Art World Poker made the Riverside Press Enterprise Weekend section. Enjoy!

The Art World Poker Finals -scheduled for this Sunday- made Thursday’s L.A. Times. Sweet.

Something about the idea behind This Link is just so cool and brilliant…

So my nephew proposed to his girlfriend on the Golden Gate Bridge. She accepted. She is the infamous “Trivia Ringer” (See My Blog Nov. 27, 2004)brought in to defeat me at the annual family versus me trivia contest.

Since she soon will be family, I guess it will be a tougher contest each holiday.

The heatwave is officially rotten. I was in the sun today for about ten seconds and had a panic attack that I might be scorched into ash if I did not run for the shade. Scary.

So I got another niece who is getting married in October, this nephew just announced and a new niece and two new nephews as of last Monday. Not that I am a real family type guy or anything, I mean, for example, my girlfriend’s birthday is in May, and we just went by my mom’s pad this week to pick up the presents people got her. Do the math there. Speaking of moms and the girlfriend, there was a black and white photograph of this absolute babe on the beach on my girlfriend’s kitchen table and I voiced my approval of it – sure enough, it is Shirley, my girlfriend’s mom.

If I can snag it, I will scan it and post it and you will agree… Until then, stay cool!

My brother and his wife had triplets early this afternoon. I went to visit around the arrival time and they had already been berthed. There were two 5+ LB boys (Daniel Ambrose, a blonde, and Connor Benjamin, a hairy brunette) and a 4+LB Girl (Ava, a full-head-of-hair brunette).

Everyone is doing fine, including my brother’s 5 year old son, proudly announcing that he was now a “big brother.”

As nice and sweet as that all sounds, we are talking TRIPLETS here people. A load of work. As Uncle, i get the holidays and occasional photo-ops, so it is great for me, but the day in, day out stuff – wow, I dunno. I do know that I couldn’t do it. I mean I would, were it thrust on me, but, it hasn’t been.

I have been melting here in L.A., not a heatwave as much as a heat ocean. Long hot summer.

I can’t really say much has been happening besides trying to finish up the distribution of the new issue of the magazine. the Art World Poker thing is going great, the show changes radically and RAPIDLY!

Here is a cool set of pics from the Edward Colver Exhibition. Good show, good time.

So I finally recalled what we had done on that day we went out and did something - we had gone to LACMA for the Klimt exhibit - big long lines, long wait, and for five oversized yuppie-ass paintings. The one got $135 million because of the scarcity of Austrian avant garde art left in existence - the gold portrait of Miss Bloch is intricate, but the perfect and flattering realism of her face is such a sellout by Klimt to the patron that it just ain’t a great pic. Bottom line hurts. Sorry Mister Lauder got gypped on the dough, but it must be cool for the heirs to the family.

So we went to the Edward Colver show at the Grand Central Arts building in Santa Ana on Saturday night, there were lots and lots of people and there was a stage and some punk bands played - everyone seemed to be there to see Flipper, you see, in punk there was a need to see a band so you could swaggger and sneer to someone OH I SAW THAT BAND AND THAT BAND and the implication was (i am more punk rock than you - ha ha, superiority at last!).

That highschool shit always caused me more anxiety thatn I really could ever admit - you want to be unaffected and of course appear unaffected, but the peer-to-peer crap scrambles your brain, even if only a little, and even if it unscrambles later in life it only makes resentment smolder. Everybody seems to be such a sore fucking winner. I try to not be, but I do it as much as anyone.

I can’t recall what we did Thursday, but we went out, and I am getting a little upset at myself for not recalling. I want to call my girlfriend right now and ask her, but I am a little beside myself in that it is a total blank. I am thinking of looking in the various stacks of paper here for a clue - what restaurant maybe we ate at - maybe there is a receipt, et cetera…

Today - Monday - we went to Topanga to visit Patricia whose husband passed away last month. Ed Glendenning made delicious hamburgers - really, the best barbecued hamburger I have had in years. Then we drank iced coffee and had a Klondike bar (my favorite), so I am up and wired. We split at the very last light to make it down the mountain and back into the city. It was nice, but i wonder now if i would recall it next week if I didn’t write it down…