Went to some art openings with my girlfriend, thinking that there might be a chance to take some interesting pictures or see some interesting art, but it was godawful Chinatown, thank god there were some cool people to talk to amidst the jaded art idiots. There was one good abstract painting show and that was it. But there was live jazz at the Grand Star and we hung out with some cool folk who scratch their heads at this whole art thing. John Dentino told a cool story about getting kicked out of Madam Wongs in Chinatown when the B-52’s were playing there. We’re talking 1978 or so. It was a funny story. Harley Miles told me because of the bus strike he hadn’t been to any openings in a long time, but the buses are running and there he was snapping pictures.

At the Grand Star, I saw Tom “T.K.” Nagano and George Joachim, these are downtown denizens of three decades, just the old time fixtures, out having a good time. George told me Jorge Pardo’s hipster bar Mountain didn’t have any sweetener for their coffee. The fat pig Pardo obviously mainlined the sucre himself. Probably has a pound of sugar granules left over in his lazyman’s scraggly beard.

Instead of finishing the page layout today i wrote up an essay about Adam Gopnik and Bernard Henri-Levy giving a chickenshit talk at the L.A. County museum a few weeks back. I have to edit the essay tomorrow and finish the page layout then. Monday morning is the deadline for the printers.

Did the thanksgiving thing with my family. All seven of us kids posed for a photo and all nine of the grandchildren were in a photo. The in-law’s and my parents didn’t all pose, but it was one of those rare instances where everyone was together. My younger brother and his family had to leave before we ate Thursday afternoon and I had just gotten there, so it was about an hour of everyone under the same roof. Very loud. My girlfriend adjusted well and we played games, mostly chinese checkers, with my nephews all kicking our asses. Humbling.

Drove home Friday and went to Pasadena to see The Cooler, a very good movie. Quite a bit of work on my plate over the next few days, have to get an issue of the magazine to the printers and distributed in the next week. Busy.

I want to link to an article i wrote in the new Art Scene magazine but the link is not live yet as it is the December issue. If you are at a gallery anytime soon, pick it up and read my little essay, i had fun writing it.

Each day i feel a little better. Yesterday I actually got all of the car stuff done. I now have a blue 2004 sticker on my California license plate. The man can’t stop me now. Okay, he can stop me, but not for having expired tags.

It took about two hours to bum a ride to Burbank, get the car from the mechanic, hit the triple A for registration (which was so much nicer than the DMV that I almost danced in the aisles) and drive home. I had to take a nap when i got back (strum chords from Neil Young’s Old Man).

Today is all magazine work day. I can feel it coming. I have to get it to the printers ahead of everyone else, as there are more jobs there on the First of the month than at any other time. It will be jockeying for position.

Tomorrow i have to subject my lovely girlfriend to the maniacal twist of reality known as my family. Wish her luck.

I am finally feeling close to one hundred percent healthy.

So I am up in my pajamas before noon, eating cereal, drinking coffee, these are unique in that I am doing them at home instead of at a restaurant, but i am still getting some of my energy back.

I have to pick up my car from my mechanic’s today. I have to get insurance and registration. the tags are outdated - they expired in August, I have just been a space about it. I have to find a ride up to Burbank. I have a few friends to lean on, then the list hits the people i can pay ten bucks to.

I had my car towed to my mechanic’s when i was very sick. The Brewery management was going to tow it because of the expired tags. I called triple A and was shaking with the chills, outside waiting for the triple A tow truck, Main Street, Los Angeles, traffic lulling by and this bearded white guy in a jacket on an eighty degree day is shivering, I bet everyone thought i was waiting for a fix. It must have looked pathetic. My beard is thick and long, I just kind of like the change, but it is getting to that homeless/scary white guy area of growth.

Most of the articles have arrived and Marty’s cover for the magazine is awesome. Work work work, but it gets delayed by car crap. That is California I guess, it is a nice and warm sunny day, I suppose this means it is time for a shower and a cup of getoffyerass.

I am still under the weather, slowly improving though. I watched every iota of Michael Jackson coverage that I could yesterday. My girlfriend finally had to remind me whose house (loft) I am recuperating at. So I handed her the channel changer. The deadline for the magazine is going to be tight because the designer is leaving for Thanksgiving. I hope people get their articles in. All I can do is hope, really, I guess.

Feeling less cruddy than recently but not planning to go out dancing any time soon. Oh and here comes another magazine deadline…

The feverish dream hallucinations are okay, vivid, entertaining. The brain makes its own puzzles when you don’t give it any for a few days.

g’night…

So in the middle of a fever trance hallucination this poem comes to me. I jumped out of bed to avoid getting soaked with night sweats and typed it down:

The sound of a semi-truck
downshifting and decelerating
on Main Street at 4 a.m.
is a lonely cry of resignation.

So close to finishing what it started
knowing the sunrise will kill it.

Click this website. It combines morbidity, narcissism, attention to detail and corporate America.

I have been very weak and sick these past couple days. I am supposed to be writing up the talk at LACMA between Bernard Henri Levy and Adam Gopnik, but I am just out of it. Needless to say, if they represent what passes for intellectualism, there is no cogent opposition.