blah blah blog

Day 18 of working (so far) 26 days in a row - I reflect on a few things.

Katrina dogs have arrived in the LA area and they all look to be very large dogs. A woman who called me about working over Thanksgiving tells me that the small ones either didn't make it through the hurricane or got out with the wealthy evacuees. And she tells me of a horror story that was probably thousand fold about the armed forces turning people away from being evacuated with their dogs in their arms. Basically - 'it's you or you both stay behind'.

Yesterday and today were 95 - 100 degrees and Santa Ana windy. I left the house at 7:30 and returned at 5:30 and that was only because one of my clients came home early. I could not do this in Arizona or Vegas or Bakersfield. Oddly enough I have to come home and take a hot bath. Between clients, driving from one to the other I could see the fires - Topanga fires in the morning from Mulholland; the Burbank fires in the afternoon from everywhere else. Jeopardy was preempted by fire news. Looks really bad. Jeopardy.

This heat and wind also seemed to bring out the feisty and unruly behavior in the dogs. Yesterday I watched a squirrel die after one my dogs got to it and hurled it. I won't tell the clients I'm working for in the next week that request me to feed the squirrels in the empty lot across from them.

The last few days being on the road back and forth across town, brought several bumper stickers into view.

My favorite:
"WHEN CLINTON LIED
NO ONE DIED"

2nd favorite:
"GET OFF THE PHONE AND DRIVE"

Not even on the favorites list:
"IF IT AIN'T HIP HOP
IT SUCKS"

Captain Burke For President

Brian Unger did a fantastic and not so unrealistic satire on NPR today and I join him in a wish to nominate Captain Burke of Jet Blue Airlines for President, 2008. Made me laugh out loud in my car and nod emphatically.

Listen to it here!

Two heroes in one day

I kept wondering as I toured the Basquiat exhibit if the school district organized field trips for the kids from South Central and Compton. And wouldn't it be great if the MOCA organization had offered it free to the kids from the Watts Cultural Center?

I was so glad we went dowstairs first to see the archived interview with Jean-Michel beacuse he said a couple things that were very significant to me. One was that William Burroughs was his favorite "living writer". Viewing his work, to me, was like reading a Burroughs book. Being inside his head. (Also, after we left I felt like we had been in the middle of a huge complicated math problem and JMB had written the solution.)

He also talked about being homeless and from that point of view, everybody who ate in restaurants must be rich. That is how I've always felt living in Los Angeles. Not just the everyone is rich part, but that everyone is making movies or TV and everyone has my job. I keep painting because really, ultimately - I don't want most of those jobs. But just like JMB must have figured, it would be a hellofa lot better not to worry about what you're going to eat, let alone where.

Later, sitting at Musso's (after a cost-conscious meal at Kung Pao Kitty), Reuben our mixologist regaled us with tales of being hijacked by Sam Peckinpah to be his driver (and surely bartender) while filming Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. Now here's a guy who's been working behind that bar for 37 years and has never been bitter at Hollywood -
just everything else.

Shiny Books In Large Places

Why don't I hang out in book stores much? At night time the Barnes & Noble at the Grove seems like a beautiful place to be. It was just that the other night when Paula & I went to hear Jill read from Tiny Ladies In Shiny Pants. Three floors of books, music and a Starbucks; a lounge area where the authors read and where folks hang out and relax with a book. Lounge...lounge...oh yes, because it's that other kind of lounge that I like so much. The Whisper Lounge at The Grove, in fact, has a nice happy hour with cocktails and wines-by-the-glass for $4 and appetizers for $3. A couple of glasses of Cab and an order of frites were the perfect warm-up for an hour of listening to the hurling of profanities and profundities right next to the children's section of B&N.

Hear Ye, Read All About It

I've been getting the emails for the past 24 hours about Marshall Field's being changed to Macy's. The Chicago State Street landmark along with its other 60 odd suburb stores will be changed to what has become quite a generic name across America. I am among those who think it is a pity. (Only the Mayor is trying to sound positive) I was just telling a friend the other day who was talking about Bergdorf's, that was about the ONLY department store I HADN'T worked at. Although, it having become under the Neiman Marcus umbrella, I am only one degree of seperation from having worked there...

Nonetheless, my first job was at the brand new mall in Aurora, IL in the seventies at Lord & Taylor and a year later on the other side of the mall at Marshall Field. My mother had preceded me there. She also had taken me shopping in my youth it now seems like once a month (at least) to Oakbrook where I stood in front of the circular candy counter for an hour (by myself, while she tried on shoes) and decide what confection I needed. She'd eventually gather me, pay for my treat and buy a box of Frango Mints for my Dad. Inevetibly we would lunch in the Oak Room where there was always a strolling fashion show and I insisted on the cheese cake for dessert. The Frango Mints and that cheese cake alone are indelible. Of course in the winter, the troops woud be gathered and we'd go into the city to shop at the State Street Store, see the animated Christmas windows and wait in the long line to eat in the Walnut Room.

