10. Jerry Misko and Mark Brandvik at Dust Gallery (Las Vegas)

9. Hannah Wilke at Solway Jones (Mid-City)

8. Diane Gamboa at Patricia Correia (Santa Monica)

7. Elizabeth Rowe at Brewery Art Colony Residency (Downtown)

6. Robert Smithson retrospective at MOCA (L.A.)

5. Vladimir Guerrero at Angel Stadium (Anaheim)

4. 100 Artists See Satan at Grand Central Arts (Santa Ana)

3. Robert Peluce retrospective at i-5 Gallery (Downtown)

2. John Schroeder memorial at the Church of Art (Downtown)

1. Carlee Fernandez at Acuna Hansen Gallery (Chinatown)

Dry spell.
Very bad on deadline.
Raining outside, arid inside.
Pray for cerebral rain.

I’ve been trying to write an article on artist Richard Godfrey for the L.A. Downtown News but what i really want to write about is being in Godfrey’s truck in Downtown L.A. during the horriffic rainstorm that hit this afternoon.

It hardly ever rains here, so a wall of water is still an amazing, terrifying thing, thunder and lightning are like god almighty harkening us all to epent. and the streets flood easily, the lanes nearest to the sidewwalks are lakes - all pedestrians get soaked. It is awful and awesome, powerful and overwhelming - and a million cars are driving too fast or too slow into walls of water they have never experienced.

I finally found the Ruscha article - I had written it on the computer in the i-5 gallery, so I emailed it to myself from there and that took care of that.

Gotta get back to work on the deadline so that I can then get back to work on the deadline.

I didn’t mean to make my christmas entry sound too negative - we had fun, we laughed and joked and opened presents and had pumpkin pie. But we were stuffed in tight, that is for sure.

I have been working on the next issue of the magazine but got sidetracked organizing folders on my computer - man oh man do I have a sprawling archive of writing. And essays are everywhere throughout the macintosh. What a mess.

I am trying to find the essay i wrote on MOCA’s drawings retrospective of Ed Ruscha for the L.A. Downtown News that I can rewrite for Coagula Art Journal, but it is like looking through a pile of old newspapers. I should have titled it RUSCHA but instead it is probably ESSAY1 or some crap like that and in the interim I have been opening documents going huh, i wrote this, uhhh…

As big a fan as I am of memory lane, i gotta get going on editing this piece, it is only the damn cover story…

My oldest sister wanted to host Christmas in her new condo.

Her tiny cramped condo.

But she is kinda falling apart so we all had to do it, ALL of us.

That is 2 parents, 6 of 7 kids (my sister in Santa Cruz begged off the schlep to SoCal), 11 offspring and 7 significant others.

2+6+11+7=26. And this little condo was not designed for that many people.
It wasn’t designed for 6 people let alone 6 times 4 plus 2.

Getting a seat on the frickin’ staircase was a premium.

Oh and to top everything off, we are the loudest family on the planet. And my sister has a stone tile floor - no carpeting, nothing to deaden the sound of at least 15 people clamoring to be heard by the other 11 who were exhausted from talking. Oh, and add a ton of sugar.

We were out driving on Christmas Eve and Los Angeles was DESERTED. We drove from East L.A. to Hollywood in twenty minutes. We drove back on Sunset Boulevard in 25 minutes. From Sunset by the House of Blues to the Brewery Art Colony in 25 minutes - all on Sunset to Main Street (add astonished gasps here).

IF my amazement puzzles you, you’ll jut have to come live in SoCal and see for yourself. Next Christmas is when that would have to be, cuz I can’t see it happening any other time. Couldn’t have predicted it happening this time, would’ve lost a bet.

My girlfriend came through with the Christmas loot and she was quite thrilled with everything I got her - most of which was acquired at the Glendale Galleria with Sonia (cleaning lady) and her son Justin (how do you tell a twelve year old he has a mullet?) earlier this week.

Her big gift to me was speakers for my Macintosh. My big gift to her was a framed Carlee Fernandez photo that she had seen in a gallery earlier this year and just raved on and on about - but she never imagined getting it. Can you say TOTAL SURPRISE, TOTAL SUCCESS?

YEP.

We watched Heaven Uh, it was good, actually, a stupid title now that i think about it, but anyway, it was by the dude who directed Run Loala Run except that in this one, the girl fucks up big time and cannot blink and make it all go away. there should be a movie Blink Jeannie Blink.

We are going to a party on Christmas Eve and then nothing expect a family thing on Sunday. We already went to her family’s and now she’s gonna have to tolerate the screaming attention deficit convention that is my dysfunctional family get together. If you know me and know hat a hyper spazz I am (sorry to burst yor bubble, out of state readers), recall that I am the quiet one in my family.

I had a massive headache today, a migraine I guess, i was walking down the street shoipping for one last present and I could hardly move I was fighting to avoid being incapacitated by the agonizing pain above my eye.

Back from San Diego, exhausted, only one more present to buy. tomorrow i will go out and make that purchas and then the editorial deadline from hell stares me in the face.

Christmas shopping at the mall. My cleaning lady and her son in tow. The whole time she is pointing to the ugliest crap and either telling me I should buy it, she wants to buy it, I should buy it for her or that my girlfriend and i should have a baby and we could then buy it for the baby.

So she is nagging me about something while I am at the check out line and I tell the adolescent girl at the register that this is my cleaning lady nagging me, and that her sister nags me while they clean my place, so can you imagine how much my girlfriend nags me. And this little girl (minimum wage retail teen) looks at her and looks at me and says Wow, are you rich?

Merry Christmas everybody, i am taking the train to San Diego Wednesday to visit the GF’s familia and then it is time to finsih up the next issue of the magazine during the holiday. Anybody know anything going on New Year’s Eve?