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Weekend Wrap-UP
I am trying to capsulize what went on in LA each weekend. Of course it pours rain on the first weekend i try this. Here is the result...

COAGULA WEEKEND BENDER

walls of water
We had to let the dogs into the house... it was raining so much. They were quite obedient and stayed on a specific blanket. Overnight they slept in the garage. Now it has stopped raining but they are acting like it is ordinary to come in the house with us. Having to re-train them all over again.

Come Eat a Whole Fresh Roast Pig on Friday!
Perico's is cooking a whole pig this Friday (December 4) - Pork should be ready for serving at 1:30 PM.

My next door neighbor is a Cuban restaurant. A very good, inexpensive restaurant that delivers big portions of fresh Cuban cooking. This place has been a godsend in my isolated industrial neighborhood which is Jack in the Box and McDonalds and small greasy spoons that close the month after they open.

This one is different - it is a clean restaurant with an outdoor dining patio and a menu that is hard to top for variety. And they are cooking a whole damn pig on Friday.

Perico's is located at 5415 Pacific Blvd in huntington Park (90255). It is a straight shot south of downtown L.A. a block north of 55th Street and is a half mile east of Alameda and 1/4 a mile east of Santa Fe. You will leave full and it won't cost you a ridiculous amount.

Meat is Murder and Delicious.
roast pig

So the Cuban restaurant next door to my house has been a smashing success.

Today they roasted a whole pig.

The place was jammed, I assume they let their friends know.

I was likely the only native English speaker and the rhythm of the cuban accents in conversation was noticeably alive. I am used to being the only gringo in my neighborhood wherever I go but the Mexican busboy looked tentative and nervous at making a wrong move in clearing a table or moving a plate.

With the word out among the Cuban community the whole of the pig save his head and feet were gone in about an hour.

I ordered a plate of Lechon ... that is the roasted pig!

It was astoundingly delicious.

There are just no great restaurants in South Central / Huntington Park and the closest good place is Little Tokyo. This restaurant has had many tenants and they have all been terrible save for one sandwich shop in 1991 - 96 called "Connie's Cafe" ... I ate there many times when I was a drunk as I lived in this neighborhood then. But the new place is nice, good food, good portions, good prices. There is the occasional inconsistency that comes with mom and pop places, especially in their first weeks of business, and they are slow - especially when slammed, but a lot of that is because of using fresh ingredients, but it has been a long time waiting for a good restaurant nearby and to have it next door is a dream come true.

Brit Essay on Art Academia as Upper Class
A great essay from England about how the art academics perpetuate the deepest upper-class prejudices.

Ongoing Interview with Yours Truly
Artist James Westwater interviewed me for his blog - here is PART 2 of his four part (!!!) interview. We reached out to some blogs to talk about the art world and art on the eve of Coagula's 100th Issue.

Everyone on Facebook mentioned that Nancy Spero had died.
Nancy Spero passed way at 83. There always seemed to be a soul-less gap betwen the politics of her art and the extravagant art spaces where ti was exhibited, too. Same goes for her hubby Leon Golub. They were NOT in the trenches, nor telling us anything new, nor creating with urgency. In a way they parasited the political for art world glory.

Greyhound Bus to Vegas Roundtrip
Okay, let's just be bold and try taking the greyhound to vegas. we live on the bus route that goes by the LA Station in skid row so we were there pretty quick - but the lot there says FREE PARKING and the booth is unattended and it IS the shittiest part of L.A. just about...

The station inside is clean as you have to pass heavy security to be anywhere save the ticket counter. sat around, saw the line forming, got some juice for the trip and got on the bus. Not crowded at all, had our pick of seats , all good. The bus was COLD and there was no way to control the fans blowing in. Realized that it was cold because people who take greyhound have B.O. and it is not as noticeable in chilly temperatures. I had a jacket on and a ski cap pulled over my eyes, and I slept most of the way there in a comfortable seat. We stopped in Baker for a break, it was almost a hundred outside. Ate at an Arby's (yuk) and were in Downtown Vegas about an hour later. Bus left at 4 PM, we got there at 11 PM.

We are Vegas veterans so we knew exactly where to go and we only had carry-on luggage so we walked three blocks to our hotel and checked in. It was a breeze - the ride was uneventful and comfortable. I had enough experience with the elements around the Greyhound station that I was not shocked or upset with people whose luggage was a plastic garbage bag or people who talked to themselves.

