Sweetly togged out hipster boys, writers both; G. an organizer of the gallery (who also lives there in an upstairs uber-pad which should be festooned at all times with a combination of bongwater and ladies in lingerie) and the other a chipmunk-voiced professional cool person or something. The thing he read was good but went kind of over people's heads. That's okay... they were convinced he was a fabulous genius, just from the way his corduroy pants flared out, slit up the sides....
I was absurdly excited at the hot greyhaired dieseldykes, until they asked me what "utopia" meant. That was disappointing. And that painting was more fabulous than I thought upon first glance. Usually I look at stuff that tries to be "Guernica" where all the people look like their necks are on backwards or broken, and just shrug. But this was actually neat for its horsewoman who was either giving birth or fucking herself with a dildo shaped like a baby horse. The horsewoman was very pleased with herself, bony arms, rose on the head, and all. All this person's paintings (i didn't write down her name... Anastasia something?) were cool and complex and had things sticking into and out of giant vaginas. I overheard the early older palo-alto art crowd, 2 guys saying to each other, "And actually, if you would believe it, a woman painted those over there." And the other guy was like, "No! Really?" I could not figure this out until I realized that their assumption was that women would not paint nasty porno-style penetration. How weird of them?!
More cute slightly drunk people. The rave music was ravin'. "Do you know G.?" was the refrain of most of these people... I began thinking of G. as the keystone in the arch, as he appeared to be everyone's lover, friend, muse, and perhaps dealer. He was charismatic but did this thing that makes me never know what to do; I was invited by him up the stairs to his pad, and then I realized there was no reason for me to be there since I had a pen and paper anyway; he gestured around and told me to feel free to go anywhere I pleased in an oddly significant way. And then some incredibly hot chick with a wild look in her eyes came up and he said he had to go "do something" with her but again there was this overly-significant stare that ... what did it mean? I had no idea! I went back downstairs. All night people (like them there in the photo) were coming up to me and saying, "I saw you go upstairs with G." *weird look meant to communicate something* Since I was up there only a few minutes surely there was no feeling that I had been inducted into the Hall of Fame in his pants? I think it must have meant they were doing some unspeakably pleasureable drug up there, one that I am too dorky to know it exists. It's the green powder snorted by the Yanomamo indians, cut with pure colombian snow. or what? what? what? Was G. luring cute girls upstairs all night to replace their brains with alien parasites, and they were trying to establish communication? Lo, I escaped.
I liked this guy a lot, Sam G., and his folky wooden things painted with housepaint. He was fun to talk with! Who could not like "our lady of Deadwood city" painting above... Sam F. also nice, cute, not snooty, for one so famous.
A peculiarly charming painter, posed in front of his paintings. Only after I'd been talking to him for like half an hour did I realize why. Oh, a physicist. Yes, that explains why I thought he was cute. There was another dude, a kind of buff handsome guy lurking around, who was macking on me in just the sort of suave rico het boy way that Chula would have liked, and I kept dazzling him with my wacky evasions of his questions. I made up all this stuff about how I write poetry about giant sexbots and cities because I'm the sort of sleazy girl who likes to go to dive bars and pick up transexual hookers and convert them to be radical lesbian feminist militant warriors. and then he began telling me how the peninsula lesbian scene is all weirdly and secretly centered around the Staffnord women's basketball team and this one player named Tara. But then he started to get weirded out as I added more details of my life, some real and some fictional. He was nice, but supplied no interesting wackiness of his own so that I felt only like BadgerTV and not like a conversation. I think the people in the room started to get scared by me or thought I was nuts, because once I've made up some weird stuff about orphanages and poetry or whatever, then saying "Oh yeah! and my husband was in 4ntarctica at the Soutth Pole doing a neutr1no experiment while I was pregnant!" just sounds completely made up. Well, I had a point but I completely forgot what it was. Mostly that the geek dude was awfully cute and painted the back door mural in my previous post.
And these lovely people, I think I scared them. The reluctant blogger, who looks to be another computer or science nerd, slightly disdainful of "services" and who assumes anyone who's anyone would install their own Movable Type or whatever on their own server. hahaha. I thought of telling him stories about how I'm a perl hacker and work for McCoot the famous AI guy, but realized he would think I was making it up at that point... rather like when I worked at that stripclub and the DJ would announce all of us with oddball professions, like "Let's all give Ebony a big hand! When she's not dancing, she's an emergency underwater medical technician and nanotechnological ggraphic designer! Her hobby is skydiving naked!" The cute girlie in the photo, whose name I might never have learned, was the one egging me on to ramble about the japanese porn industry for her video camera. I'm pretty sure I began to scare her.
The cozy, domestic, nerdy end of my evening as I kicked ass at Carcassonne. someday Rook and I will have a super cutthroat tournament!!! I suspect it woudl be like our scrabble days where I started out winning a lot more but then he learned how to kick my ass, and only my moments of erratic brilliance saved me from his consistent superior intelligence.
Gee, I wish the openings I go to were as much fun as yours. I look at the paintings, eat a couple of cheese crackers, and I'm out of there in fifteen minutes. Sigh.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | January 30, 2005 at 03:07 PM
Cute physicist geek painter dude here... That's a scary picture of me.
Interesting to hear this perspective on the G. crowd and this event.
I think the toilet next to my mural is a definite plus.
Unfortunately I missed your sexbot poem.
Thanks for the info about the Main Street Cafe in RC. Nice meeting you.
Who's this McCoot guy, anyway?
Posted by: Boaz Nash | January 30, 2005 at 03:35 PM
Reluctant blogger here.. I second the motion from the aforementioned Mr. Nash regarding an identification of the mysterious Mr. McCoot -- inquiring minds want to know. Hmm, but now it occurs to me that by searching this very blog I might well find the answer. But no matter. It has now been written, therefore it shall be posted. Oh, and another minor addendum-- it was my video camera-- not hers... Fooled again!! But those are minor details, details. Yes yes. I very much enjoyed this posting.
Posted by: Tony S-G | January 30, 2005 at 05:26 PM
Gee, I wish the openings I go to were as much fun as yours. I look at the paintings, eat a couple of cheese crackers, and I'm out of there in fifteen minutes. Sigh.
Posted by: bene | May 13, 2005 at 12:53 PM
Now *that's* weird. Who is bene and why is s/he repeating my words four months later? Is this a Typepad glitch?
Bene, glad to meet you, obviously we have a lot in common.
Posted by: Prentiss Riddle | May 13, 2005 at 03:15 PM