I'm in Los Angeles visiting friends, now blogging at the Coffee Bean across from the DGA next to tattooed rockers and a starry eyed kid running lines (badly, poor guy) with a friend. Ah, only in L.A.

I took myself to the LACMA yesterday, hoping to visit one of my favorite artists & pieces, "Back Seat Dodge '38" by Ed Kienholz. It had been at the LACMA for so long, I assumed it was part of the permanent collection. But the docent told me in broken English that, alas, it drove off to the Petersen Museum. There was plenty else to see, however, including a seized-out-of-the-hands-of-Nazis Klimt exhibit, and the fabulous "You Only Live 25 Times" by Petra Mrzyk & Jean-Francois Moriceau, which incorporates 25 Felicien Rops (an artist I find highly amusing) prints in a bizarre meandering of pop-culture gone surreal wall paintings. Think Edward Gorey on acid, Tim Burton meets R Crumb meets Andy Warhol. I'm not sure what it says about my psyche that I was riveted by Rops' "Puberte", which featured a nude young girl in whom I saw Alice In Wonderland, seated provocatively on an animated, leering chair. An exhibit, in my opinion, worth seeing, as when it ends they will paint over the whole thing, leaving no trace.

Other artists of interest to me were Marsden Hartley, John F Poto, Stanislaw Borowski (with his spectacular glass "ship"), and Magnus Zeller's "The Orator". While I mostly stuck to the modern art building (I tend to get overwhelmed if I tackle too much), a stroll through the other wings had me standing still for the painted European 16th-18th century glass, and the bronzework from the 5th & 6th century B.C. I am awed by the detail and surprisingly contemporary design of filials made 2600 years ago.

Later in the evening, we went to see The Black Rider on the advice of a friend, and were not disappointed, though half of the geriatric crowd left the theater halfway through, befuddled and disgruntled, not having been able to absorb William S Burroughs'  drug-inspired (and autobiographical) interpretation of a macabre German fable set to the music of Tom Waits. I guess we know how those who abandoned ship spent the 60's, and it wasn't reading Aleister Crowley or hanging out with the Beats. Or reading Der Struwwelpeter.

The evening was topped off with some stellar company in the form of my funny and brilliant new writer-friend Neal and a nightcap at the Dresden. An excellent end to an L.A. day.

PART DEUX

On Saturday afternoon, I went to the Taschen book release of LeRoy Grannis' Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s at the Beverly Hills store. It was an intimate gathering. The book brought me back to my childhood growing up on Will Rogers State Beach, where I spent nearly every day of every summer doing Junior Lifeguards or boogie boarding, bodysurfing, or longboarding. Surf culture permeated the Palisades, where my teachers hung out with the Beach Boys and plenty of dads hit the surf for a few waves before work. I even swam in a few episodes of Baywatch's first season, which was filmed at "jetty" (tower 16 on WR Beach), until that show reformulated to focus on massive breasts and skimpy bathing suits rather than the "ER"-style, day in the life of a county lifeguard format it started out as when Greg Bonann, a fellow swimmer, started producing it.

Saturday evening, my tall-drink-of-water friend Stephen took me to see a theater showcase, a quick drink at the 4100 Bar, and then to the late-night comedy show "Serial Killers" at the Sacred Fools Theater. The premise is that five comedy skits are performed, and then the audience votes for the three skits that should continue in their series the following week. The two that have jumped the proverbial shark are axed, and replaced by brand new skits the next time around, starting new series contenders. As a former scriptreader at MPCA, my favorite was by far the first skit, Magnum Opus Theatre, in which horrendously bad film scripts (which have actually been submitted to studios) are acted out. The dialogue is so bad and so cliche, and the "acting" tailored to match. The result is hilarious.

Sunday, I went to another book release party at the Country Store in Laurel Canyon, for a book chronicling rock n' roll history in Laurel Canyon written by Michael Walker. The scene was decidedly hippy, with a bunch of oldtimers hanging about, and the store owner repeatedly urging us to taste the Country Store home-made wine, despite the fact that it was 1 PM on a Sunday and I was holding a latte. An interesting fête, in any case. Sunday evening was spent with Tina and Dave, the horror-film making couple, eating dumplings near Pasadena. No little old ladies in sight.