Over and out (for now).

Back at Ma and Pa Brawners for a while. Check this spot for future updates, but it will be semi-retired for a bit...I will be heading out again, it’s just the when and where are a little fuzzy right now.

Will probably pick back up where I left off with my regular blogsyschmogsy thing. Want to start doing collages again. I picked up bits and pieces of collage scraplets while I was in California, but actual work on collages proved difficult. But I did take my trustiest scissors and glue, just in case...

Plenty of rooms in the Hotel California.

Final shot at the blog from LA... Sitting at LAX waiting for a while to board. Lexie’s flight was half an hour earlier and on another airline. But security was easy and I just enjoyed a lovely baked treat and am gingerly sipping a four-dollar bottle of water.

A little trepidous to be going back to Nashvegas now that I am fully homeless. House-sitting for May, then who knows. Have a few other offers of short-term places to stay. Really not looking forward to going to my storage space and re-sorting thru all that s**t. Needs a second purging, since things got a little hectic towards the end, to say the least. Also have to get the tax stuff together (!!)

Want to go see the folks, go to the beach for a bit, maybe make a trip up to NY to see Adam before the summer’s out (or maybe just wait until it’s cooler in the fall).

Farewell to the Hotel California. Such a lovely place...

[[I’ll have to post this tonight...why can’t a civilised country have free wi-fi in a major airport?]]

Over the Boardwalk.

Riding a bike from the apartment down Washington over to the bike path along the beach in Venice up to Santa Monica. One of the nicest things I’ll remember from this trip. Simple, good, and good exercise to boot! Hard to beat.

Stopped at Groundworks for an espresso, and watched a guy standing in the middle of the street, looking like some guy in a movie that would be carrying a “the end is near” sign...but the Venice version, not the New Yorker cartoon version...really long gray-black hair and beard, black surf-y clothes with a hoodie, incredibly skinny. He was a white guy, but had clearly been shoeless and in the sun for so long his feet looked so dark they seem to have been grafted onto him from a much darker person. Rooted to that one spot, staring out at the sea shifting from foot to foot, waiting for the mothership.

Last day in LA.

Went for a nice lunch with Lexie and my friend Leigh Cairo at Urth Caffé on Melrose. Kind of a scene. We had nice healthful food and a I had a green tea latte the size of my head.

Hadn’t seen Leigh in about four years. She’s got two more in the family since then, one of them is two and one was born a few weeks ago. I think the Santa Ana winds have brought in sinus woes for everyone. We were all kind of headachy. Good to see her.

Might go for a bike ride on the Venice boardwalk, or wander around the Marina a bit this afternoon. We’re going to the Santa Monica Airport tonight for food and plane-and-sunset watching. Ry Cooder says it’s one of the best kept secrets about Santa Monica. (Holden says so too, as Thomas the Tank Engine’s friend Tiger Moth lives there).

It’s been really nice out here...

Sunday.

Realised that—as you often do when thinking—the best things are often the simplest. Enjoyed sitting outside today listening to podcasts, feeling the breeze off the ocean. Not a big deal, yet...

Sloe Jin Fuzz.

Had a nice lunch at Jin Patisserie on Abbott Kinney today. Very high tea, ladies’ kind of lunch, me sainted mother would’ve been proud. Quiche and salad and the cake of the day with a pot of lovely tea. They also make beautiful chocolates and we got a sample box (which are going to be enjoyed momentarily)

Just saw that new movie Hot Fuzz tonight, same guys that made Shawn of the Dead. Ultra-violent black comedy of a peculiarly new type. Always wonder about average people laughing at extremely violent death and that sort of thing. Of course, I found it hard to sleep after Shawn of the Dead...a really creepy zombie movie is a really creepy zombie movie, black comedy or no. Some very funny casting, won’t ruin any of it by telling. Not for the sensitive.

Andre the Giant has a posse.

I remember watching Andre wrestle a lot when I was a kid, but didn’t realize what a sweet gentle man he was until I watched The Princess Bride last night.

When he died he was 7 foot 4 and weighed around 500 pounds. He just wanted people to stop staring at him. We watched one of the extra making-of bits on the DVD, and apparently he loved making the film because everyone treated him like one of the guys.

