The Gypsy Kings performing the Eagle’s hit, “Hotel California”. Theme of one of my all time favorite movies, The Big Lebowski.

A perfect find for this blog entry. So evocative.

To me, that’s art. Finding the perfect video to go with the perfect visuals to go with the perfect blog entry. YES!

So, last night was ART NIGHT.

First Friday on the Paseo. The Red Dot show at IAO. Drinks at Isis afterwards with friends and many many familiar faces.

Yesterday was perfect Fall weather for me: a warm and sunny afternoon followed by a cool, wear-your-jacket evening.

A friend of mine happened to see a little Miata for sale at a good price yesterday and gave me a call to clue me in. I went. The great price was a product of the little Miata having been wrecked. Once we opened the trunk, it could not be closed shut again despite the efforts of me, the car salesman, the sales manager, another salesman and even one of the mechanics from the body shop. I got started laughing at the procedure and kept laughing when they were still at it after I’d gone on a test drive of another car. They got me back, though. While I was test driving, they assessed my own Midlife Chrysler. They put an $8,000 price on it. All fine and well unless you consider that I owe $15,000 on it. I was pretty sure we weren’t going to do business.

After a long absence, I saw Button the Cat last night and she looked great in pigtails, a short leather jacket and skin tight jeans. Button the Cat is like a lot of housecats I know. She can be very friendly and wonderful and loving, but she likes to spend a lot of time under the couch and behind the sofa so you never know where she is or what the hell it is she’s doing. Geo. Oz, Debster, Timothy and La-nephew fixed her problems with communication: we waterboarded her until we found out what we wanted to know about her lovelife and residence and blind puppy and current occupation. I’m not sure how the question “How have you been?” ever became a state secret, but some people treat it that way.

I made a minimum bid on a Sue Moss Sullivan piece at the Red Dot show, but since I’ve had no call I’m guessing I wasn’t the last bidder, only the first. (update: I bought the piece; I just didn’t wait long enough for the call.) The Red Dot show, btw, was really terrific. The average quality of the show was a quantum leap higher than many years in the past (when it was the Not So Silent Night auction). Every single person I spoke to gave credit for the show’s overall excellence to the Oz, who curated. I still think he’s a genius and I still don’t often use that word to describe many people. I very much liked several of the three dimensional pieces; works by Larry P and Randy Marks and the Bewleys, for example. However, Diane Coady surprised me with what I thought was one of the best pieces in the show: a small, dyed silk neckpiece collar with champagne bubbles at the throat. Gorgeous, wearable art. Magnificent! I liked a Burt Seaborn piece that was next to the back room bar, but a $700 minimum bid choked me; even though well worth the price, it was out of my range. Lynne Barnett-Sparks’ bubble girl was nice as were the two pieces by Paul Medina (who confided he was saving back his better work for a show he’s having next month). I’m going down a dangerous path here and will turn back. There were too many pieces by too many artists for me to comment on them all.

At JRB last night, Joy Reed had a kind of garage sale of art to show. There were a bunch of artists and a melange of work in every room and the show included what didn’t sell from previous shows. I guess it’s the Christmas thing, trying to put out small works that one might choose as a nice gift for that upcoming holiday. I remain prejudiced against landscapes and the gauzy impressionism technique doesn’t save them for me; they still seem static, uninteresting, empty for my tastes. The Michi Susan room was great, but I can’t afford her, either.

Tall Cotton Stringband played at Sauced and Son del Barrio played at Galileo’s. Isis had a cheek to jowl crowd sucking on hookahs and a surfeit of women blocked the doors. I was home before midnight.

Oh, I almost forgot. How does this make any connection to Hotel California? Easy. “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” I was out of sync with the crowd I run with for most of the night. I was checking out or checking in before anyone else was ready. I was restless as could be (I told Timothy I felt like a long-tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs, a tired, but apt, metaphor). He told me it was because Mercury was in retrograde. OK. I don’t care what the excuse might be. Meanwhile, my non-love life has been treating me like it was dinner at Kha Zana India food buffet. I ate a long time ago, but I keep tasting it in the back of my mouth. Emails from loves long gone, imaginary conversations with women who aren’t there and won’t ever hear me talking like that again, I keep trying to check out but it seems I can never leave my own past. I kept running into women I once loved, still love for that matter, and it’s bittersweet to be sure. Might-have-beens, couldas, shouldas, oughtas. An unexamined life is a life not worth living? I got news for you, Plato. An examined life ain’t any better, chewing over old bones. I told a more recent lady friend that I felt like gasoline saying goodbye to matches. I think I have too many relationships like that: hot hot hot and then all used up. I think it’s fair to say that I suffer from a syndrome I see everywhere: I don’t know what I want, but I sure as hell know what I don’t want. And, I don’t want anything or anyone or any relationship. I can’t be pleased. Why do I try? More to the point, why do I make someone else try to do what I’ve been unable to do in six decades? It’s there other times, but First Friday is a large case in point. This is the world’s largest small town. If I go to art shows on the first Friday of the month, there’s a very large chance that my checkered past will smite me in the face sooner or later during the night. Last night, I was Ed Norton in Fight Club: punching myself in the face and blaming Tyler Durden.

And, all I wanted was to be The Dude.

In fact, here’s a video summary of my entire love life from age 15 to age 55:

blogblah!!!