This looks like a funny movie with a premise revolving around second-hand furniture that is suddenly seen as valuable.

Sunday afternoon, 2 – 6 p.m. at the i-5 Gallery is the closing party for FINAL TABLE, the four person group show of the artists who were final particiapnats in the Art World Poker tournament. It is a good show and it will be a good party.

More info, here is the i-5 Gallery MYSPACE Page

A fabulous satire on the pretensions of Matthew Barney.

I went to Vegas two years ago and got cleaned out. I immediately put myself on a two-year Vegas probation.

In that time I went to Reno once and to Laughlin once. Reno I did great at, Laughlin I got spanked at the tables.

So I am going to Vegas again, tomorrow morning, the power just went out an hour ago and came back on just now and I was thinking “I oughtta just grab the girlfriend and split now…” but I got a Brewery Artwalk Association meeting to preside over. Get it? “Preside” = “President”…

Anyway, i will be on the tables all Wednesday and am going to see the Shag with a Twist show which is now running on the Vegas strip – full report when i come back…

Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Jackson Pollock.

I still spit on the academy with every fiber of my being, devoting an inordinate amount of energy to imagining fanciful, epic and often mundane gelding strategies for those institutions that would subsume us.

I just read on Matt Welch’s blog about the passing (at age 61 from leukemia) of musical genius Arthur Lee, front-man of the seminal psychedelic band LOVE, a Sunset Strip-based sixties Los Angeles band whose fame was what the Doors all agreed they would shoot for with their band (Welch links to a Densmore-penned memoriam, in fact).

I would put Love’s 1967 album Forever Changes up against any album, it is at times my favorite. I swear you can hear what it feels like to live in Los Angeles, even for a second feel like what it felt to live in the 60s in L.A. the album so perfectly captures a shared mindset. Arthur Lee was an almost-overlooked genius.

Looks like Saturday the art opening to be at is UNDER THE INFLUENCE, a show of punk rock influenced silkscreeners who make pop art.

The show is at Bergamot Station and I heard three or four good bands will playing the old 4/4-time barchords, so yeah, I think I gotta go to this one, especially seeing as when I had a gallery, two of the four featured artists showed at my place…

Three emails from art world types asking me if I know the details of JASON RHOADES dying.

Quite a shocker as he was only 41. No official confirmation. He died yesterday, August 1, here in L.A. … it is being termed “heart failure”… which seems more euphemism than coroner’s report… He was a little chunky, but not obese, I saw him drink lightly at art functions, but he didn’t have the reputation for being a lush… If only the good die young, I guess it settles the debate as to whether his sprawling installations were any good…

update: numerous people I have contacted coroborate that the idea of an otherwise-healthy looking 41-year old man dropping dead is not applicable for the partier that Rhoades had become. Consensus is that lifestyle decisions regarding substance ingestion played the main role in his death.

update 2: By the looks of it, Jason Rhoades was getting pretty hefty in the double-chin department of late…

update 3: the # of photos of Rhoades being posted on the net all feature two common themes: expanding double chin, glass of the hard sauce in hand. Any experts out there know how well that shit mixes with Ecstasy…

update 4: Heart disease is no laughing matter. When a fat heavy drinker dies in his sleep at age 41, dont just assume it had anything to do with lines of coke – go get checked up so your cardiologist can buy more art.