I don't see that there is much in the way of experiences such as these in our current department stores. Granted, the last couple times I went into a Marshall Field's, it wasn't as special, in fact it felt Macy-ish, but the Frango Mints were still there, the buzz about the windows was still alive and the name still felt like those rabbit earmuffs I bought there once with my discount.

Hope they put your name on the marquee at The Improv

Congrats to friends Jim Vallely & Mitch Hurwitz on their Emmy!

And kudos to whoever Jim's stylist was for the evening - very sharp!

Photo courtesy of wireimage

Homecoming Review

Today's Hometown Newspaper Reports Upcoming Homecoming Events:

Sandwich High School will celebrate homecoming week with a "Reality Homecoming" theme. Activities planned for students include "Survivor Clothes Day" and "Apprentice Power Outfit Day."

The theme for West Aurora High School's homecoming is "Viva Las Vegas."

Aurora Central Catholic High School Homecoming will be celebrated this week and will include a dress theme each day and an evening activity. The dress theme week will conclude on Friday with ACC spirit "Blue and Gold Day." Events planned for the public include a "Pig Out in the Parking Lot"

Batavia High School will hold homecoming the week of Sept. 25 to Oct. 1 with a "Music Genre" theme. Student activities will include "Class Olympics" and a dodge ball competition.

Geneva High School's homecoming theme is "Vikings Through The Ages". The students will participate in various activities during the week including "Pajama Day" and "Class Color Day."

We thought of some other themes and "activities":
Mobsters of the 30's!
Drug Deals Gone Bad!
Gang Affiliation Day!
Plantation Slavery Day!
Porn of the 70's!
Hooker & Pimp!
Literary Drunks Through History!
Charles Manson & His Women!
OJ Simpson Day!
Hair Bands Of The 80's!
Indian Mascots!
Hell's Angels!
For the Catholic Schools - Popes Through The Ages!

Because really, what does "class color" mean? That could be taken so many ways.

DaDa Distraction

I spent yesterday morning at a seminar for my stock agency, which has recently merged with about three others. Chatting with a couple other photogs before they let us in the meeting room, I had to admit that I hadn't submitted anything in quite a long time since everything and everyone had gone digital, including me. It used to be rather easy to submit slides or hard copy photos and if selected they did a scan, made their own negative and they would archive it and that was that. Now it is highly complicated and this is what the seminar was about - the softwares available and how to use them and what's acceptable, etc. I wasn't the only one who was there to possibly be inspired to start submitting in this newfangled way which takes a shitload of time (and money$$$) on the artist's part.

During this pre-seminar chat, the botanicals photographer and I were joined by a lifestyle photographer wearing a beret who said I looked like a German Art Director. Well, that was just about as inspirational as the rest of the morning - if not more.

I came home and worked on my 4' X 6' painting of botanicals and cracked open a German beer.

Day Three Of September Trip To Bay Area

Woke up in the Apex room of the Hotel des Arts which was greener than green and walked out to the San Fran air which was bluer than blue. Trekked down to the Ferry Building in the Embarcadero which holds an incredible farmers market every Saturday. Much to our surprise the one and only political booth was republican and manned by a skateboard model. Or maybe Arnold's son, who knows? Most of the time we were there he was quite lonely.

After a breakfast at the Market Bar - his good, mine not so - and some taste testing around the organics, we schlepped the bag back to the Bart, headed back to Colma. Our old friends from Montara picked us up and took us to Rockaway Beach for lunch at Nick's where they were serving a special dish du jour called Nora Benedict. Was this a play on the Nick & Nora thing that the primarily over sixty crowd winked about ordering martinis with their eggs?

Nick's was established some time in the 19-teens or twenties and appears to not have changed much. I felt very self concious in my ferme ta Bush tee-shirt I was wearing that only an hour before in the big city I had compliments on several times over. Despite the surfers in the water and in the parking lot, the diners looked more than conservative. JP said it reminded her of the places in Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale we used to eat at and join the old-timers in their boiled foods, though Nick's was decidedly more haute cuisine compared to the early-bird cuisine of Flah.

Speaking of which, I never thought I'd see the day where my firmly attached to Florida friend would see the light of California again, let alone the cold, grey part. In her words, she was "born freezing right out of the womb". If she were "sitting on the equator with satan she'd ask for a sweater". Lucky for her, she now gets to buy all the cashmere Neiman Marcus and good thrift stores provide.

