entertainment and enjoyment, the frickin art is not going to.

wow someone read and responded to last night’s entry:

wanted to respond to what you said about collectors and who they are. One of the good things about being a “nobody” in the art world like me is that when someone does buy your work, they really like the work. (Someone) bought a little painting from me (that’s how we met)… We exchange emails periodically and each time he writes he tells me how much he enjoys looking at my painting. A couple other people who bought something also let me know afterwards how much they liked what they had bought. It feels really good to hear nice things from non-friends. I guess my point is that some nice things can happen on the fringes.

Point taken - optimism rising!

Okay, today I took my car to Burbank, it was time, I told the mechanic that he could begin the funeral for the Chrysler at any time. He said it would be ready Monday. It is looking like about $600 buckaroos.

While I was in Burbank, I got a manicure and a cell phone and ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s.

God I am reading this and feel like a bourgeoisie idiot. At least the stock market has no immediate impact on my day to day living. Ha ha ha ha suckers. especially the ones who panicked this week and now it shot past your sales price. i read one commentator who said all of the people pulling out were British investors. Bloody wankers.

The stock market is gambling and i would prefer to go to Vegas to do mine, thanks.

Now this really makes me look a trifle yuppified.

I took the metrolink train from Burbank back to L.A. and the bus from Alameda & Cesar Chavez to the Brewery.

See I live downtown so i don’t fee completely middle class (what if that is my true subconscious reason for not voting for Bush? Ah, I am going stark raving mad, success is poison, money eats from within). The cellphone is pretty bitchin. Got it at Virgin Megastore.

Had a long discussion about art yesterday with a friend, we both expressed repulsion with the average art aficionado out there - the upper middle class, time one their hands, no passion/all ego (“I am a collector”), no eye/just wallet, haggle to death until it is trendy and unavailable then pay through the nose and discuss the price. Vomit vomit vomit.

I had lunch today with Desiree Buckman, one of my gallery’s better selling artists. her market is comprised of pleasant versions of the above. What can you do, the checks fucking clear. Anyway, she was asking if after two successful (sales-wise) solo shows, should she cease entering juried shows. I implored to never pay to play after establishing some of these career benchmarks. I think she will listen. Glad somebody does.

The last few days have been a mix of absolutely hectic and then completely nothing. Friday I went by Cal State L.A. to see a show, they were still installing it but the guy recognized me and let me in. we had a good talk about art and his freelance preparator work. CSLA was paying him 17 bucks an hour. The show is titled something like In The Black, there were no promo materials there yet and they were mopping the floor so i couldn’t see the whole thing, but there were lots of really slick pieces dealing with African American portraiture and architecture, a sort of sense of self, sense of place theme. Lyle Ashton Harris, Renee Cox, big names involved. And if you have never been, the Luckman Gallery at CSLA is one of the best exhibition spaces for you white wall, wood floor fetishists. A real drama and breadth there. Too bad they charge for parking.

Saturday there was a party at the loft studio of Mike Vegas and his girlfriend Aubre. She performed a belly dance. It was quite awesome (insert Beavis & Butthead sleazy laugh here). I commented to people that we should all walk over during the dance and shake Mike’s hand. A lot of people arrived late from Stacey Duffin’s opening at Miler Durazo Gallery, Ms. Duffin the most prominent. I played that old game of pretending I had been her opening, but she totally called me on it. So now we are supposed to get together and see her show, but she will be driving by here, and taking me there. My car sucks, so if you want me to see your art, swing by and pick me up and take me to your show and we will talk. I have nothing else to do. I like art, can hold a conversation and don’t bite unless requested to.

Sunday something hilarious happened. Salerno came by here and there happened to be a framed drawing of his someone left with me to give to him after an exhibition, so he grabbed it and on the way out, we decided that we would have a soda, I got my favorite flavor, Diet Coke. So at the donut place while I am taking that first refreshing sip, Salerno is purchasing a pack of smokes from Kay from Cambodia, the owner, she sees the drawing, and asks for a closer look. Now, in case you didn’t know, Michael Salerno is an abstract painter, and his drawings are completely non-representational. So she stares and asks “What is it?” and Michael pauses, and I pipe in “A drawing,” and she turns and opens a cabinet and puts on her glasses. She is staring at the drawing looking for some image. This goes on a while, Salerno valiantly trying to compare it to clouds, that an image might pop out to one person but not to another, that a different image might appear to a third viewer. “So what am i looking for?” She asks, I was laughing uproariously at this point, which I think made her assume that it should be easy to spot what was in the drawing and made Michael more insistent on giving her a primer in abstraction as an end in itself. This exchange was unresolved. I avoided going there for an espresso today, in the hopes of her forgetting the whole thing. When i went to the local cafe for a coffee this morning, who should be there but Salerno, talking to Llyn Foulkes about their different experiences with getting drafted into military service. Llyn served two years in the 50s and was called a faggot for writing poetry and drawing. Salerno evaded conscription for claiming to be homosexual, a claim that a few women I know would dispute.