We went to Gallery C on Thursday for a massive opening of a 21-person group show. there was a giant band playing wood xylophones and food/drinks/servers, the whole 99 yards, really. James Hill, a metal-working sculptor who built my desk was in th show - everything was packed in tight and then filled with people. Gallery C’s Michael Napollielo Jr. introduced me to George from Seinfeld - that was the highlight, there were other actor/industry/Hollywood people there, the actress who played Tank Girl is apparently IN the show, but i have a hard time recognizing any celebrity who became a star after the late 80s.

So tonight my girlfriend is in a group show at Patricia Correia Galelry, we will be leaving after she puts on her makeup. Maybe this is more something a chick would do, but I bought a shirt specifically to wear to the opening at the Curiology Website. It is black with her name on it.

Last night was a Brewery Poker Friday edition. I won a few bucks but nothing to brag about. There are some good bluffers here and you would be hard pressed to make as bold a move as some of my neighbors do.

Okay, off to Bergamot!

Oh this is so funny, read it and think about having absolutely no competition in the shrinking global economy, nothing to challenge or usurp our rich dominance of everything outside of boring.

An acquaintance who was always supportive of my endeavors in the arts died suddenly from injuries sustained in an accident at home. Her obituary was as fitting a tribute as could be imagined:

from the Los Angeles Times
Obituary: Kathleen Reges, 50; Fostered Art Scene in Downtown L.A.
By Myrna Oliver, Times Staff Writer

Kathleen “Kathy” Reges, who helped her estranged husband, Richard Carlson, develop the Brewery in downtown Los Angeles as an art colony, has died. She was 50.

Reges died Thursday at County-USC Medical Center of a heart attack, according to her companion, environmental designer Leonard Pate. He said she was hospitalized for treatment of multiple injuries resulting in cardiovascular trauma after a fall at her home at the Brewery complex.

Reges, known as an art collector and patron, also had a national reputation as a breeder of champion wire fox terriers at Kathrich Kennels, which she founded 23 years ago.

Reges’ home was designed by Michael Rotondi, whose Roto Architects Inc. moved into the Brewery in 1991. Reges, long a fan of architecture and of Rotondi’s work, and Carlson commissioned him to create an abstract but livable home from their aged industrial building.

The resulting futuristic house, a focal point of the Brewery’s 20 acres at 2020 N. Main St., has been featured in Sunset magazine. It won an American Institute of Architects award.

“A new structure practically independent of the old building was inserted into the building shell,” Sunset described the three-bedroom house.

“Layers of the new house float off this framework: rooms, stairwells, decks and catwalks move in, out, around and through the old structure. This organizational layering lets you experience the building and the views from lots of different levels and vantage points.

“Great planes of steel were treated like folded paper; every surface tucks behind another, each an opportunity to let in light and edit views,” the magazine continued.

After Reges and Carlson separated, while remaining business partners, Reges continued to live in the house.

“This house is a diagram of her life,” Pate said Saturday. “It has her kennel, her gallery and her living and entertaining spaces.”

Reges frequently organized fundraising dinners and other events for the Fellows of Contemporary Art and similar groups supporting artists.

The Brewery, now a popular destination for gallery hopping as well as a living and working complex for artists, was the site of beer-making operations from 1880 until 1979.

When Pabst Blue Ribbon closed the facility because of dwindling demand and outdated equipment, Carlson, along with his father, Arnold, and brother Steven, bought it.

After the city passed a law in 1981 allowing artists to live in industrial zones, Carlson and Reges began developing the property as artists’ lofts and studios.

Reges quickly became a kind of den mother to the artists who moved into the more than 250 spaces, helping them show and sell their work to art lovers she encouraged to visit.

“She not only supported artists, she also knew how to inspire them,” Pate said. “She had an innate sense of putting people together who would never have met otherwise, often forming creative and lifelong bonds. This might be her true legacy.”

Born and brought up in Potomac, Md., Reges received a degree in art history from Columbia University’s Barnard College.

In addition to Pate, Reges is survived by her mother and stepfather, Olympia and Andrea Condon, and two brothers, Greg and Mark Reges.

Services in Potomac, Md., are being planned.

When I was running an art gallery, Kathy Reges bought art, with my magazine, Kathy offered positive feedback, constructive criticism and sent advertisers my way, as well as making sure people in her circles understood that she took Coagula seriously, and you cannot buy the currency that word of mouth from the right mouths can get you.

Rest in Peace.

If you want to read an article about poker that has a picture of me and mentions our weekly Brewery Art Colony poker game, CLICK HERE.

There is another picture here in an otherwise interesting recap of a visiting scribe’s journey to Los Angeles.

A humor test I took …

the Wit (65% dark, 30% spontaneous, 33% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean you’re pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty–after all isn’t that ‘the Simpsons’ philosophy?–but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

I got a cell phone.

Baby steps folks, baby steps…

So I bit the bullet and bought two round trip tickets to New York.

Train tickets that is. I am a rational peson but the airport security just freaks me out. I could go on and on about my opinions of things, the international situation, the domestic response, but not a fucking person would agree and then they would feel free to express their views and all of that makes me want to puke. Anyway, you surrender your rights at airports and I just cannot do it.

So we are going to New York for a week and it will take a week’s worth of travel time, and the cost of the train tickets were within $20 of the jet blue plane ticket total price. And I’d rather eat on Amtrak’s restaurant car than many restaurants, and end up spending quite less.

Here is even the best best news - we travel while every freak on earth is going in the opposite direction … to Burning Man. We get home while they are burnign the man in fact! So there is a lot of work to be done before the trip in order that i can afford the fricking thing, but it will be good to get out of town and good to hit the road and good to see the big apple.

I totally forgot I am going to this tonight:
Click Here

It will defintiely beat the 6-0 Dodger loss i sat through tonight, although my brother’s free tickets made it less painful.

Got a haircut today.
No color, nothing funky.

Great feedback already, although the cracks of What have you done with Mat Gleason… are peppered in…