I found a way to arrange all of the iTunes artists of whom I own music in order by how many gigabytes they take up on the hard drive.

1. Miles Davis
2. Bob Dylan
3. Leonard Cohen
4. The Velvet Underground
5. Johnny Cash
6. Violent Femmes
7. Pixies
8. Devo
9. The Smiths
10. Talking Heads
11. Love
12. The Beatles
13. The Clash
14. Morrissey
15. X
16. Elvis Presley
17. Frank Sinatra
18. The Rolling Stones
19. The Replacements
20. Sonic Youth

(update: the Mac is not perfect - many albums were put into a folder called compilations. I tried to assess the difference in the rankings - maybe Chet Baker would be there somewhere. some of the middle positioned bands would be a little higher, but nothing drastic would be altered)

The art out there was pretty good tonight. Weird. Not all of it, but some of it. Just enough to make you go uh-Kay… not wasting life in dilletante charade known as art world… keep moving. I have only been to Chinatown and seen some decent stuff. And at galleries that ordinarily suck. I am not going to go down the list, but Iw ould say that if you are going to go check out the galelries in Chinatown, the next few weeks will have shows up that are pretty good. It would make a great Saturday date. The ambiance cannot be beat.

Got my lease renewal today. My rent is cheap proportionate to what it is everywhere else, but some parts of me are quite antsy. I have been trying to stay close to L.A. and not travel, not drop every dime on the tables in Vegas or the road trips to see museum shows and baseball games in rental cars and nice hotels. I’ve been stabilizing my business and taking care of long term financial planning. Since I incorporated I’ve left L.A. only a few times.

Began distribution of the new issue of the magazine.
A small army is helping in this endeavor.
It will be all over LA by Saturday afternoon and national shipping is on Monday.

Went by MOCA today and saw the totally underwhelming Synesthesia art show.
However, exhausted by distribution, I will give it another chance.
That this got a rave cover story in the L.A. Meekly makes me extraordinarily suspicious.

Speaking of cover stories, I have one in this month’s ArtScene, L.A.’s answer to the glum gallery guides of lesser hamlets and rival burgs. It is a few hundred words on assemblage master, George Herms, who is opening two exhibits this month, one at the Santa Monica Museum and the other at the Tobey C. Moss Gallery.

Met up with Max Estenger for lunch at Phillipe’s. Since I am dating a vegetarian, I don’t go to this ambiance-riddled sandwich shop as much as I used to. Perhaps my arteries are better for it! Max is in from New York City for a few days and had one afternoon to break free from family commitments to meet up for a meal.

Artworld Gossip: Saw Glenn Ligon and a small army of handlers making the rounds in Chinatown’s bustling gallery scene today. One of those accompanying him was the stylish Alma Ruiz, MOCA curator. So go buy a Ligon cheap and play the art market speculator, looks like the hand of power is cradling this guy close!

This is a popular theme on Live Journal today

1. Survived open heart surgery
2. Studied for the priesthood at a Catholic Seminary college
3. Got drunk with Charles Bukowski
4. Gave Karen Finley an astrology reading
5. Had lunch with John Yau
6. Spit in my older sister’s face
7. Got a sympathy hug from Jane Fonda (back when she was hot)
8. Ran a lathe and milling machine before I was 11
9. Saw the Dead Kennedys live before they released their first album
10. Dyed my hair Bright-As-Fuck-Yellow

You could add to this list that i picked up Issue #73 of Coagula from the printers tonight. It looks good. I can tell everyone that Chris Burden is on the cover and that the story of what really happened at UCLA - at least as I see it - is in there.

And in reagrdas to #6 on the above list, the same sister got a nice Back Cover advertisement in this issue for her upcoming solo show at University of Redlands.

Dr. Gene Scott, the Hunter S. Thompson of television preachers, died Monday from a stroke. He was 75.

Too bad about Hunter S. Thompson. He always did have the streak of machismo that makes the suicide somehow sensible in Hemingway-esque manner. He was probably falling apart.

Understand: the death always gets mentioned. MIchael Montfort, Bukowski’s photographer, went to see Hank struggling with leukemia. Montfort told me Bukowski didn’t want to be photographed with all the tubes coming out of him and Montfort though that people needed to see the struggle for life that Hank was fighting, but Bukowski thought it would be seen as maudlin and understood the preoccupation with how one goes out.

Thompson just didn’t give a rat’s ass. Perhaps he had early Alzheimers or something. Coincidentally, he was the same age as Robert Redford. Thompson was a football fan, Redford a baseball devotee, and no matter what George Carlin would say about the differences between the two, HST showed the ridiculous edge of gridiron psychology. In redford’s The Natural, baseball’s drama is about noble sacrifice. Thompson’s football mentality was (and IS) about a raw, animal drive toward mutilation (of the opponent, of the self, of authority, of the social structure) as life’s only option.

Thompson was an astute, self-destructive critic. His best book is Hell’s Angels. The best thing I can say about him was that he was one of the few authors I had trouble reading after getting sober (William S. Burroughs was another), as once you agree with his assessment of society (and you do), you find yourself agreeing with his drug/booze intake. His prose made Bukowski’s forays into alcohol abuse seem like a Nietzchean Walt Whitman I Sing The Body Alcoholic or something.

So there.

Someone asked me about including the thoughts of others in my writing. When is it plagiarism?
Well, if they say it, I feel I can write it.
So I wrote back:

you never ask them if you can use it
you inform them that you will be STEALING it

And they let you have it, flattered.
So you didn’t really steal it.
You merely stated the depth of your pasion for what they said.
Of course, you make good on the threat - you DO steal it.

So I figured out a way to slip in the fact that the Getty owns a boxed set of my magazine without making it a specific plug.
Click Here
Not too tacky, eh?

I took a nap and it lasted four hours and now I am all bright and chipper and writing up the next issue and it is the CLOCK that has the problem folks, not me.