I split to Vegas. It is very dead here – we drove and the airport radar broke so no flights landed and the place was just empty. Hilarious really.

We tried to go to a hip cub and they told us the dress code was BUSINESS CASUAL and it was just like TOO hilarious, like, I thought this was supposed to be hip. The world is run by the squares.

Ruminating on all of the conversations I had this weekend.

Health and the weather, Bush and Kerry, sports and Vegas, all in all pretty superficial stuff.

Nobody spoke about art (at goddamned art openings). Everyone ignored the obvious themes about conformity to ideals that are hollow, about agreeing to allow crooks to operate within the sphere of the creative professions because one or two of the sheisters might take one of us along for the ride. About aspiring to be one of the crooks instead of the pleasant party people we all are appearing to be.

We were all right there immersed in the dull parade of of picturemakers and pundits and nobody stepped out of line or off of their rose-colored parade floats. I have deeper conversations with my cleaning lady than with anyone in the friggin art world.

I might crack soon from all of this smiling and self-assured certainty.

By my count, there were 59 openings at art galleries last night. Throw in MOCA’s reception for their Robert Smithson show and you get an eeven 60. This is not counting almost two dozen other openings Friday or seven today.

Nah, I didn’t really hit that many. Three to be exact. But I want to see art and that doesn’t happen much at openings. Does that sound like an excuse? A rationalization?

You can go three days without food and two days without water but not a day without a rationalization.

There are only a million art openings tonight in Los Angeles.

I guarantee nobody will see the art, buy the art or appreciate the art. Come Tuesday it will be time to go look at the art.

My girlfriend is in a show at the Brewery Project Gallery, so I will be in Good Boyfriend mode for the duration.

This Bacardi commercial is driving me crazy because it sounds so much like Paul Westerberg, and i just cannot imagine him selling out.

My girlfriend watches more Spike TV than most men. She is a mystery-solving crimestopper. I prefer to let the mysteries remain mysteries.

All of the Coagula packages have been shipped. If you are a distributor, look for that UPS delivery soon.

And in other news, I was voted President of the Brewery Art Association tonight.

I talked so much at an art opening last night that my voice is pretty much shot to shit today. It is one hundred degrees outside, so the air conditioner and I are staying indoors; my girlfriend got all ready to go out jogging and was back here in like five fucking minutes.

The art opening last night was small, but it was a small gallery so it looked full and had lots of energy. But there was no air circulation and it felt like a sauna inside the space. no fans, no a.c. Holiday weekend crowd people who stayed home with nowhere else to go and nothin else happening). A good show and some people I don’t often see, and a good time afterward at the bar here at the Brewery Art Colony. They got slammed all at once after the art show, people three deep at the bar looking to get their imbibrage.

We are going to the wedding reception for Carlos Grasso and Babette Hines tonight. Hopefully my voice will come along, otherwise…

I will be
in the bar
with my head on the bar.

In case you are a believer, here is your art world horoscope for September.

For the past month or so, I’ve been watching my girlfriend make a large drawing for an exhibit. As it got more complex, I have had to make myself scarce aroud here. For the past three months, I have been using her internet access as I told earthlink to fuck off and then found out that they pretty much have you by the balls when it comes to DSL.

So tonight she is working on this major project – it is getting near completion, and that is when the tension mounts – and there is a baseball game on – it is getting near the end of the season, and that is when the tension mounts – and she tells me that I cannot yell at the television. I yell FUCK about once every forty-five seconds during a broadcast, twenty seconds if they play like they have been lately.

So I watched the game without making any noise. It was much less stressful. It made me think that we all create our own stress. If I could just lower my self-induced hysteria. But then again, maybe what seems like a disadvantage under one set of criteria is actually the only thing I have got going for me in more important arenas of life.

And she finished the drawing during the 8th inning, save a touch-up here or there. It is awesome.

The last fucking thing I love that I can still have is coffee.
I’ve given up everything but coffee and sex.
My three vices are coffee, mild narcissism and capitalism.

We are going with envelopes instead of die-cut boxes.
If you are a distributor of the magazine I publish, you’ll see.
Salerno and I stuffed a bundle of magazines into an envelope and tossed the succker around his place for a little while. It finally did tear a little, but it survived enough rough spills that we decided to go for it. Tuesday sees UPS put to work.

But even more importantly, salerno and i need to buy cars. One each.
Any advice? Not one of those long advice columns about becioming a car expert in the middle of the afternoon. Advice like saying – Oh, I got an extra car, I would advise you to come take it off my hands cheap today…

Towtrucks and the bus ain’t cutting it.