He spent so much of his life being touted as a monster for professional reasons, but he was just a big old sweet giant boy.

They said he was too large for a regular car as a kid and one of their French neighbors took him to school in a van or truck he had. That neighbor was Samuel Beckett.

As you wish.

OK, so I may be one of the last people alive that had never seen Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride. Watched it tonight. One more thing crossed off the list.

Realised it came out the same year Joshua and I first met in Ireland. And they filmed parts of it there I think...

Last Friday in Cali.

Went and had breakfast with Moira and Joshua at Rose Cafe, a place in Venice. Moira had a meeting, so we three mouseketeers wandered around the canals for a while. It was a nice dream, the making-a-city-like-Venice thing. Thinking how nice it would be to live on a canal, then saw a nice little fixer-upper for a million seven...

We drove over to Bergamot Station, and Joshua wanted to pull into a photo gallery where he’d bought stuff over the years. Turned out it was this great guy Peter Fetterman, who we’d met at Art Chicago a few years ago. Peter was out of the gallery for a few days, so we didn’t get to talk to him. I remember him being a real credit to his species (the gallery owner) a species which needs some good examples (other than J.D. McFadden of course).

Took Lex out to the Pier and walked back for some nice lunch at a middle eastern place on Washington I think was called Gaby’s...

Riding around Venice on bikes.

The highlight of yesterday was having lunch (a place on Abbott Kinney called Three Square—with a sassy French waitress) and riding bikes around Venice with my friend Peter.

Peter and his wife Katinka have a really fabulous modern house off Abbott Kinney.

We stayed in last night and watched The Wedding Singer, which surprisingly I’d never seen—maybe little bits of it. You can already see Sandler coming into his own as an actual actor, not just a predictable doofus. Love that Drew. And who knew Billy Idol could be such the save-the-White-Wedding-day kind of guy?

Culver City limits.

Went gallery hopping in Culver City yesterday. More than 25 galleries right there in an area a few blocks wide. On Washington and La Cienaga btwn Washington and Venice.

Favorite show was Jesse Reno, a Portland artist who was showing at BLK/MRKT. Reminded me of Casey McGlynn a lot. SHow called Symbols and Beings. Great gallery.

Also enjoyed Marion Peck at Billy Shire Fine Arts. She had one incredibly fine large painting, then a lot of the same riff on little big-eyed children and animals, which goes a long way in my book. But very well done. Billy is the guy who also owns La Luz de Jesus.

Some really fine modern trompe l’loeil paintings by a guy named Ron Rizk at Koplin Del Rio. Reminded me of those great Dutch paintings of still life and things stuck to walls. Ron’s apparently an older guy who teaches around here, maybe USC? Talked to the owner for a while, she was nice.

Also nice stuff at Corey Helford. Andrew Brandou “As a man thinketh, so he is (a visual recounting of the history of Jonestown)”—a little freaky, more cute animals, but great odd narrative paintings.

Also had another lovely meal at Tender Greens and enjoyed the free parking garage in beutiful downtown CC.

Schwimmin’ pools movie schtars.

After a little breakfast, had a busy morning of swimming and hot-tubbing. It’s a tough job, but somebody, you know...

Getty up (some more).

Wanted Lexie to see the Getty, so we went again today.

Had to take the rental car back to a place that was way down Wilshire toward downtown. Had to get up before seven to be able to make it back in on time. Heard there was supposed to be protesting over immigration laws that was expected to lock downtown up. Glad we were headed back out asap.

I would have gone back anyway, but there were three new exhibits that opened today...one called Medieval Beasts (illuminated books), One called Radiant Darkness that had a really beautiful painting by a Dutch painter named Gerrit Dou (attaching it, but you can’t possibly appreciate how beautiful it is as a jpg), and a show of animal paintings and drawings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry you might remember that famous rhino of Dürer’s, this guy painted it too...the first rhino to be seen by Europeans, brought to Holland in the 1740s.

The van Gogh of Irises was still great...and that Degas The Milliners.

I didn’t sleep much in the run up to the car return, so the afternoon was for napping.