We had one more short visit with the shih tzus and a look out at the ocean cliffs before the seven hour drive back to LaLa.
We couldn't have planned our trip better if we planned it.

Fillerup - Again

In case you haven't received it ten times already in one of those mass emails -
A little ditty about our retched gasoline prices
I Can't Afford My Gasoline

And that's no joke.

Day Two Of September Trip To Bay Area

We woke up in Montara, California across the street from the ocean. Our host took us down the cliffs for an upfront and spectacular view then took us to the Bart Station in Colma, the town that was literally grown out of the San Fran earthquakes of yore when they needed a place to build mortuaries and graveyards. (Makes ya wonder what towns will be re-created for the same purpose after Katrina...)

WE schlepped up to, of all street names, Bush, to our hotel. We were too early for check-in so we dropped the bag and walked all the way to the Mission district and did some book shopping and bohemian coffee house sitting after dodging the pimps and crack dealers on Market and Mission streets. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf really ought to take a clue on how to make a chai latte....

Got back downtown just before check-in so we had a beer at Murphy's then went up to our "artist room" painted by Apex for a little lie-down.

Then it was off to SBC Park for the Giants vs. Cubs game. On our way we happened upon the 49ers rally in the Embarcadero. It seemed like the end of the festivities - all that was left for fan pictures were cheerleaders. And the "Unofficial Rolling Stones" who I liked to call, after experiencing them for two minutes - The Trolling Clones". Yike-eez.

SBC was a gas even though it was the shortest game in history. And freezing. And the Cubs lost. (I was discreet - I even bought a Giants beanie before the game to cover my cold ears.) And who doesn't love a seventy year-old "balldude"? (Not to mention the lack of fan thugs, read: Dodgers).
D. said something like, "This would be the greatest ballpark in the world if it wasn't for Wrigley."
Difference number one -
Chicago: Cubbie Bear, Murphy's Bleacher's and Beer, Beer, Beer.
San Fran: Mo Mo's, The Chop House and Martini's, Cocktails, Wine.

Freezing (me) and tired of walking, we got a cab to Vesuvios after the game. Ordered a drink but didn't stay. Crowd wasn't quite what we were hoping for so we moved on back towards the hotel and checked out The Irish Bank which was in the alley next door. Loved it even though they told us the kitchen was closed (we weren't hungry) and later served a big bowl of stew to a local. It only inspired us to want to BE a local and sit in the dining confessional and, well - commence and confess to some sinnin' via their massive Scotch and Irish Whiskey selections.

Day One Of The September Trip To Bay Area

Made a detour to Santa Cruz Pier & Arcade where a certain someone played midway games and Asteroids (see my buzznet) and we ate a good meal and cavorted with Sea Lions.

Evening time was spent in a Half Moon Bay Brewery watching the Raiders fall apart, getting chummy with some locals then on to our hosts in Montara where we were met by one blind dog, one near-blind dog and one bully dog - all shih tzus.

No, Not Sick, Just Out Of Town

More ranting to follow...

Shine A Light

In 1981 I was living in Dallas, Texas and hanging out with a gang of southern self-proclaimed "dirty-white boys" and their girlfriends and we were young and out of school and went anywhere we wanted. On Halloween of that year we went to see The Rolling Stones at an outdoor arena but I don't think it was Texas Stadium. I remember it rained harder and harder as the Stones played harder and harder and a hundred thousand people were in costume. We were so jazzed up that within days, about six of us decided to board a plane at the last minute and head to New Orleans and see The Stones play at The Superdome.

I'm sure it was Jamie who was in charge of getting tickets - asking the cabbie, the bellboy, hanging at the dome, going to Bourbon Street. I think it didn't take long and they were certainly all of twenty bucks - scalped - and that night we were the largest assembled crowd in an indoor arena to date.

Later, that same crowd controlled Bourbon Street. Happy, Stones loving, music loving people. It was the greatest time ever for everybody there. It wasn't like Mardi Gras which I went to a few months later. That was over-crowded and psychotic. This was truly energetic and cheerful and you could walk in and out of places and everyone was in a festive mood.

I recall separating from the gang for a while and walking over to the riverbank and gazing out at the Delta Queen where The Stones were then partying. It was like gazing out across the water at the glimmer of a Gatsby party. I walked back through Jackson Square, grabbed a beignet and headed back to the throng of people that knew there was no other place on earth to be that night but New Orleans - that night in the French Quarter was like being at a Gatsby party.

Speechless, But My Thoughts Are Like A