So then on the way back we walk into the Vegas station for our Noon busride at 11:20 AM and the station is almost empty. A bus driver says to us, "Los Angeles?" and takes our ticket and holds a door open for us. Will we have the bus to ourselves? We walk up and find out, nope, we are in a sardine can. the only available seats together are literally in the back by the bathroom and in that row of three the window seat is taken. My knee blocks the bathroom door so any possible sleep is thwarted by folks needing to get in the bathroom door. We have a forty minute layover in a tourist trap mall with a McDonald's in Barstow and drop off people in Victorville, San Bernadino, Riversode, Claremont, El Monte and then finally make it to Union Station.

I had thought it wise to not drink my morning coffee in order to be able to better sleep on the bus. With that impossible, I instead got a caffeine migraine that was as terrible a headache as I have had in my life. OH and when all those people are crammed onto the buss, you get the cold air blowing in the uncontrollable seat ventilation system, but so many bodies produce offsetting heat, so you are getting an annoying cool breeze aimed at some part of your cranium while the rest of you is baking and any part of your arms or legs that are touching any other part of you are forming a pool of sweat immediately on contact.

Suffice to say, it was fucking brutal coming home. If we do it again it will definitely be researched to plan for optimum low-passenger numbers and for express service. Still, it was $58 apiece round trip, hard to beat...

Top 5 Living Artists

So I was about to go to bed and there was an email there from a friend:

Dear (everyone)
I'm teaching at the painting department of (blank) college of Art and I would like to give my students a reference list of great contemporary national/international painters. I realized they know modern and older historic painters but have no clue about what's going on today.
Please send me your top 5 list and a very short/brief explanation why. I will not give out your names, this is merely (blah blah blah opportunity blah blah blah broaden perspective blah blah blah)

So after a full day and without thinking I whipped this out, if I did it at another time tomorrow it would be a different list, etc

DUDE:
you can give out my name, i am not a pussy about how i feel.

TOP PAINTERS ALIVE TODAY:

KIM DINGLE
Her American feminist painting thickly renders girls as aggressors and heroes.

ROBERT WILLIAMS
The founder of Juxtapoze magazine singlehandedly elevated comics to high art.

GRONK
His Chicano romantic expressionism in the 80s has evolved into a post-graffiti abstraction.

LLYN FOULKES
At 74 his painting is still critiquing the unfairness of life with an inventive genius.

CECILLY BROWN
She is the only real painter of importance that Gagosian represents.

And if you are reading this, of course you are #6

Politics
I avoid discussing politics in general. I don't have a core belief. I am a registered Democrat but that is really a reaction against the extremes of the other side, I could care less most days. I was inspired by Obama and still hold out hope, but i have a libertarian impulse that gets a little ill thinking that my whole life is going to spent at the fucking DMV version of health or registering to walk down the street or of this or of that or whatever.

But I said something nasty about Ted Kennedy on my FaceBook page and ten people dumped me as a friend. I have over 1000 friends - most of whom, yeah, I have never met, they are not REALLY my friends but I promote my writing and publishing and curating on FaceBook pretty successfully. I kinda don't care, but it made me realize that people take politics seriously ... it supplants the religious urge in people. People treat politics like sports. Democrats are your team and you root for them regardless of whether they are correct becasue, hey, go team.

Well, I am spiritually satisfied and I have a blind passion for one sports team, so politics lately has sickened me, really, as there is NO discourse , just shouting and tarring and feathering and genuflecting for your team and howling in rage against their team.

Ted Kennedy was not a nice man except when satisfied by his hold on power. Ick.

Dean Valentin Slams MOCA - w/ Update
UPDATE:
In case former MOCA-trustee and L.A. contemporary art uber-collector Dean Valentine is not your FaceBook friend, check out what he just posted on FB:

"Dean Valentine believes MOCA should have more respect for the truth. Phony PR and fake fund-raising numbers are not the way to a healthy museum."

When asked by his FaceBook friends for more details, Mr. Valentine responded:
"Because when you scrape away all the PR bull, the operating budget--which is the only one that counts--still has an $8 to $10m hole that has to be refilled yearly."

New Coagula Issue featuring FINISHING SCHOOL Free!

Finishing School on the cover of Coagula Issue #98

The New Issue of Coagula Art Journal is available right now at COAGULA.NET as a Free Downloadable PDF and is also for sale as a color glossy book from a PRINT ON DEMAND site.

Issue #98 features a cover story interview with FINISHING SCHOOL, and artist's collective that takes activism and aesthetics to new territory... this time it is the food you eat that is being scrutinized and deconstructed. ALSO... commentary by publisher MAT GLEASON, Art Carer Advice by ALAN BAMBERGER, Prose by columnist GORDY GRUNDY, Poetry by GERALD LOCKLIN and cartoons by JIM CARON... PLUS a report card for recent Bergamot Station Art Exhibits.