I finished the magazine, it is ready for the printers but they close for the weekend and labor day. Oh well, lots of people are out of town, many of my neighbors are at Burning Man. So when all of the art openings start next weekend, it will have been fully distributed in L.A. and nationally by the following weekend. Salerno is out of the hospital and sounds well. That is a relief. I have to find a bartender to replace him for our opening reception tomorrow.

All of the other galleries are having openings in September, so it is nice, even though it is a Holiday weekend to have an opening that doesn’t conflict with everyone else’s.

Oh, and no baseball strike, so it looks like I will have plenty to do in September!

Again, everyone is invited to the art opening here, 2100 N. Main, Downtown L.A., 7-11 p.m., there is an opening at two of the other galleries here. In fact one of the shows was extended in order to have a bigger reception on this date, but the gallery either forgot to tell one of the artists in the show or he forgot he had been told of the extension, but whatever it was, his assistants came and got all the art.

I should not have said anything but I did and the gallery got some artist to fill in, and sure enough, the gratitude was overflowing. I did not have any spackle to lend the artist in order to prep the walls (I am the neighbor, no association with this gallery), and the artist who literally was just handed an exhibit, 500 square feet of gallery space is all whiney “I don’t know if I can fight traffic to go get some spackle, all these people at the Brewery Loft Colony and nobody has spackle….” She, of course, was not the person who walked over and asked me. She wasn’t lifting a finger. Okay, i only witnessed part of this all, this is just my biased reportage, but JEEZ, you just got a gallery show lady, can ya get perky for ten seconds?

It is human drips like this bag of whiney flesh that slowly suffocate any enjoyment of the gallery scene.

I was walking back to my space today, out in the parking lot when a friend drove by and nervously exited her vehicle. She explained that she was hiding her car froma guy who had followed her from the streets of East L.a. to inside the Brewery Art Colony Parking Lot. She mentioned that his interst in following her had a little to do with her waving the middle finger at him. She notices that he is cruising around looking for her car (it was distinctive enough that a diligent search could be assumed to produce results).

A few of us gathered as he drove by, and then watched him split, only to re-emerge with a rifle. Gosh, I didn’t exactly stick around to see what type, it was not a Kalishnakov. Anyway, he fired it into the air as we were running and we called 9-1-1 and of course, nobody got the license plate number. The cops came really quick. I bet that is what their girlfriends would confide too, ha-ha-ha. Seeing as it was a latino man with short hair and sunglasses driving a blue pickuptruck, the premature ejaculators in blue had little to go on.

Despite the anxiety, the work on this print edition of Coagula continues into the night. Meeting with the designer was postponed until tomorrow, but I have the proofs to edit and they look great (a scientific fact: there are fewer typis at 3 a.m. than there are at 1 p.m.).

Also had to hang the art show tonight. It looks great, Leigh’s drawings are so labor intensive that I only put a few pieces in the show. Listened to what may be the final baseball game of the season on the radio, fas were throwing foul balls back onto the field at the players, it was dangerous for the millionaires! Angels won, too, even though I know you don’t care.

Had a long phone chat with Bill Lasarow of Art Scene magazine. He really seemed confident that the economic downturn is not going to be as severe as some gloomy forecasters say, and he would be an excellent canary in the art world coal mine, as the cost of being listed in his magazine is expensive enough that a one would expect a gallery strapped for cash to pull back on spending that dough. So I was relieved to hear that only one gallery has not re-upped (sworn to secrecy and actually, it is not a particularly finger-to-the-pulse space) for inclusion in his monthly guide.

What this indicates is that the galleries are weathering the storm. Let’s hope the worst is behind. God, I used to be able to slam the artworld and now i am so reliant on it i have to root for the frickin’ shopkeepers and their Wall Street portfolios. I am hemmorhaging veteran punk rock points by the minute here.

So be sure to come by the gallery on Saturday night, 7-10 p.m., just don’t give anyone the finger while driving over.

I was up all night and all today working on the magazine, final visit to the designer is tomorrow, than off to the printers and still hoping for Friday printing and distribution. Because of the current economic climate, i pulled back on any gossip this issue, just some catty articles, sure, and features, but nothing too brutal, really, not that I am mellowing, just that, look, everyone is having a hard time, economically and angstfully with the whole war thing (for it or against it, we are united in our tension and apprehension). So I am playing it mellow on going for any jugulars in this print edition, but that can only last so long.

It is sort of a testament really that there is less activity, and therefore less gossip. and there will be no Larry Rivers obituary. Waste of ink and paper. See, there’s a little jugular….

Today I went to visit Michael Salerno in the hospital. He has been battling diverticulitis for some time now and this procedure is hopefully the final one he will have to endure. He was cut open on Thursday and is doing quite well.

Needless to say, visiting L.A. County General Hospital is a slightly hellish experience. The institutional vibe is complete. It makes museums and academia look like free spirited campfires on the hierarchy of institutional organization.

The guy next to Michael had his arm cut off in an industrial accident - then had it reattached. Little tragedies like that all around him seemed to cheer him up by minimizing the at-times paralytic abdominal pain. Plus Rick Ankrom had brought him cigarettes. He can waddle in agony to the elevator and down to the outside for a smoke a few times a day I guess.

It is very easy to visit someone at the hospital, there is free parking and at the front desk you simply give the person’s name and are given a floor and room number and go through a metal detector and that is all there is. So if you know Michael - or better yet, if you don’t, go by between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m., he should be there at least another two weeks.

Rolo Castillo stopped by today with some posters for the Downtown Pomona art scene. They are booking bands to perform there once a month in the hopes of drawing people to the cultural center of town. why weren’t civic leaders dong these sorts of things when I was a kid going to punk shows? Now I am a cranky old man with failing hearing, friends in the hospital and all these kids get government-backed live music shows.

Going to the designers tomorrow all day, hope to have the mag at the printer Thursday morning and on the streets Friday. think positive thoughts my way, please…….

Today we prepped the gallery for the next show. I say “We” because Brian the Preparator did all the work while I listened to the Angel game (and they blew this game, god it was awful). The artist, Leigh Salgado, just sold her house and asked me if I knew anything about investing. She declined my generous offer to double her money on the craps tables of Las Vegas, so I thought, I better ask someone who I know knows how to do these things, lest Leigh end up with some frickin’ shyster (or someone who prefers blackjack).

Hi, I am 37 (almost 38, start thinking about those late-September presents, no colognes) and have never invested money into anything but my own company. One reason for this conservative (or depending on how you look at it, idiotic) investment strategy was based on the advice of a raging lunatic who discussed economics with me when I was eleven years old. This lunatic told me all about the Great Depression in vivid detail. The stock market was a thing of monstrous evil, swallowing whole lives up in a greedy chomp. The only good investment one could ever make was in one’s self. This lunatic spinning this advice was my father.

Because of such wonderful mental programming, I have never invested a cent (except a 401-k but that is like watching a mini-death spiral) in anything so I called my father and asked what he thought Leigh should do. Here I am her gallery owner and fiscal planner. He recommended government bonds, safe, secure (and in ten years, the Ayatollah will be running the show so you know they will be good) and explained how to purchase them. Whew!

Oh but then the lunatic lecture. In case you were wondering “Is Islam the true enemy of the United States?” the answer is, according to the expert of experts, “Not at all.” The enemy? After twenty years of it being the Japanese, and the last two of it being the Chinese, my father has informed me now that the Eurpean Union is the enemy of the United States. Much like his theories about Japan and China, these Europeans are doing everything behind our American backs in order to become economically superior. Forty five minutes of detailed explanation about the cost of labor becoming so marginalized that the technological superiority of well-educated Europeans would triumph despite their welfare state.

Now, all the while, I am listening, half thinking “Oh God, this is me in forty years…” and half thinking “somewhere in this conversation i am going to be allowed to speak…” and all of a sudden there is a knocking at my door. Well, let me put this gently. The likelihood tht it was a bill collector or process server was, oh, about even. The gallery is closed today, my dad is rambling on and on about the Euro’s stealth attempt at becoming the world currency, and I am thinking - Hey, there is not a single person I have to talk to (including my father), so i did not answer the door. Since then I have confirmed with both Leigh and Brian that it was not either of them.

So if that was YOU banging on my door, tapping on my window, sorry, i was listening to a 73 year-old man with a mullet who no longer follows his own investment advice. And the gallery is in between shows anyway.

You are 24% geek

OK, so maybe you ain’t a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you’re probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

so at about 9:30 p.m. I walk over to the Brewery Art Colony restaurant (Barbara’s at the Brewery) and Howard the bartender reminds me that tonight was the Sunset Junction (the place is dead, everyone is there).

I am not going to Burning Man and now I missed the Junction, maybe I will go tomorrow, nah, I doubt it. Too bad, Sonic Youth played tonight, Chaka Khan is tomorrow.

Hey, maybe this is why nobody came by the gallery today - NAH, nobody came by today because the art world is dead.

For some reason, the Live Journal dot com has been down for a day and a half. I am working on the next print edition issue of Coagula Art Journal. Going to the designer’s on Tuesday and the printer’s on Wednesday. Today is the last day of the group show here at the gallery. Next Saturday night we have an opening party, 7-11 p.m. Of course you are invited!

Only art world news I can think of has been that the stock market downturn has dried up sales across the board. In 1987, everyone sold their stock in a rush and bought art, leading to a two year bubble, but this time the crash is more likely the cause of foreign investors pulling out and therefore leaves art collectors with no liquid “fun money” and many gallery operators on the verge of panic.

Seeing as I have not had $500 in sales in the past year, my panicking is long gone. As Leonard Cohen wrote, Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, “Now you must try my greed…”
(Pretend that is being sung to some archetypal art world inquisition council instead of one of Leonard’s mysterious brunettes)

But, if I was in it for the money - and one day i might decide to be - I sure as fuck would not open a gallery downtown (12 miles, and two traffic jams away from anyone with money to seriously buy art). But as long as you want to have fun and not piss away everything on rent, have agood-looking shows and no West-Side L.A. attitude, Downtown is still the place!

Larry Rivers, an artist i never cared for and only understood his acclaim within the parameters of New York City’s inability to differentiate between talented masters and masturbating poseurs, died last week.

My favorite story about him was not recounted in the bullshit NY Times obit generously adding him to the Johns/Rauschenberg Ab-Ex to Pop Bridge pantheon.

when Clement Greenberg was introduced to the very Jewish looking Larry Rivers, the critic asked him, “What was your name before you changed it?”

After looking at his art and reading about his life, i can safely assert that this anecdote tells you more about Larry Rivers than he would have ever wanted you to know.

Just read Christopher Knight’s scathing assessment of the Warhol show at MOCA. Funny, this politically compromised old nag waited to tsk-tsk MOCA’s BIG SHOW until after it closed - who at the L.A. Times has your balls in a sling, Chrissie?

Of course the L.A. Times would hold any slagging of the Mayor’s vaunted efforts to boost tourist revenue with a Warhol show - there is no doubt in the mind of any sane person that the L.A. Times is the chamber pot underneath a diahrretic City Hall’s boudoir - but Christopher Knight smugly tries to smear MOCA (by shaming them on making money from a damn good show) after the goddamn show closes so nobody can blame his bosses if things tank economically and the bosses in turn blame his hissyfit review. What a cowardly ass.